Getting used to it, Midlife
Getting Used to It, Midlife is a show hosted by two executive life coaches, Beth & Suzee, who are also expert friends and are both getting used to midlife. From empty nesting and aging parents to painful sex, and let’s not forget the extra lubrication, we will sift through all of it, speaking our truth faithfully and vulnerably. Listen as we live through this in ourselves and our relationships in real time and tease through the “how to” of this next phase of life. As coaches, we have the tools, but as women in the middle, we may not have all the answers. Scratch that— we’ll have some damn good ideas, too. Join us, and let’s get used to it together!
Getting used to it, Midlife
Getting Used to it, Midlife: Think You’re Too Old to Learn? Your Brain Disagrees
Think your brain peaked at 25? Think again. Science says learning new stuff in midlife can actually make your brain act 30 years younger (Botox for your neurons, anyone?). In this episode, we dive into why midlife is prime time for picking up fresh skills, busting old “I’m bad at math” stories, and why Mahjong might just be the new pickleball.
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Hey Beth.
Speaker 2:Susie, how are you? That's me so good. Good to see you, nice to see you too. What are we talking about today?
Speaker 1:Today we're talking about. Learning in midlife is difficult, but also more fun. And also I think I have this conversation a lot with friends and sometimes we need to get inspired by our friends and peers and like, what are you learning about? I want to learn something too, right. So I feel like that's what this call is. It's like number one. Why is it important to do this? Learn, and then also let's give each other some ideas If you feel kind of stagnant. And where do I go? What do I do, what are you guys doing, and then how we're doing with our own learning.
Speaker 2:Right, that sounds great how you've mapped it out. I guess let's start with the importance of learning and why we should continue to do it as we age. Something I read in researching the program today was that surveys show that 50% of people over the age of 40 don't learn something new every week, which is a big missed opportunity, obviously, and there are a lot of people that are I mean, 60, you're 50, that begin to feel, as we midlife, that it's harder to learn something new because of, say, our differences in memory. Yep.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Or it's too hard, or we were just talking pre-show. I took a Mahjong class last night and you had said, oh, I tried that with my friends. We were like, yeah no, yeah, no yeah. And it was. It really was like that. It was a lot and I had to. In my mind, if anybody knows mahjong, if you don't, I don't know.
Speaker 1:That's on you figure it out if you want to learn it.
Speaker 2:It's hard. Good for your brain. I've read um but I had to undo the similarities that it has to say a game like a card game, like gin rummy yes, you know, because I'd be like oh look, I have a run. See, it says runs, but no no, it's not like that.
Speaker 1:That's not what that is.
Speaker 2:Yeah so I have to wipe that away, yep, and start afresh. And by about an hour into the first lesson where we were just talking and learning, I was like okay, max, max load of.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Of information, information, information has occurred. I've already said to myself today okay, now I'm going to look for a YouTube on understanding the Mahjong card, which is, I think, its own piece of work. Anyways, I digress. You know, we always say that kids, you know, learn like their brains are and probably in a neuroplasticity sort of way. Their brains maybe do have a leg up on ours and they learn something new almost every day through school, through their 12 years of schooling. And we don't no, we have to like force that into our lives we do and, um, layering, layering on top of that.
Speaker 1:I just had to look this up real quick because I remember, uh, reading about how you know, because you read about how crossword puzzles are so good for your brain or reading or whatever. It is Sudoku right, and I remember reading that if you keep doing crossword puzzles and you're good at that, that's no longer going to help you learn because you're good at it Like it's good for keeping up and maintenance and stuff, but then you have to challenge yourself by learning something new, because that's where the developing happens.
Speaker 1:So I totally, I totally feel like that's very important, but I feel like that's very important to say.
Speaker 2:That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, Um, I re. There was a study from the University of California at Riverside that said adults age 58 to 86 who took three to five new classes over three months, in six weeks of that their mental abilities improved to the level of people 30 years younger.
Speaker 1:That's a wowza. How many Say that one more time? How many?
