Middle Aged Wisdom

By Middle Aged Wisdom

Education Business

What's Middle Aged Wisdom about?

This is Middle Aged Wisdom: where we talk about mistakes we've made, lessons we've learned, and share things we think are super cool! We want to help YOU lead YOUR best life.

Nancy is a dentist, an entrepreneur, and a minimalist.

Dave is an author, an engineer, an advocate for urban waterways, and a storyteller.

Dave and Nancy are the parents of their beautiful daughter, Ceci, who loves arts and crafts and making "to do" lists.

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LAST EPISODE

Don't Let Little Things Bec...

03.02.2021

In this episode we talk about the difference between chronic and acute. Acute events get all the publicity - these are dramatic and rare occurences where we usually have a story to tell afterwards. In Nancy's field of dentistry, this ...

Middle Aged Wisdom episodes:

03.02.2021 Don't Let Little Things Become Big Things In this episode we talk about the difference between chronic and acute. Acute events get all the publicity - these are dramatic and rare occurences where we usually have a story to tell afterwards. In Nancy's field of dentistry, this ...
02.23.2021 Find Your Why It's been so easy to lose at least some of our motivation during this pandemic. Just look at a typical person's work from home wardrobe. It might be business on top, but it's probably sweatpants or pajamas on the bottom. ...
02.16.2021 Adventures in Hiring One of the most important decisions any business leader can make involves who to hire and who to let go. As Jim Collins said in his book, Good to Great, "It is better to first get the right people on ...
02.09.2021 Transitioning to a New Normal As COVID infection rates are on a downward trend and vaccination rates are on an updward trend, it's starting to feel like the post-COVID world is around the corner. In this episode we talk about our recent experience with the ...
02.02.2021 Credentials are Expensive, Education is Free Wisdom is not a place we can arrive at, it's not a mountain we can climb. In fact, the older we get the more we realize we don't know. While academics laid the foundation for our professional success, our post ...
01.26.2021 Nobody Cares How Much You Know... As the great Teddy Roosevelt once said, "Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care." Whether it's in life, business, or relationships, do the people around you feel understood? This could be a family member, ...
01.19.2021 Today is the Day In a previous episode we gave our advice for overcoming procrastination related to things you really want to do. Even though these are things you may WANT to do, they can be tough to get started. In this episode we ...
01.12.2021 Making Your 2021 Goals Reachable Having trouble sticking to your New Year's goals? If so, then this episode is for you. This is a celebration of the small, consumable steps that can lead to big results. The beauty of small steps? They're pretty easy, but ...
01.05.2021 Air is Free, So Why Don't We Get Enough? Nancy has spent the better part of the past 10 years gobbling up everything she could learn about breathing. And Dave has been her guinea pig. Listen in as we talk about how chronic illness can stem from how we ...
12.29.2020 Using 2020 Wisdom to Have a Great 2021 We recently had a family dinner conversation centered around interesting questions that helped us reflect back on the year that was 2020. We're hoping both the questions and our answers will help you process the good, the bad, and the ...
12.22.2020 10 Jobs That Shaped Who We Are From manual labor, to restaurant work, to retail, to clerk - listen in as we talk about 10 jobs we had in our youth and how they shaped who we are today.
12.15.2020 Kicking Those Bad Pandemic Habits Did you ever think about how a habit forms? Good ones and bad ones tend to form from our environment: the people, places, and time that trigger our habits. We explain how environment works in forming habits, discuss the habits ...
12.08.2020 Earning Choices One Latte at a Time Is it too early to think about building your retirement nest egg? Have you avoided even having this conversation with your significant other? Listen in to learn how planning is your best friend, and how there's no such thing as ...
12.01.2020 The Reason for the Season What do the holidays mean to you?In this episode we chat about the holiday season: how we grew up, how we celebrate today, budgeting, supporting small businesses, and more! We share our approach to surviving this time of year, and ...
11.24.2020 10 Things to be Thankful for in 2020 On Thursday we're celebrating Thanksgiving in the U.S. This year we had to think a little harder about our Thanksgiving list. With this episode we are shining a light on all of the good that's there if you look for ...
