Be Useful, Not Youthful: The Secret to Aging Well

Chip Conley (0:00)

Being good soil, the result of good soil is things that will outlive you. And, you know, the classic example is, you know, plant a tree under which shades you will never enjoy or something like that. So the shade of the tree that is going to be there in the future, you're never going to enjoy it. And how do we create a culture that sort of thinks that way a little bit more? Eric Erickson created a word called generativity.

SPEAKER_2 (0:24)

This is The Midlife Chrysalis. Welcome to Wisdom Wednesdays with Chip Conley and Derek Gehl, your weekly conversation about thriving in midlife. Together, we explore the questions, insights and practices that help you live this chapter with more purpose, vitality and joy.

Derek Gehl (0:41)

Welcome to another Wisdom Wednesday here at the Midlife Chrysalis podcast. My name is Derek Gehl, the CEO here at MEA. I'm with our founder, Mr. Chip Conley. Chip, good morning.

Chip Conley (0:50)

Good morning. How are you?

Derek Gehl (0:52)

I'm well. I'm well.

I want to talk about what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about a phrase that you've been carrying since the Faith Leaders Retreat. In fact, let's talk about the Faith Leaders Retreat because it's something that's been happening and growing at MEA, and I think it's beautiful and needed right now.

Chip Conley (1:11)

Yeah.

Derek Gehl (1:12)

So, listen, Overy, what is the Faith Leaders Retreat?

Chip Conley (1:14)

Well, here's the story and Ann Mitchell, I wish she was on the podcast with you right now. Ann Mitchell is somebody who came to a Jerry Colonna workshop two years ago, and she had been a venture capitalist and a leadership coach, but she was in a stage in her life where she was trying to figure out what was next. So at one point, we asked people to go out and go for walks, to ponder like a wisdom wander, and she saw this tree that was really quite beautiful. It's a cottonwood tree that has cactus growing up through the middle of the tree, which is sort of a really interesting inner species kind of relationship. And she found a rock there that somebody had painted, and the rock said possibility on it. So this is what she did, and she came back and she was really quite charmed by it. And next thing I knew, she was telling me, you know who, I want to put this possibility in action. The people in the US right now who are really struggling are people who are faith leaders, because there's so much polarization, and there are a lot of people suffering, and it is the faith leaders who are having to hold all of that. And she said, what if we were to create something called the Sacred Pause? And you can see more about this at sacredpause.faith.

What if we did a private retreat for faith leaders, and they can apply and we'll subsidize them, and we'll go out and raise money through Age, which is MEA's non-profit, that actually helps fund our scholarships. So we did that the summer of 2025, and it was spectacularly great. And we had like seven or eight different religions represented amongst the 30 people who came. So then this summer, summer 26, we did two Sacred Pause retreats, and next year we're going to do four. So, you know, keep an eye on that. And if anybody is a faith leader or knows a faith leader that could use a renewal experience across faiths, have them apply at sacredpause.faith. But what I really took from now three of these, and Ben Kot is spectacular, one of our MEA faculty and residents who started a church in Seattle and ran it for 10 years. So he helps lead this. And one of the things I think we learn is like, how consistently burned out people are in the faith world, and how some of their, what they really need is some sense of why they got into this in the first place. Now you see it with doctors, you see it with lawyers, you see it with a lot of professions these days. And one of the things that I said at some point to the faith leaders, which is, you know, such an interesting experience leading a workshop with faith leaders, because that's what they do in many ways. But I quoted a guy named Tom Morris from the University of Notre Dame, who's a philosophy professor who said that, as we get older, the thing that we need to do is to be good soil. They loved that. I love this term because it's just a reminder that it isn't the soil alone that creates the flower, but the soil is the rich, the fertile void from which a seed, water, sun, proper temperature, will actually lead to the generation of beautiful things. I like to think of myself in that way. If I'm having a good day, I'm good soil for people. If I'm having a bad day, I'm barren, rather barren soil. It's interesting, the whole study, the whole thought of this relates to our ranch too. When we first bought the ranch five and a half years ago, it was very barren. And so we had to sort of repair the land doing some regenerative grazing practices with horses and now with cattle, with wagyu cattle to help bring the soil back. You know, soil health is one of the 10 most important ways that we can actually address climate change. Because what it does is allow the, you know, when you have a rain and we have these monsoon rains in Santa Fe, it allows the water to seep deep, into the aquifer, as opposed to just running off, which is what happens when you have bad soil. So soil, and it's very interesting that soil and soul, you know, are very similar. So how do we regenerate the soil? How do we regenerate souls? Faith leaders are doing that year round. MEA tries to do that in every workshop we do or a private retreat. But when you're doing private retreats for faith leaders, boy, are the, is the ripple of impact, the ROI that much more satisfying?