Speaker 2:classes After three to five new classes over three months in six weeks. Into the three months, their mental abilities had improved to the level of people 30 years younger than than them, than themselves.
Speaker 1:I wonder if that also means it helps with memory too.
Speaker 2:I'd imagine. I mean, you know, every game, every new, you know, learning, you know, you know. Capitalizes on a different style, like Sudoku is probably going to be like strategy, whereas, say, playing Wordle or crosswords is going to have like vocabulary and verbal you know.
Speaker 1:So anyways, kind of yeah, no, I love that Fascinating, yeah, and it's too bad that we do. We, we stop at a certain point, right, because maybe we get comfortable where we feel like we're an expert in a field and that feels good, so we don't push ourselves to go do something new and start over again somewhere and, um, we need to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you also. I mean, I think, if you think about it, for people that had children that stayed in the same sort of career channel, right, um, you're the. The new learning is having kids and learning how to speak to them and care for them and grow them and raise them, and all that's a huge, it's huge. Yeah, it's a huge new learning while we're being sleep deprived. So seriously, don't drive that truck. Um but yeah.
Speaker 1:Uh, so it's the after part, after the kids go right, yes, you still have your career, your job, whichever, or now you're stay at home wifing more than momming, and now the brain is on autopilot. Yeah, this is the time now to go challenge.
Speaker 2:Completely and there are some of the advantages of new learnings at this point in time, this mid lifetime, is we have better impulse control, not dealing with so much testosterone some of us in our body, and so we have more impulse control. We're less negative, a lot of us less mood swings, and all of that makes learning more enjoyable and manageable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know I was going to say that and maybe we can segue into what we're learning now. But that's what I find really nice about this time of life, actually, like I'm more discerning about what I'm wanting to learn about.
Speaker 2:And it's not about to.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's not for others or for a job, or I mean a little bit, but it's, but it's still my choice. It feels more my choice than because I have to go to school or because I have to get this choice than because I have to go to school or because I have to get this.
Speaker 2:You know, there's not there's not as much of that, yeah, as it was before, and maybe that could make it harder for some people in a way.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, because sometimes when it's so choice, so much choice, so choiceful, then we start to think like well, should I do dance, or should I do start to think like well, should I do dance or should I do um mahjong? Yeah, I don't know. And then we get stuck in the decision making aspect of finding something new to learn rather than in the action of it, which is kind of where we need to be right like I don't know. As a coach, I would say to someone who wasn't sure what they wanted to do I would say pick something and get started and then go from there. What would you? Would you say?
Speaker 1:Yeah, same things.
Speaker 2:Same. Thing.
Speaker 1:If you, if you're feeling like you're, you know, wavering and you aren't sure, right, I would also say like is there something you've wanted to learn that you've set aside or scared?
Speaker 2:of A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, so let's make that list and then we'll pick the most fun or whatever, the easiest or something right, the thing that you could actually schedule into your calendar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great, all great, and, and that comes to something that came up for me and that you and I spoke about, and, and we'll talk about it now. Algebra Okay, everybody roll over, everybody done, being like who the?
Speaker 1:F wants to learn algebra Well you know I'm right there with you, beth. So yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2:When my daughter was in high school, I thought, oh, maybe I should take algebra to which I mean, she probably rolled her eyes at me like don't do this mom, like this is dumb, right. And I probably was like, oh, yeah. Or maybe I looked at her homework and I thought, yeah, no. And yet, you know, I never really felt like I even learned algebra. Everybody's laughing, yes, you did?
Speaker 2:You went to high school, but I don't know if I did. I'm just going to say I'm doubting algebra. I'm rolling my eyes, yeah. So I thought, well, I bet learning something new, something mathematical, right, not arithmetic, which to me is different, but something mathematical actually. One might be really good for the brain and what? What it does for me is, you know, it's one of those old things from childhood where I was like I was never very good at math. Yes, now juries out whether or not I am gonna be good at it. Cuz lesson one came this morning and I signed on to Khan Academy, suzy and I had talked about it and I was like, okay, I'm just. Yeah, I'm here for algebra. How did it look? Did it look?