11.17.2020 Showing Empathy in Tough Times In the memorable words of author Brene Brown, "Empathy fuels connection while sympathy drives disconnection". In this episode we explore the difference between sympathy and empathy, and discuss the three types of empathy that Dave learned about in a recent ...
11.10.2020 A Little Self-Awareness Goes a Long Way There are bad interpersonal behaviors that ALL of us can be guilty of at times, and it can be painfully easy to be unaware we have them or how they may be damaging our most important relationships. These bad habits ...
11.03.2020 5 Ways to Stay Motivated Does the pandemic make you feel sluggish and unmotivated? Well join the club! Listen in to hear 5 things we are doing to feel our best, do our best, and keep our minds clear in spite of the craziness around ...
10.27.2020 This is Us Over the past 15 years we've had our relationship ups and downs. From dating, to moving 10 times, to dealing with PTSD from a robbery...we've been through some stuff. Listen in to hear our reflections on these stories, as well ...
10.20.2020 Unanswered Prayers Did you ever really want something, but it didn't work out as you had hoped? Maybe it was a relationship, or a job, or perhaps a school you wanted to get into. Dave and Nancy revisit some of their own ...
10.13.2020 Being Professionals During a Pandemic Nancy is a dentist. Dave is an engineer. Listen in to hear what their working worlds have been like during the COVID pandemic. They share their pandemic struggles, successes, and where they think this is all headed.
10.06.2020 Parenting - Are You a Gardener or a Carpenter? How much should we push our children to grow into our vision of who we think they should be? Conversely, how might our children benefit from having some say over what they end up doing with their lives? Listen in ...
09.29.2020 The Power of Self Belief Did you ever notice that people who accomplish great things tend to have one important thing in common? Self belief. Believe it or not, self belief is something you can work at, and it may just be the single most ...
09.22.2020 Don't Be a P.I.T.A. - Why Being a Good Customer Matters We hear so much about being a good seller or how to provide good customer or client service. But what about the flip side? Why might it matter to be seen as a desirable customer? We are all customers, patients, ...
09.15.2020 Changing Your Idea of What's Possible If you stripped away limitations or obstacles, what choices might you make? These choices could be related to your career, where you live, or something about your lifestyle. Consider, are your current limitations real? Or are they only in your ...
09.08.2020 How Much is Enough...Stuff How many possessions does a person REALLY need? If you feel buried in stuff piled up around your home, where do you start if you want to downsize? In this episode, we share our experience that led us to downsize ...
09.01.2020 If You Really Wanted To You Would One of our favorite quotes is, "If you really wanted to (fill in the blank) you would." What's your "blank"? In this episode we share our experiences in learning to prioritize what matters most - from improving daily habits to ...
08.25.2020 How Your Pandemic Attitude Could Determine Your Future Have you noticed that people tend to respond to this pandemic in one of two ways? They either gravitate towards empathy, thinking about others, or they succumb to being self-centered, focusing only on themselves and their personal grievances. In this ...
08.18.2020 3 Life Lessons from Our Older, Wiser Neighbors Have you ever gone to a dinner party where you came across a couple or another person that you found endlessly fascinating? That happened to us recently. Listen in to find out the three lessons we took home from a ...
08.11.2020 Reading the Room In this episode, we discuss how to "read the room" by observing what makes other people tick, and how to adjust your verbal techniques to maximize your influence. You will learn to identify how people receive information, which will help ...
08.04.2020 Effective Conversations Have you ever been talking with someone, and a few seconds into the conversation you realize he or she is such a bad listener you don't even want to finish the conversation? Being a good listener isn't as easy as ...
07.28.2020 Ritz Carlton Lifestyle, Motel 6 Budget Can you live a Ritz Carlton lifestyle on a Motel 6 budget? You may be able to pull it off for awhile, but eventually your finances will come crashing down. How do we know this? Because we experienced it first ...
07.20.2020 Overcoming Failure In this episode we share a memorable, and at times painful, anecdote about our first venture into becoming business owners. The story involves a swindler, an ancient Chinese proverb, and how to make lemonade out of lemons. We hope you ...