EPISODE LINK: MARGIE LACHMAN
BOOK: LINK
TRANSCRIPT:
Colleen: Welcome back, everyone. Today we are talking Midlife Primetime with Margie Lachman.
Welcome to the show.
Margie Lachman: Thank you so much. I’m happy to be here.
Colleen: Well,
we’re excited you’re here as well. And I really enjoyed your book, Primetime, A New Vision for
Midlife, because I felt like all the things that Bridgett and I talk about as far as midlife being
the best kept secret, you kind of had the evidence to back it up. in this, which was great because
we can say it, but unless there’s research to really showcase it, not everyone understands or
believes it. So your book is all about just creating a new vision for midlife,
which is wonderful. And I didn’t even know that there is a research network on successful midlife
development. Can we talk about MIDMAC and the MIDAS study?
Margie Lachman: Yes, certainly.
So the MacArthur Foundation initially funded a study on midlife.
At that time, we knew a lot about early adulthood and old age,
but we really knew very little about midlife. So they were interested to support research to try to
find out what midlife is all about. Since that time, the study has continued,
but our funding source has switched to the National Institute on Aging. So the network started the
study almost 30 years ago, and we’ve continued the study. So we’ve been following people for 30
years, and we’ve added new people to the study as well.
Colleen: I don’t understand why we have not heard of
this before. 30 years in the making, and midlife has been having this kind of conversational moment
for the last six, seven years. We have been talking to so many people, yet this has not been
brought up before. I’m really surprised because you have done some incredible work.
Margie Lachman: Yeah, that’s really interesting because I think a lot of times the research is kept separate in the
ivory tower from what people read about in every day, newspapers and magazines and podcasts and so
- And so that was one of the reasons that I wanted to write this book, because I’ve spent so many
years publishing journal articles for academics, but very few people have really read what we have
found. And so I think that is actually a really important point is that the time is right to get
this information out.
Colleen: Definitely. And, you know, we are a… Our population is getting older.
And we just interviewed June Squibb, who’s 96, an actress.
And she just was on Broadway. And she was saying how, you know, people are wanting to see actors in
their 80s and 90s because we are becoming an aging population. I wanted to ask you,
because this is something that people wonder about. What is considered midlife? Like you talk about
the 40 to 60 age range, but really what is considered the middle?
Margie Lachman: So I think the definition of
midlife is really very fluid. People who are younger think it starts later and older people think
it starts later. So it’s kind of a moving target, if you will. But I really think of midlife,
the heart of it, as the 40s and 50s.
You know, again, chronological age or the number of candles on your birthday cake are not
necessarily the best way to categorize midlife. I also like to think of it in terms of your role
and that role being in the middle generation. So in the middle generation where you are caring for,
concerned about younger people and older people, that’s really midlife because that’s.
what captures the essence of midlife. Most people, whether it’s in the family or in the workplace,
people in midlife are those that other people are counting on, those people who are younger and
older counting on us. So I like to think of the roles that people play in the middle as also a
definition for midlife.
Colleen: That’s so important to think about because it is relatable. Most of us in
the gen, I mean, I’m a Gen Xer. I’m on the older end of Gen Xer. But everyone that I know,
is either taking care of an aging parent have adult children that still need help and we are kind
of that generation the sandwich generation we’re working from both ends another thing that was
interesting in your book is you talk about the history of the midlife crisis which I thought was
actually older than what you say in the book can you talk because I found that very interesting
Margie Lachman: Yeah. So the origins that we’re aware of are from 1965, Elliot Jake’s psychoanalyst who coined the
term. And it was based on his clients who basically thought that when they reached age 40 or 50,
their life was… you know, pretty much all downhill from there, that life was half over and that’s
all there was. And they had a fear. He thought it really was related to a fear of dying.
And so that’s really where the term first became known. It wasn’t really popularized until the 70s
when Gail Sheehy wrote her book Passages. And when she wrote her book, she talked about the age 30
transition and age 40 transition. And that’s when people really started to latch onto this notion
of a midlife crisis that everyone goes through. Predictable passages,
she called them. So it really turned into something that people thought was a normative event,
similar to adolescence, puberty, or menopause, that everyone would go through this.