Speaker 1:scary.
Speaker 2:And I don't. I think this was pre pre pre algebra, so it was not that scary and I did, I did fairly decently and it was self-explanatory. So I was like okay, and I, I sort of I did have like a small victory lap, I'm doing algebra and it's not hard, um, which always gets me in trouble. And then I went, the other part of my brain went just just hold on, cause this is pre pre pre algebra.
Speaker 1:And I was like okay, fair. It's going to build, it's going to build, it's going to build. You're taking baby steps to the algebra. Exactly, and the algebra too.
Speaker 2:And the thing well, let's just hope I get that far Hold on. I remember when my daughter took algebra too, so I'm like ouch, but maybe you know maybe I'm a mathematician and I never knew.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly. How exciting, though. Good for you, because that's also one of my little pain points from the past as well. So yeah, that is inspirational.
Speaker 2:You know. And algebra I was like, is algebra good? Is this going to be good for my aging brain? You know, and it turns out it is. I mean, it exercises your memory pattern recognition, logical reasoning. It's kind of. I read somewhere like it was like cross training for your mind. I'm like that sounds good you know I got to keep this brain going.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's so good. I love that, and the mastery of something once intimidating is so powerful.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh my gosh that would be the main reason why I would want to take it, because, yeah, I was also one of those people that was not good with the math.
Speaker 1:But I did grow up a violinist and I remember people would say oh, if you are a musician, then you're good at math. I'm like no, that's not what that means. I can play some fractions, but I can play and split some fractions really fast, but that's about it. Yeah, I can't tell you what time that train is going to meet you at the station. Yeah, yeah, beth runs from A to B. I don't know those algebraic form questions. I was just like, oh my gosh, every one of them has stumped me.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, our brains are different.
Speaker 1:now, yeah, so it might take me a little bit longer, but that's okay or not, it might make more sense.
Speaker 2:It might, it could, it could. Yeah, that's a very good point. So what about? So, let's talk about what you're learning. So that's me. I'm doing Mahjong and math.
Speaker 1:Hey, mahjong and math Perfect Eminem. Well, one of the things that I'm learning, that I may have talked about in the other episodes, is Italian.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I love languages. So it's like is it new, is it not? You know, like I picked Italian because, well, number one, I love the language. I want to be in Italy, italian, italian, Italian, love it, love all of it, and I want to learn the language as well. But I also speak a little bit. Not that I speak Spanish, but I understand some Spanish. I've taken a lot of French and a lot of that. There's some same vocabulary within the language and I thought well, that's not fair, because I know, but I have to tell you the mental gymnastics to remember which one goes to which country.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that gets confusing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's been fun and interesting.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. I'm so impressed because I took Spanish at college, French in high school, and then I thought I'm going to throw Italian on here. It's going to be self-explanatory, and I just went and I had to. I dropped out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's. It's tough when you have different languages in there. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I found it harder for some reason than the other two.
Speaker 1:Maybe because you're adding on a third layer of a language. Yeah, that is a little bit tough, but that's fun. And then my other thing it's not so much about learning a skill, but it's not. That's not a skill, but it's my relationship to money and learning to be with it in a different way. And what I mean by that is, you know, I've, I've, you know, being a coach. I've worked on my relationship with money for a long time, but I still get stuck in that scarcity mindset.
Speaker 1:So, I just and you know lots of other baggage that goes with that. But it's funny, no matter how much I work on it, I still get stuck. So I'm like you know what? This is the year I'm going to learn a new way to think about this. I'm going to learn um and teach myself to be different. So I don't know if that's the same thing as, like, what we're talking about learning, but it feels that way, Cause it way, because I'm just rewiring my brain. I'm having to like read books and get coaching on it myself, and it feels like my brain is tired at the end of the day because I'm doing that.
Speaker 1:So what may I delve, delve, so what may?
Speaker 2:I may I delve. So are you learning things about managing your money that you didn't know before, or are you working on where the scarcity emanates from?
