40 Is Coming

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.


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

Intro Theme Music: Stressed by artbybigvee
Beats Provided By https://freebeats.io, Produced By White Hot
Beats Provided By Pond5, Produced by MarcBeasley

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?


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

Intro Theme Music: Stressed by artbybigvee
Beats Provided By https://freebeats.io, Produced By White Hot
Beats Provided By Pond5, Produced by MarcBeasley

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.

Intro Theme Music: Stressed by artbybigvee
Beats Provided By https://freebeats.io, Produced By White Hot
Beats Provided By Pond5, Produced by MarcBeasley

We live in a world that rewards the bold individual, the spicy hot take, most strongest worded opinions, and a never-back-down approach to advocating and arguing for what we believe in.

In most areas of our lives, especially online, our society does not have much patience for taking time to reflect on what has been done, to examine what has been said, to be self-aware about the stories we tell about who we like to think we are.  

We're not very good at admitting when we are wrong. We struggle to understand how our perspective could be incomplete. Many of us have a very hard time dealing with life circumstances where we were right, and things still went wrong. 

At this stage of your life, how are you making decisions about the right thing to do?

And when you thought you were right, and the perspective you had could be trusted, and things wound up turning out differently that you anticipated...what do you do next?

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

Intro Theme Music: Stressed by artbybigvee
Beats Provided By https://freebeats.io, Produced By White Hot
Beats Provided By Pond5, Produced by Mansij_Tubescreamer

A recent TikTok poking fun at those of us who use the elite, world-renowned "Bunny Ears" method of shoelace tying hit close to home, and made me think about how we respond when presented with a new way of doing something we've done a particular way our whole lives.

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

Intro Theme Music: Stressed by artbybigvee
Beats Provided By https://freebeats.io, Produced By White Hot
Beats Provided By Pond5, Produced by Mansij_Tubescreamer

Depending on your lifestyle and the part of the country you live in, it can be easy to think that the postal mail system is not a big deal, aside from receiving packages from online shopping. However, recent natural disasters in the U.S., and the seemingly endless list of conflict and war related disasters around the world, have presented the world with images of people who once had hometowns, and homes, and mailboxes.

This has led me to think a lot about the phrase "return to sender", and how we handle situations when we discover that the things we planned on receiving, and the lives we expected to be living, are not going to arrive. 

By 40, most of us have experienced some significant life shift that reoriented the plans that we made, and redirected the life paths we were on. Learning to process the loss of that which has been marked "return to sender" in our lives is critical to making the most of this new version of life we now find ourselves in.

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

Intro Theme Music: Stressed by artbybigvee
Beats Provided By https://freebeats.io, Produced By White Hot
Beats Provided By Pond5, Produced by Mansij_Tubescreamer

As a transition from tears and prayers of the 1st half of Jamie Foxx's Netflix special, "What Had Happened Was", to the laughs and vibes of the 2nd half, Jamie does a bit based on the refrain, "If I can stay funny, I can stay alive."

This phrase becomes more powerful as he shares multiple stories about how his sense of humor carried him through the toughest parts of the recovery process from a serious medical issue he suffered last year.

At 40, each word in Jamie's refrain take on new meaning. How would you fill in the blank for this stage in your life? If I can stay _______, I can stay ______.

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

Intro Theme Music: Stressed by artbybigvee
Beats Provided By https://freebeats.io, Produced By White Hot
Beats Provided By Pond5, Produced by Mansij_Tubescreamer

A beautiful holiday week moment in my current city and a terrible holiday week moment in my previous city reintroduced some important research about how our psychology is impacted by our social contexts, and got me to thinking about fire fighters, who becomes a fire fighter, and whether we have enough of them.

For the purposes of this episode, I'm using the phrase fire fighters to refer broadly to the kind of people who choose to remain attentive, attuned, and aware to the smoke signals in our families, schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, and societies. People who choose to respond to tragedy by getting up, getting involved, and working to try to reduce suffering and provide aid & assistance.

Who are the fire fighters in your life? Are you a fire fighter?

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

Intro Theme Music: Stressed by artbybigvee
Beats Provided By https://freebeats.io, Produced By White Hot
Beats Provided By Pond5, Produced by Mansij_Tubescreamer

The human body is incredible. And what happens to it over time is both fascinating and frightening.

Have you ever had a sudden "health humble"? A time when you found yourself receiving medical information about your body that you weren't prepared to hear and did not see coming?

How did you handle it? Complete denial? Intense research? Drastic lifestyle changes?

Entering your 40s often means dealing with some kind of health humble. Some are small, and you can learn to live with and/or laugh at them. Some are big, and require you to fundamentally change parts of your life you may have taken for granted. Some are serious, and don't come with good answers or happy endings.

How do you process these moments?


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

Intro Theme Music: Stressed by artbybigvee
Beats Provided By https://freebeats.io, Produced By White Hot
Beats Provided By Pond5, Produced by Mansij_Tubescreamer

One of the cultural trends that have shaped our generation of 40 year olds has been the resurgent popularity of all kinds of personality assessments.

From the use of zodiac signs to screen romantic partners, to the use of tools like the StrengthsFinder and DISC assessments to evaluate employees, to the experimentation with tests like the Enneagram within spiritual communities to help individuals identify their purpose, the various personality categories, labels, and descriptions have seeped into our societal subconscious and have become a widely-used shorthand for describing ourselves, and others.

The godparent of these personality tests is the Myers Briggs Personality Test. I recently took the Myers Briggs test, nearly 20 after the first time I took the assessment, in my 20s. And it got me to thinking about how these assessments, the labels that come with them, the conclusions we draw from them, and the way we award and avoid others based on the meanings we assign to different personality traits.

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

Intro Theme Music: Stressed by artbybigvee
Beats Provided By https://freebeats.io, Produced By White Hot
Beats Provided By Pond5, Produced by Mansij_Tubescreamer