And that’s just not the case.
Colleen: And it is interesting that you talk about the fact that it’s kind of
on a continuum. That we slide older, we slide younger. And for Bridgett and I,
we kind of feel like we’re the freshman class of the older generation and the oldest class of the
middle generation because we’re both 58. So we’re kind of looking forward to that 60 because it
seems to be a time where for women especially, they really understand and have the wisdom and the
knowledge. Also in the book, you talk about perspective and the importance of your own kind of
self-concept. Can you explore that a little bit?
Margie Lachman: Yes. So I think many people,
when they get to midlife, kind of have a sense of is this who I want to be?
Is this who I am? And many people think that they’re kind of stuck with who they are and that you
can’t really do anything to change if there are things you’re unhappy with. And that’s certainly
not the case. One can make changes in terms of the things that you’re doing. You can change,
even change your personality. I talk about that in the book by doing different behaviors and so on.
So I think that’s the main thing I wanted to get across in the book is that it’s not all over.
By the time you reach 40 or 50, we can continue to grow and change throughout life.
Colleen: Why do you think
it is that people feel like they’re stuck at such what I consider young age, 40 or 50, that they
can’t make changes? Why do you think they feel that it’s too late?
Margie Lachman: Yeah, I think a lot of people
have a negative view of aging. I mean, it’s a very common, I mean, ageism is rampant in a way. And
so it starts early. I mean, as people start to turn 40 and 50, they think of themselves as getting
older. And I think a lot of the negative stereotypes we have about aging map onto what we think
about midlife. And so I think people have the sense that, you know, I’m too old to change. You
know, it’s all downhill from here.
basic negative stereotype that people have about aging but you know I like to say that you have
half your life left. It’s not half over. You have half your life left. There’s a lot of time to
change, a lot of things to do new things. And you don’t have to do it all at once.
Colleen: And you talk a
little bit in that section about the myth of stability, the volitional personality. Can you talk
about what that is?
Margie Lachman: Yeah. So for many, many years, personality psychologists thought that your
personality was fixed in pretty much early in life and that there wasn’t much room for change,
that you were basically you are who you are and you can’t change in adulthood. That’s changed.
We’ve done a number of longitudinal studies that show personality does change many times for the
better. And then also we can show that you can change personality,
for example, with counseling or interventions. But now there’s this new realization that you can
actually change personality yourself if you want to. Because what is personality? It’s really just
your behaviors and thoughts and feelings. And so if you’re somebody who wants to become more
conscientious, for example, you can figure out what behaviors would make you more conscientious.
You make sure you are able to do well on the kinds of things that you want to succeed at.
You might have to study harder or spend more time preparing. So all of the aspects of personality
that are really how you think, feel, and behave, those things can be changed.
Colleen: Do you think it’s easier to change them in midlife or do you think it’s harder to change them?
Margie Lachman: That’s a good question. I’m not sure if there’s any evidence one way or the other that it’s easier
or harder. But what I would say is that I think midlife is a time when most people would be more
likely to want to make a change because there’s something about getting to the middle, getting to
the midpoint, whether it’s your life course or whether it’s the middle. I think of it in terms of
the middle of the semester. I’m a professor. And so the middle of the semester, we look back, how are
things going? What can we do to improve? What can we do to change? And so I think that maps on to
life as well. You get to the midpoint at maybe 40 or 50, depending on, and I think it’s probably
both. When you get to these decades, 40s and 50s, people tend to reflect.
And then they look forward. And so I think in midlife, that’s more likely to happen,
that people might say, you know what? I’d like to do something different. I’m not completely happy
with how things are. Or I want to improve and do different things.
Colleen: Do you find,
because we are talking a lot about 40s and 50s, do you find that the 60s are a time where people
maybe are a little kinder to themselves, a little more accepting of life?