Speaker 1:A little bit of both, so learning more about investing and the power that I could have investing money and what I could do with my money and also saying yes to my own investments back to me, which, again, like I don't love doing because I feel like I'm not worthy Right. So, and there's that scarcity mindset, there's a bunch of things again layered with that, but one.
Speaker 1:As I'm learning about investing and what to do with my money, I feel more powerful. And there's that again learning reading. Okay, so this is what I do, I can do this, I can grow this, and me, you know, I don't have to rely on someone else to do that.
Speaker 1:For me there's a confidence that comes with that as I practice doing that. But then again your question about then scarcity, yet learning to rewire my brain and like it's. I don't have to do that. I don't have to keep defaulting to that mindset in my brain in my way of thinking and that feels like a lot of mental workout. You know like workouts. I feel like I'm doing a ton of bicep curls.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really interesting and have you like. I'm just curious, like, what books have you read? Is there something you can recommend to listeners?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so a while back, you know, I've read a bunch of books that I can't really remember, but I felt like there were a lot of books that were a little bit hokey. But I did read this book that my husband recommended to me. It's called the Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel, and it still feels oh my gosh, there's a cat on Beth's desk and it feels she must be the math cat. She's the math and money cat, but it feels still not basic. But I just love how he talks about just the psychological factors around how we all think about money. So that's helped me a lot in shaping the way I think about finances and the decisions that I specifically make and how just logic and money don't always go hand in hand, things like that. So I've learned a lot by reading that book.
Speaker 2:Okay, the.
Speaker 1:Psychology of Money. The Psychology of Money exactly. Okay and yeah, just writing down the stuff that I've done before where this thinking comes from, and then going and researching that and all the things that I can to help myself and all the beliefs and negative beliefs and habits and the identity that I have around money and restructuring that it just feels like I'd rather go learn Mahjong, it's hard on the brain. It's hard on the brain Just going to say but I'm enjoying this too.
Speaker 1:When I step back, I'm feeling small movements of growth here, so it feels good.
Speaker 2:Amazing, yeah, great, wow. You'll have to come back and talk some more about that, I think that's a really fascinating topic, especially as someone who comes from the scarcity mindset Also.
Speaker 2:I mean, I always I would always joke that I was my grandparents were like depression era people and I grew up like with them as my babysitters I think I've told you this before cutting coupons with them and and so I think that's where I always say it's a lineage thing, some of it you know it's, it's a practice belief, right, we don't have enough, we don't have enough, we have to do it Like so, yeah, it definitely could come from that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, I'm going to tie this back around to maybe even our mindset around learning like oh, I'm too old to learn. Oh yeah, it's too late, I don't have time, doesn't work for me, right? So again, the science points to how good it really is for us.
Speaker 2:So quit it. Yeah, you know there's this. I just thought of something that's like super cute someone I follow who's a stylist and she always posts that she and her husband are taking like lindy hop lessons and they always look so cute doing it and dance is so great for your brain also. Um, I don't know. I'm just throwing that in because we were talking about like, what could you do to like learn, I mean algebra. I think for a lot of people would be like I. I don't, that's not a choiceful thing I'd like to learn and it isn't for me either, but I would love to undo that piece that says I wasn't any good at it.
Speaker 1:That is so smart.
Speaker 2:And repair that.
Speaker 1:I mean, isn't that a little bit like what I'm saying too, like I wasn't good at money, so I want to repair this, and I'd rather come out the other end powerful around money, exactly.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah. So what other ideas would you say you have Like, uh, what other things that could people learn about?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean dance comes to my mind. Um, which could be fun, Um, um, I think. Once upon a time I said I thought juggling, cause I think that's probably good for your brain as well, Although I haven't I haven't gone down that path. Languages, as we know, um, games like Mahjong, I mean taking up you know anything, athletic exercises fabulous for your brain. Study show Um, there's a lot. A pickleball is massive right now. The ladies who taught us mahjong yesterday said mahjong has has like is the 2025 pickleball, which is hilarious, and I'm like. All I could think was what was like? Do I need malcolm gladwell in here to tell?
