Survival is an interesting word to associate with turning 40.  Some of us arrive at this season of life having suffered, endured, overcome, recovered, fallen, struggled, and battled to make it.

Others of us have built, earned, discovered, acquired, protected, and preserved the pieces of lives that we are proud of, and pleased with.

Inspired by a good book I remember reading when I turned 30, and a frustratingly unpleasant recent battle addressing a pest issue in my home, I've been thinking a lot lately about survival.

What has enabled you to survive to 40?  

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Recently, I've been thinking about the saying "we'll cross that bridge when we get to it". And if turning 40 is about anything, it is about getting to a lot of life's bridges.

• family bridges
• health bridges
• relationship bridges
• career bridges

Are you arriving at 40 feeling hopeful and more free to build bridges, as many of the gates and gatekeepers that controlled access to bridges of opportunity are losing power and control?

Do you arrive at this stage of your life with a deep sense of betrayal and abandonment, after making life choices based on the advice of elders who promised that bridges of safety and security would be guaranteed if you followed a certain life path, only to find that those bridges are nowhere to be found anymore?

How are the bridges in your life? Do you have what you need to cross them?

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By 40, for every feel-good story of the sacrificially kind, altruistic, good samaritan, whose generosity helped someone else get back on their feet and rebuild their lives; we've heard a cautionary tale of a person who also tried to be kind, and tried to help someone in need. Often a friend, a family member, a neighbor, a romantic partner, or a co-worker. Only to have their entire life turned upside down - or worse - by the very person who desperately needed and accepted their assistance.

This stage of life is a good time to ask some questions about how we've come to think about helping others.

Who do you help?
When do you help?

What prompts you to help?
How do you help?

In what ways will you not help?
Has the range of moments - and/or people - you're open to help changed over the years?
What crosses the line from help to enabling/weakening?

When do you ask for help?
How often do you allow yourself to receive help?


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Is anyone's face good enough?

We have arrived at a moment in society where the range of people who feel compelled to undergo signficant shape-shifting procedures to alter their appearance has expanded well beyond those in entertainment, and now includes people from all walks of life.

In some ways, the plastic surgery spectacle of many in ithe public eye is a funhouse mirror of the rest of us. Their dramatic facial and body transformations represent an exaggerated expression of the ways that our desires and fears lead us to shape shift in our private lives.

A lot of us have altered ourselves. What kinds of alterations have you made? 
What motivated/forced you to do it?

As you enter your 40s, how are you feeling about the changes you've made to your identity, tastes, and/or appearance? 


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How did the latchkey kid generations grow up to become helicopter parents?

On a recent drive home on a busy four-lane road during Friday evening rush hour, in a momentary break in the traffic, I saw a group of middle-school aged kids crossing the road on their bikes and it got me to thinking about the last time I had seen something that was such a routine part of our childhoods.

The societal shift in how and where kids gather and play, especially in many areas across the U.S., has happened in just half a generation...and it's our generation of 40-year olds whose collective decisions have disappeared some of the most formative aspects of our childhoods from the childhoods of our children. 

So how did we become these kinds of parents? And whether you have children or not, in what ways are our generation's ideas of protection and safety having side effects on the experiences of our youth?

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At this stage in my life, I find it difficult to connect with anyone who hasn't dealt with deep disappointment, sobering setbacks, or recurring regrets, in some area of life.

In many ways, this podcast - and the upcoming book that accompanies it - is designed for people who are arriving at 40 with a life that has some scrapes, stains, and smudges...which is most of us.

Many of us have at least one aspect of our life where we are low on hope. Whether it's an intractable issue in our bodies, an ongoing saga with our loved ones, or a recurring drama with someone, or something, in our lives; we can find ourselves in a place where we've run out of the mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual fuel to manufacture hope for certain areas of life.

And once hope runs out, so does everything else that good and life-affirming. Including the will, ability, and strength to try. So this is a moment to check on your hope tank, and identify what's filling or draining it.

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After a lifetime of positive experiences at the dentist, a throwaway comment about the structure of my teeth during a recent visit for a routine cleaning threatened to end my four-decade long run of good dentist visit vibes.

Which led me to think about the structure of our lives, the roots we have, the roots we are missing, and the roots we needed to be stable, secure, safe, and successful in this chapter of life.

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One of the things that prompted me to create this podcast was the sense that there are going to be a lot of people in our generation who are not going to feel ready, even at 40.

A recent TikTok poking fun at people who are hitting their late 30s and still aren't sure what they want in the romantic lives got me to thinking about all the other areas of life where we get asked questions like "You're not ready, yet?!" and "What are you waiting for?!"

At this point in your life, what do you consider cornerstones, things that must be in place for a quality life to be built?

And what are capstones, things that are nice to have, life goals, but come after you've got the cornerstone parts of your life in place?

My heart for this episode is really for everyone arriving at 40 with nothing solid enough to call a cornerstone, and too many immediate concerns to have much time for dreaming and planning for achieving capstones. This one is for anyone who looks around at your life and sees mostly rolling stones.


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To the icebreaker question "If you could have any superpower, which would it be?" my superpower of choice would be the ability to speak any language, dialect, or tongue.

The ability to understand, and to be understood, in all contexts & in all places is - for someone like me - the same as the ability to fly or walk through walls. Curiosity about myself & others is one of the reasons this podcast exists.

At this stage of your life, do you see yourself as someone who is curious, indifferent, or hostile to the languages and lives of other people? At 40, do you live in an environment where curiousity about others is valued?

Did you grow in a context where curiosity was not an option? Where you had to be aware of the ways of being and speaking of those around you, for your well-being, advancement, or survival?

Or did you enter adulthood in an environment where curiousity was an option?  Where you were part of the default setting, and most of the people you encountered spoke, thought, dressed, and acted in similar ways to you?


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Twice this week, I had a movie studio quality, REM sleep dream sequence abruptly cut short by my phone alarm. An alarm that I set thinking that I had given myself enough time to rest and to dream. The reality of the alarm was that my time for those dream sessions was over sooner than I expected.

For some of us, turning 40 feels like an alarm that has interrupted the dream of young adulthood. For others, approaching 40 is more like a notification bell that is reminding you that it is time to get back to your dreams.

What is the state of your dreams at this stage of your life? Do you still dream? How have your dreams changed? Do your thoughts and past experiences amplify your dreams, or weigh you down so much you don't have any energy left for dreaming?

What are the alarms in your life that are interrupting your dreams?


Follow us on social media: @40iscoming_ on IG and @40iscoming everywhere else.

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