Margie Lachman: Yeah, I think 60s, I think the good news is that things continue to improve in terms of
psychological well-being into the 60s. And so midlife is a challenging period because of all the
demands and stresses and so on. And when you get to 60s at that point, many times people now have
an empty nest, for example, or they are thinking about retirement.
And so the 60s can actually be a really very positive period where some of the demands are no
longer there, but you still have a lot of energy and a lot of goals and things that you can
continue to do. And some of the work does show that happiness, life satisfaction and
well-being do increase into the 60s.
Colleen: I believe it. Most of the people that we’ve spoken to that
are in their 60s were like, this was great. When I hit 60, and I know some research shows that’s a
big time change for your body, 40 and 60, it’s almost like we look forward to it because it just
seems like you don’t really worry about external factors as much as you use it.
I mean, your health, obviously, but that’s an internal thing. Right. Are you finding that also that
people are kind of letting go of preconceived notions and what other people think of them and
things like that?
Margie Lachman: Oh, absolutely. Self-confidence really does increase in midlife into 60s and
even beyond. People feel more comfortable in their own skin, if you will. They kind of have the
wisdom and the knowledge and feel that they are doing well, and therefore they don’t have to worry
as much about what other people think. It’s not that they don’t care about what other people think,
but they do have a sense of, I know who I am and I’ve been successful in these areas and I can
continue to do that. And I have a lot to offer. Generativity becomes really…
peaks in midlife, but it continues well into the 60s and even beyond where people feel they have
knowledge and experience to give to younger generation and to guide them and to help them.
Mentoring is another example of that. So being able to mentor younger people. And that comes from
the self-confidence, knowing that you’ve been through it and you have been able to have
challenges, but come through the challenges and succeed.
Colleen: You talked about generativity,
which was really interesting in the book as well. Do you have an opinion as to why maybe the wisdom
that we gain is shared more easily in other countries than it is in the United States?
Because it seems like wisdom and age is respected more in other countries,
but not so much in the States. Do you have an opinion as to why that is?
Margie Lachman: Yeah, I think there’s
really good evidence that. Older adults are held in higher esteem in many other cultures.
I think part of it has to do with, in the U.S., we focus a lot on physical appearance and looking
younger. And I think maybe other cultures don’t have as much emphasis on that, although that may be
changing as we have more global distribution of our values. But I would say that if you’re focused
mainly on how you look and your appearance, people,
as they get older, may feel like they are less valued and not appreciated as much because they
don’t look young anymore. So I think that would be my hypothesis about why that might be.
Colleen: Okay. Well, it makes sense because we are such a country that is social media based.
What do you look? What do you say? As opposed to really, I speak to so many women who feel like
there’s this wisdom and knowledge that so much of it is gained and they expect you to sit on a
couch. They don’t expect you to share it, but yet when you do share that wisdom,
mentors can be older and younger. I think for some reason we have that idea that mentors must be
older. You can have mentors. My children, I have adult daughters. They’re my mentors in some
things.
Margie Lachman: When I speak about wisdom and the research on wisdom shows that it’s not necessarily the
case that you get older. There are a lot of older people who are not wise, unfortunately,
but also there’s a lot of younger people who are wise, as you suggested. So it tends to be
something that’s more of a personality or a personality characteristic and maybe even tied to
cognition and intelligence and wisdom. And so what I always tell my students when we cover wisdom
in my class, I tell them, you know, you know who the wise people are. Who’s the one that everyone
in the dorm comes to to get advice? Who’s the one who is always called when someone in the family
wants advice or wants to run something by? So there are people who are wise at younger ages,
absolutely. And the good news is, they will keep those qualities as they get older.
Colleen: Well, that’s good to know. And I think, you know, another topic that you have in the book, which is
something that we all worry about is cognitive memory in decline. And we recently talked to Dr.
Majid Fatui, who wrote The Invincible Brain and talked about brain training, which is great because
I’m someone who will forget someone’s name instantly. Why did I come to the show? It’s very typical
stuff, menopause, brain fog. But in your book, you talk about the tale of two intelligence,
which is fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. Can you speak to what each is and why
it’s important to know about them?