Speaker 2:me what the tipping point is why I is Mahjong.
Speaker 1:I feel like Mahjong's been around forever, though Everybody here plays, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, it has, but you know, all of a sudden she says it's having a zeitgeist moment. Oh, okay, what do you think, malcolm, do you want to come?
Speaker 1:talk about it, talk to us about it, I mean why did Pickleball have that? You why did pickleball have that? You know like what struck the match, you know. Well, I believe pickleball was a thing, because it was like the lazy tennis. It's hard though.
Speaker 2:You have to go in and out of that. It's not as hard as tennis. You got to go in and out of that kitchen. There's no terminology. I don't know anything about pickleball.
Speaker 1:I'm fine without pickleball in my life. Yeah, I liked it. Did you like it? Oh good, so you learned about that. I did find it fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, although, yeah, whatever, I'm not getting into it. No, I mean, I think I need to take a lesson. I went to a group meetup and the competitive people who were teaching me were a little bit like Ann, could you get this quicker? Oh, no, you're like, no, you're now I'm not playing the game I came here to play.
Speaker 1:I'm teaching you lady, that's hilarious, that's funny. Yeah, um, I think that was a. I think we threw out a lot of stuff. I'm gonna throw this out there because my husband says that I talk about crocheting in every episode, so I'm going to try to figure out how I could add crochet to every episode now, so you can learn how to crochet Completely and and, like you could, in the summer or in the spring, you could crochet yourself like a bathing suit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would fall off easily at the beach people would in the 70s they were all really saggy let me just say yeah, but the ladies wore them um.
Speaker 1:They did yep um sweaters doilies tablecloth, all the things, scarves, get ready for winter, yep um.
Speaker 2:You know what I love when you though, is not crocheting.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, honey, I'm done with the crochet talk. I feel like this would be hard, but it'd be interesting is learning how to code.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I know I'm with you Same.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Totally Fascinating.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's one of those mind things Like I would right now. I would say that sounds too hard for me, but I would be so impressed with myself if I learned how to do that.
Speaker 2:A hundred, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. I mean there's also, you know, I mean we didn't touch on this and Susie's a musician but there's also taking up an instrument, yes, and, by the way, that looks so fun and it is. I'm just going to say hella hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm so glad I do not remember learning how to play the violin.
Speaker 2:I took piano I don't know like 15 years ago and I remember before my daughter, before I gave it to my daughter and I remember saying to my piano teacher and we were learning like a, like a boogie, woogie kind of you know, on piano and I and I just said to her I feel like I'm going to throw up.
Speaker 1:I was like my stomach is going.
Speaker 2:It's not psychological. My stomach is going in a direction that my brain is going in a different direction and for whatever reason I'm just telling you this is making me want to throw up, like I'm having like a cross wired moment.
Speaker 1:It's not working. I mean I did it Itwired moment. It's not working. She laughed. I mean I did it, it's not easy. It was not easy. Yeah, I think there are a lot of ways, a lot of things we can learn, and I think not all of it costs too much money, because I do. I love YouTube and you can learn a lot on that alone. And even if you, if you're someone who doesn't read, go read and that's good for you. If you're someone who doesn't do crossword puzzles and go do that, right, like there's a lot of stuff out there.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of free stuff for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and challenge yourself, go grow those neuroplasticity, telomere, brain cell stuff and let's all scientifically put yeah right, that made me sound really smart. You did um good moment and let's all age gracefully and smart together.
Speaker 2:I like it I, I like it. Yeah, so I mean, I do really think you know, today we talked about the fun aspect of learning something new, and we talked about it's the benefits of learning and how that relates to your, your aging brain. Yes, so there's a lot to unpack there. Enjoy Italian. I'm going to go do some algebra, algebra.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thanks for listening. Absolutely Getting used to it all together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's what we're doing. What new thing are you guys going to learn today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, put it in the comments, please. We would love to know. Yeah, all right, bye, bye.