The difference one degree makes

The Midlife Male is a newsletter and podcast by Greg Scheinman sharing experiences on aging, success, personal growth, and navigating midlife. If someone forwarded you this newsletter, click here to sign up.

Happy Sunday. Last weekend we held our second Midlife Male Gathering. The theme for the day was “developing unstoppable confidence.”

Our day consisted of:

• Movement – Pool training, the ultimate workout for mind and body. 

• Breath – Guided breathwork on land with applications in water, ice, and all parts of life.

• Restoration – Cold (ice bath) + heat (sauna) exposure.

Then, over a delicious, healthy lunch we enjoyed a curated conversation on best practices for optimizing mental and physical performance in middle age. We covered a range of topics on human performance, including mindset, nutrition, fitness and tools for managing stress.

After lunch, I led a small private group through a workshop on developing your MAP (Midlife Action Plan). It was an immersive and collaborative experience through my 5 rules, 6 F’s and “Better one or two?” exercise to help them gain clarity and confidence on what maximizing midlife looks like for each of them, with tangible takeaways on living happier, healthier, wealthier, stronger, longer and more fun lives.

It was a great day doing all the things I love to do, with a bunch of like minded guys all centered around one singular purpose: having a great day. Already looking forward to the next one!

One degree makes a big difference

I’ve been feeling a little off recently and struggling to put my finger on exactly what’s been causing it. There’s not one specific thing or incident I can point to, but rather a general unsettled malaise hanging around in my head versus the usual clarity I have around the work I'm doing and the life I’m living.

I had a helpful conversation with a friend recently about this feeling. The conversation actually began with us ranting over the complete shit show occurring on our alma mater University of Michigan’s campus, Columbia, and various other campuses. We talked about what’s happening right now with the galactic antisemitism and weak-ass leadership. The rhetoric has gone from peace and ceasefire to “Death to America” and “Kill all the jews and let’s destroy Israel while we’re at it.” Huh? Yeah, let’s just let anyone lay down in the middle of a highway, set up camps or burn whatever flags they want without any consequences for their actions.

But I digress. And I left that in just now because digression is the point of this week’s newsletter.

I think I’ve been feeling what I've been feeling because I've gotten slightly off-course.  Sometimes you don't realize that you are off course because it's such a minute deviation. An extra “yes” to something here, or  “I’m just gonna skip doing that today” there… it won’t matter, right?

But it does matter. Moving just one degree off course becomes significant over time because you’ll no longer reach your intended destination. You’ll end up in a completely different place and wonder how you got there.

There’s this rule of thumb in aviation called "1 in 60" that illustrates this concept perfectly. It states that, for every degree you deviate from your intended path, you'll find yourself one mile off course for every sixty miles traveled. It’s like a metaphor for the midlife crisis many of us experience, wondering how our lives have diverged so significantly from what we envisioned, when we didn’t think we were even off course to begin with.

We all know the guy (maybe it’s even you as you read this) who neglects his health or personal relationships in favor of work, thinking that he'll have time to correct these aspects later. Over time, the toll on his personal life and wellbeing becomes apparent, and by middle age he realizes he is far away from the thriving personal and professional life he had imagined.

This happens to many of us. It certainly did for me (for like 20 years). We plot a course for our lives, our identities, who we are and who we want to become. However life inevitably throws things at us in the form of situations, circumstances, excitement, opportunities, distractions, obligations, responsibilities, families, kids, wives, careers, money, and health. 

We think we're staying the course, being true to our plans, so we just keep going. But what's happened is we've been nudged ever so slightly off course. It’s just one degree, so small that we don’t even realize it until we wake up, 10 or 20 years have flown by and we barely recognize the man in the mirror.

The same holds true for our day-to-day habits. Small activities repeated over and over again have a huge impact on who we become later in life.  And more often than not, it's not what we are doing that makes the biggest difference, but rather what we’re not doing.

• What’s the big deal if I miss my kids’ game tonight? 

• I’m going to stay late tonight at work because this is a big project…

• I’ll let my trainer know that I'm skipping today’s workout. 

• I can hang out for just one drink…

The problem isn't being knocked one or two degrees off course, because this happens all the time. The problem is when we begin to feel the shift and we don’t do anything about it.  

If I miss that workout one week, but course-correct and get back on track next week, no problem.

If I keep missing it, though, I'm no longer on course to hit my goals.

And if I get too far off track, for too long, getting back into it seems daunting because now there's a big gap between my original course and where I am now. 

And that feeling that something’s just a bit off and that it’s lingering inside of you and that you’re choosing to allow it to continue and to remain there without course correcting…That’s mediocrity setting in.  

Back to the conversation with my friend. Once we concluded our “state of the world” venting session, we got back to thinking and talking about ourselves and listening to one another, which is what we do pretty well as a couple of 51-year-old men. We got to the root of what I've been feeling and where he thought I'd gone one degree off course.

I’d been trying to go faster. I’d tried to jump on too many good opportunities and deliver more volume. His take was that everything we’ve been working on and producing is great, but that it didn’t all need to be released so fast and so frequently. More isn’t better – better is better. We can take our time and achieve more by focusing on quality over quantity, staying narrow and deep, which was the original plan all along.

So what if you just turned the navigation back on course? In a plane, boat, or car, you would adjust the setting to your intended destination. If you took the wrong exit, you would loop back around and keep going. We can—and should—do the same with our lives.

When you realize you've gone off course, or if someone graciously points out that you've lost your way, there's always an opportunity to course-correct no matter how far you've strayed. More often than not, you're not as far off as you think.

Simply replot, recalibrate and recommit.

Fill up your tank because there may be some extra mileage to cover, then point yourself back in the intended direction. You may be delayed, but it's better than not arriving at all. And it’s certainly better than ending up somewhere you never intended to be.

It's okay if you're not sure where you are—to pull over, stop, pull out the map, plot it against where you want to go, get clear, and then get back on the road. It’s also okay to ask for help.

We all lose direction and focus at times. We are bombarded by opportunities, life situations and circumstances – even too much of a good thing can take us off our path.

The important thing is to be aware and lean in when we feel that we may be drifting or going in a direction we hadn't planned. All it takes is to simply address it, correct it, communicate if necessary and keep moving forward on the right path.

Remember this saying: “What comes easy won’t last. What lasts won’t come easy.”

In health,

—Greg

It’s okay to be ice cold*

If you’ve thought about making an investment in an at-home cold therapy device, the best time of year to do that would be now. It’s about to be hot as balls outside, which means you’ll be more likely to use it, which means you’ll have an easier time building a habit.

Cold plunges are shown to help reduce stress and detox the body through vasoconstriction. They’re also a part of a popular wellness protocol called contrast therapy, in which you alternate between hot (sauna/hot shower) and cold to tax the body and reset important nervous and hormonal systems.

I like the cold plunge for the mental benefits. As someone who’s launching a company, I have to do hard shit. If I can lay in cold water alone with my thoughts and stay the course, I can do this—cold plunges remind me of that.

Plunge offers a temperature-controlled plunge pool that fits perfectly in your backyard. It keeps the water exactly at the temperature you want, every time, which makes habit-building a breeze.

Learn more about Plunge here and use code MidlifeMale for $150 off.

*Partner content

Did something in this newsletter resonate with you this week? Reply and let me know.

In health,

—Greg