Margie Lachman: Yeah. This is really getting to the point that I want to make,
which is that in many ways, the cognition in midlife is the best of both worlds. On the one hand,
there are some aspects of cognitive functioning or intelligence that are on the downswing. They’re
on the way down. Things like your memory, your speed of processing, reaction time.
those things are going down. They start to decline pretty early.
But the good news is that you’re not going to necessarily experience it in everyday life.
And part of the reason is because other aspects of your… cognition, intelligence are increasing.
They’re on the way up. They haven’t even reached their high point yet. These are things like
experience and knowledge and wisdom and emotion regulation and self-confidence and self-esteem.
So when you have both of these things together, they really intersect at midlife.
And so that’s why I think of midlife as the best of both worlds, because you haven’t lost. all
these things yet they’re on their way down but they’re still in pretty good shape and things are
moving up and so there’s a balance there where you can compensate for if you’re not quite as fast
as you used to be or you don’t remember someone’s name you know there are ways you can compensate
for that and it’s you can get around it with the experiences that you have and the wisdom that you
have. So that’s what I mean by these two types of intelligences. We have different trajectories,
but they really intersect in midlife.
Colleen: And I appreciated that so much because as someone who does
think, oh gosh, my memory is really declining. I mean, not horribly, but enough to wonder.
The fact that no one really talks about what you do gain, the intelligence that builds because you
always think about it as being on the decline, but you don’t think about it as, but I’m building
this creativity. I’m building this big area of wisdom that I didn’t have before.
And why do you think nobody talks about that?
Margie Lachman: Well, I think people tend to focus on declines and
losses, those are very salient for people. Like they feel if they forget something that,
oh my goodness, am I getting dementia, which is very unlikely in midlife.
But I think people do tend to focus on the negative rather than the positive in all kinds of
things. And so I think one of the reasons that I wanted to write the book again is to highlight all
the positive aspects of midlife that can balance out some of the things that we are losing.
So there’s the gains and the losses. And the goal is to really try to tip the balance in favor of
the gains. And so we, by definition, have accumulated so much knowledge and experience in so many
different domains by the time we reach midlife. We can draw on those experiences. And it helps us
to really function very well in everyday life. And you can use memory aids.
You don’t have to do everything high speed, even if you’re losing some of your speed, which we show
in our tests in the lab. But just because we showed in the tests in the lab doesn’t mean it’s going
to translate into everyday life because you have it’s the experience that you have and the
knowledge that you can draw on when you’re dealing with these kinds of tasks that demand cognitive
skills.
Colleen: You do talk in the book a lot about gains and losses. Can we talk about some of the other
gains that we might get in midlife? What are some of the other things that we can consider on the
pro list?
Margie Lachman: Certainly. Well, things like self-confidence. We talked a little bit about that and self
-esteem and also emotion regulation. People are better at regulating their emotions,
handling difficult situations. Stress actually starts to go down towards the end of midlife.
And we talked about the 60s. Midlife can be a very stressful period, but people are better at
handling it in midlife than they are at earlier ages because they have had more experience dealing
with stress. And so as you do have stress in your life and find ways to successfully navigate those
stressful periods, you develop more skills and confidence. So being able to handle stressful
situations does increase with age and really starts to surface even into the 60s,
where stress may actually be lower than it is in midlife.
Colleen: you also talk about in the section on writing the gains
and losses, you talk about the hallmarks of aging, things like menopause, things about like
inflammation and our perception of time. So can we talk a little bit about
both?
Margie Lachman: Sure. So inflammation is something that is
typically, we think of it in terms of acute inflammation, if you have an injury.
Inflammation is something that is adaptive. It helps you to heal. However,
there’s something called chronic inflammation, which is kind of like a low grade fire burning
inside of your system where it’s really causing damage.
And so inflammation can be caused by a number of things. This chronic inflammation can be caused by
stress. is probably one of the number one psychosocial causes of inflammation.
But also eating ultra-processed foods, we hear a lot about that, that can cause inflammation.
So we all know that eating healthy foods like things with omega-3 fatty acids or blueberries,
those things can be anti-inflammatory. They can help protect against this.
chronic inflammation. And there’s something called inflamaging, which is a great term because it
basically characterizes two things, inflammation and aging together. And so this chronic
inflammation is responsible for many of the aging related diseases,
including arthritis and cancer and heart disease. And so inflammation, that’s chronic is very bad.
And so we want to try to avoid it. And there are things you can do. Physical activity is something
that reduces inflammation. So eating properly, reducing stress.
And we even found some attitudes and beliefs, what we call the psychosocial anti-inflammatories.
Yeah, you can take an Advil and that’s an anti-inflammatory. But we think, and we’ve shown some
evidence that having the right mindset can also reduce inflammation in part because it may reduce
stress and stress is a real pro-inflammatory.
Colleen: And in the psychosocial inflammatories,
you talk about a sense of control. You talk about positive beliefs. And I think for some people,
that are aging, that maybe the kids are no longer there. So they’re empty nesting. They might be a
widow. They might’ve gone through divorce. It’s hard to feel that sense of control. Do you have any
suggestions in on ways to, even if it’s a small piece, to have a sense of control?
Margie Lachman: Yeah.
So the way we look at sense of control is there’s really two parts to it. One is what are your
abilities to carry out the things you want to carry out? So we call it mastery. So do you have the
capabilities and the skills and to what extent you believe that you can reach your goals and
accomplish what it is you want to or need to accomplish? So that’s one end of it. On the other end
of it is what we call constraints. So everyone has obstacles and constraints in their lives,
and they may even increase in midlife. And so what’s important is that you have to recognize the
constraints. You realize that not everything is under your control. There are things that happen
that are just not something you can do anything about, and you may have to accept that.
But to the extent that you can… that despite the constraints,
there may be ways for you to work around it and to do things. And so I think that’s really the
challenge here is to find how can you do what you want to do? Sometimes you have to change what
your goal is or change what you want to do, modify it in a way that it is something you can
accomplish. Sometimes goals are unrealistic and you can’t do it, but it doesn’t mean you have to
scrap it completely. You may be able to modify it or delay it or find other ways to reach your goal
after you’ve realized you can’t do it exactly the way you had hoped to. So capabilities and
taking a sense of control really may involve just a can-do attitude where I’m just going to find a
way to do it. Or it could also say, well, this is unrealistic. I can’t do it this way,
but I’m going to find an alternative. I’m going to find a substitute, a different way to be able to
take control. So kind of a not yet and just how
you can certainly delay. I talk a little bit about that in the book, sort of shelving the shelving
it time of things. So you could put it off to later, but it could also just be seeing it in a
different way or changing how you’re going to go about it can also be a way to take control.
But a lot of control really is how you construe the situation. And so there are some situations
you can’t control, but you can change how you see it and so rather than see it as a failure you
see it as a way for you to regroup and do things in a different way.
Colleen: Another thing that I found interesting in the book, and I’ve seen it in life for many people,
is that when you get into midlife and something may happen to you, it brings up what you call ACEs,
which are Adverse Childhood Experiences. Why are they suddenly starting to come up now in midlife
and beyond?
Margie Lachman: Right. So ACEs, Adverse Childhood Experiences, maybe things like…
having an illness when you were a child or maybe one of your parents died, something like that.
Something that is not typical in childhood, but it’s a very stressful experience. And the hope is
that while you’re in childhood, you get the support that you need to help cope and deal with these
situations. And that’s not always the case. So it may be something that you take into midlife.
But even if you do deal with it in childhood, there may be something in midlife that triggers these
memories or something bad that happened in your childhood. And partly, I think it’s because in
midlife, you really have a lot of stresses and have things that may remind you of some of the
experiences that you had as a child.
What we see is there can be what I call a Biological Residue. So it may be something physical,
like maybe it is inflammation or some other kind of illness that surfaces in midlife.
When your immune system is really starting to decline, it certainly has a long way to go,
but immune system does start to decline. And so you may not be as resilient as you have been in the
past. So I think that’s one reason. And then the psychological residue may just be certain things
may remind you and open up old wounds. And so it’s a really important time to sort of deal with it
in midlife so that you don’t carry it on for the rest of your life.
Colleen: And you were talking about
resilience. Is there a way to build resilience? Is it through therapy or things we can do internal,
our own internal work to build resilience?
Margie Lachman: Yes, definitely. So certainly one of the most notable
ways for resilience is social support, social relationships, and having people who you can confide
in, who can support you, who can be there for you. That goes a really long way for resilience.
Other things that are important for resilience are certainly therapy and any kind of counseling.
Some people have different ways for resilience, which basically means being able to bounce back
from adverse experiences or even avoid risks that you might be vulnerable to.
And so depending on what the risk is or the vulnerability is, even things like physical activity,
physical exercise, taking care of your health, all of those things can help with resilience in the
sense that you are avoiding a risk factor that makes you vulnerable,
but yet you’re able to bounce back or even avoid the situation.
Colleen: And as you were saying, I think also resilience is built with time. And every time you go through
an experience and you realize you can survive it, you know, when you’re 20, I’ll never survive
this. And you found out you did that perhaps it puts it in perspective. And that resilience is just
naturally grows through experience. I do think that that’s also a factor.
Margie Lachman: Certainly as you
combat stresses and difficulties, you really do learn from those experiences.
And it may be really difficult to get through a situation, but eventually you will. And it may be
by getting help from other people, or it may just be you figuring something out. But once you do,
then you kind of chalk that up to a success, right? I’ve been successful in the past.
It builds confidence and self-esteem and really does live with you so that as you get to midlife,
that’s when I why I think confidence is really very high, because you have had to go through so
many different experiences. And if you’ve gone through life without any challenges,
you may be less equipped in midlife to handle things that come up. So I tell my students about
that. So they’re all stressed right now because there are a lot of them are seniors and they’re
graduating. They don’t know what they’re going to do. And so I think they’re learning. what to do
and how to get wisdom that they can carry with them throughout the rest of their lives.
Colleen: That’s such a good point. Wow. That’s true. And they’re entering a stage where AI and there are so
many other stressors that luckily we did not have to deal with. One of the things that stood out in
your book, and I had not thought about this before, was the fact that we make 30,000 to 35,000
decisions a day. I was like, I thought that’s impossible. But then I’m like,
do you go right or left? Do you grab that? But I mean, you really are making that many decisions.
What kind of toll does that take on us mentally?
Margie Lachman: Right. Well, most of them are automatic and
spontaneous, and a lot of them are decisions that we’ve made before. So you don’t really have to
use any brainpower to do them, a lot of them. But that actually can be the danger that I talk
about, is that we’re on automatic pilot. And we just do the same things over and over again. So on
the one hand, people in midlife are actually cognitively very well equipped to make decisions. I
give an example in the book of the financial decisions that peaked in midlife, being able to make
decisions about which loan to take or which credit card to take. You’ve got the cognitive facility
to be able to do that very well in midlife. But to the extent that we really just rely on old
patterns and automatic pilot, then we’re kind of missing things.
Colleen: It’s really important to be kind
of step back and make decisions thoughtfully. Because you do say in the book that midlife is the
rush hour of life, which if you sit back and think about it, it’s true because it’s coming from all
sides. And if you have trouble prioritizing what to do first,
it can be overwhelming and you can get what you call complexity paralysis. What is that?
Margie Lachman: Yeah. So because there are so many things that people are juggling in midlife, it’s not only your
own life, your work and family. And if you have kids or even if you don’t have kids,
there’s other things that you’re doing besides your own life. Right. So other people are depending
on you. It might be your older parents. It might be younger kids or people in the office, in your
workplace. And so any decision you make when you’re in your 20s. even maybe early 30s,
you can make a decision without worrying about anybody else, right? No one else is going to be
affected. But when you’re in midlife, your decisions affect other people quite a bit. And so the
paralysis really is almost as if because there are so many different threads that if you pull one
thread, you’re worried everything else will unravel. And so that can help. That can make people
really feel paralyzed, like, oh, my God, I can’t do anything because I don’t know.
what the implications and ramifications are of making this one change.
Colleen: Do you find in your research
that a lot of people struggle with complexity paralysis?
Margie Lachman: I don’t actually have data to tell me how
many people would have that. It’s just a phenomenon that I’ve observed. I don’t think I have any data to tell me how many people experience that,
unfortunately. But my observations are that people in midlife do actually fret a lot about
decisions and they kind of get stalled and don’t decide.
They’re worried about what the implications are. And so I think it’s important that you do consider
what the ramifications are and implications are of what you do. But I do think that it’s something
that people resonate with when I talk to them about it. How many actually have it? It’s a good
question. I’ll have to do that in my next study. I have to ask.
Colleen: Please come back and let us know if
you find out. Have you experienced it or do you know anyone?
Margie Lachman: Yeah, I think so.
Colleen: You know, I’m known for my legal pads and I will put pros and cons.
But like you said, in midlife, you’re not just making decisions for yourself. You have older
generation to think about, younger generation to think about. And just when you’re starting to
think, wait a second, I thought this time was about me. You’re like, yeah, but everything I do
affects others and I’m making decisions.
Margie Lachman: It’s not just the pros and cons.
Like people can make a list like you’re making pros and cons. But sometimes the decision is more
about how you feel and your emotions and what you’re going to be happiest with. And that is even
harder to judge because you’re also not thinking about your own. happiness, but also the happiness
of other people. Like, are we going to move or stay here? Am I going to change
jobs? And if I change jobs, are we going to have to move to a different school district or a
different state? So all of these things, the job might be really great. And on the balance sheet,
it looks like this is the best thing to do. But on the other hand, what are the implications for
everyone else in the family, for example?
Colleen: True. And that weighs heavy on a lot of midlife people.
You know, towards the end of the book, you talk about beyond midlife. And I really appreciated the
staircase, the visual from Jane Fonda. Can you talk a little bit about the staircase?
Margie Lachman: Yes. So, yeah, Jane Fonda came up with this image in one of her talks that I loved because most of
the images I used to collect. I still have the collection of images of the life course and all of
them are inverted U. Basically, everything peaks and then it’s all downhill after age 50.
That’s usually what it looks like. And so I was so happy to see this other vision, this other image.
I don’t think she actually drew it, but she described it, that this is a staircase where you
continue to ascend into well-being throughout life. And I really do think there’s evidence for
that. So I was very interested in that. And then the image in the book came out of a discussion we
had in my lab. We were actually trying to develop a T-shirt.
We wanted to design a T-shirt. for our holiday gift. And we had a contest who could draw the best
image. And so one of my students, Luna Lee, drew this staircase. And not only was it a beautiful
staircase, but she put in there this tree that was growing.
It was the branches. were in the shape of a brain and everything was developing.
And as you got higher and higher in the staircase, you could see more foliage, more leaves,
more flowers, and eventually fruit. So I thought I would love to put this in my book because I
think it’s just a great way to have people think beyond midlife. Even though midlife is,
I’m calling it prime time, that doesn’t mean things go downhill after that. You can continue to
make it. And midlife is really the period to set the stage for that. What we invest in in midlife
can really have long term benefits.
Colleen: And I would say the investment pays off well into later life.
I think that’s the real takeaway from your book is that midlife is a prime time to start really
setting your foundation, it is not complete yet. You still have time for that foundation. And like you
said, your last sentence in the book is, “should you be so lucky to ascend the stairs into midlife?
I hope you marvel at the blooms and relish the fruit.” So Prime Time: A New Vision for Midlife.
Congratulations on the launch of your book, Margie. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate
- And we’ll make sure to have the link to the book in our show notes. But thank you for talking
with us.
Margie Lachman: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. I loved your questions. They were really
stimulating. And I was happy I was able to actually provide answers.