If you think you're too old to be successful, I want you to think again.
Now really think hard about that.
Are you really too old to be successful?
This is a longstanding myth that many older folks believe.
And I'm talking older folks, we're talking 40 plus.
So that's not really old.
I'm within that age bracket.
But yet that belief seems to perpetuate itself over time with that age group and beyond.
But science really debunks it.
In fact, the research basically calls the myth bullshit.
And this is what we're going to explore in this episode.
We're going to talk about why this myth has persisted with so many people that could have
reached their potential and have not because they believe the myth.
Plus, I'm going to discuss some of the science that breaks the myth.
And later in the episode, I'm going to give you strategies to overcome the thinking that
you're old.
I'm not saying you're old.
I'm going to give you some strategies to overcome the thinking that you're too old for success,
not that you're old because no one's really old.
Age is your relative.
We're going to talk about age too.
We're going to talk about the concept of age and how age came about, how we keep a score,
basically.
And that's on this episode of Life Unscripted.
Welcome to Life Unscripted.
This podcast that just hits you with the hard truth that life has no script and everything
you've been taught is an illusion.
I'm your host Alan Stafford and join me as we explore how we can deprogram our minds
of the thoughts that age is a factor to success.
All right, welcome back, folks.
Just this age thing, this whole thing, this whole thing, keeping age to me is a toxic ideology.
It's a toxic way of thinking.
But I get it.
I get we need to keep age.
We need to keep it for very specific reasons due to psychological development in humans,
but it really does mess with people's heads.
I mean, age is just like most of the other stuff in which we base our beliefs on.
It's just a fictional reality.
But there's some, let me backtrack.
There's some hard science to keep in age.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't keep age.
However, in the sense that it hurts us and keeps us from achieving our dreams at a later
age, that's the toxic part I'm talking about because it's really senseless.
It actually makes no sense if you think about it.
And we're going to break that down in this episode.
I mean, can you imagine that if we didn't even have the programming to think we were
too old to succeed, how many people would have followed their dreams and perhaps become
financially successful?
And again, we're going to define success.
Success isn't just about finances or money or wealth or any of that.
Success is about what you interpret success as.
But we'll get into that.
But can you just imagine if you didn't believe that you were too old to achieve something,
what would you achieve?
Think about it right now.
If you're 40 plus and you feel like your life has not been successful, think about what
would you do different?
What would you want to do if money were no object, if time were no object?
There's a lot.
I bet you there's a lot you'd want to do.
Maybe start a family, maybe build a business, maybe climb Mount Everest, maybe just climb
any mountain for that matter.
Some of us just have a hard time climbing a hill.
But you may want to travel the world.
Maybe you want to be a chef or, I don't know, write a book.
There's a lot of things you probably want to do that you feel you can't do because it's
too late.
And we're going to break that myth.
I mean, that myth plays with humanity's head.
It really does.
And I've got a story on why this is important to me coming up here in a little bit.
So what I have in store for you in this episode is understanding why we even keep age.
So let's start with that first, okay?
Why age is relevant, how we think about age and how it came to be, that we keep this chronological
order of humanity and compartmentalize them into these nifty little groups of ages, you
know, zero to five, six to 10 and so forth, tweens and teens and young adults and elderly
and senior citizens and all that stuff.
We'll talk about how that came to be.
Because again, that's not a universal law, even though time exists in the universe, it
doesn't exist in the way that man keeps time, if you understand what I'm saying.
So it's basically what I call fictional reality.
It's just something that we've developed as humans in order to track various things.
And we'll talk about that.
And we're going to talk about what does it even mean to talk about success?
I mean, what does that look like?
What does success look like to you?
Everybody's success is different.
So when I'm talking about success, let's not assume that I'm talking about wealth, although
a lot of people think wealth is success.
But the reality is that success is really defined by the individual.
It's a subjective ideology.
We're going to talk about why the myth persists.
Why we think that when we're over 40 or over 50, 60, 70, it doesn't matter what age, we
think we're too old to achieve that success, the thing that we want.
And then folks, I'm going to throw in some science here.
We're going to talk about a book called The Formula.
This is a book that challenges conventional success timelines, that basically breaks it
down scientifically based on research from this theoretical physicist who wrote the book.
And then we're going to give you tools on how to rewrite the script in your head that
says you are too old because you're not age.
Again, it's just a number and there's a lot more that goes in to your ability to succeed
than just the number itself.
But before we get through the meat of this episode and the tools to help you get over
the hump of the age myth, and that's the only hump I'm talking about, I'm going to tell
you a little story about why this topic is important to me and it should be important
to you.
And the fact of our, I'm tongue twisted today, and I'm going to talk to you about the journey
that it's taken me to overcome that myth, the decades.
Okay, we're going to talk about that when we come back.
Okay, welcome back.
The reason this topic came to mind is because I grew up with a mother who always, it was
her mantra to me, whether she knew it or not.
Her message was always, I'm too old to do this, I'm too old to do that.
And she was in her 30s and 40s, folks.
This is not like she was in her 70s or 80s.
We're talking when she was younger than I am right now.
And the story goes that my mom was a very gifted designer, clothing designer.
By trade, she was a mathematician and a programmer, but she was very creative and she still is
very creative, but she can look at a pattern, look at clothing, design it and make it herself
from scratch.
It was amazing.
And it would be the same design as maybe a brand name, a top design brand.
And when we, when me and my brothers would tell her, hey mom, you should be a fashion
designer.
You should be like one of these brands that, what do they call them, fashion?
I don't even, I'm at a loss for words for these people.
You know, the fashion people, yeah, those guys and gals.
But her message to us was, I'm always, I'm too old for this.
And I'm thinking, how are you too old for this?
Her idea was that you have to start at a very young age.
And this is everyone else's idea that thinks they're too old to do anything, that you have
to start at a young age.
And that's a myth.
But the problem, and this may be a problem with you too, a challenge I should say, is
that that mantra stuck in my head for the next several decades of my life, thinking I'm
too old to succeed.
Even in my 20s, even in my 30s, even in my 40s, even in my 50s, I believed I was too
old to do anything and that my life was over and I'm going to be dying soon.
Talk about a head job.
But this is what happens.
This is what society does to people.
They put these ideas into their head, getting them to think that they're too old and we
begin to believe this nonsense and we begin to act this way and we don't accomplish what
we want to and we die unhappy.
And so the whole point of this podcast is to get you out of that mindset, to teach you
that age is a number.
It's only relative to how you feel and what you're capable of doing and you're capable
of a lot more than you think you're capable of.
I can guarantee you that, my friend.
Needless to say, I was able to fight through that script that was embedded in my mind at
a young age.
But it took a lot of training.
It took a lot of reading.
It took a lot of self-reflection.
The title took a lot of exploration, personal development, personal growth, whatever you
want to call it.
It took a lot of that.
I don't want you to have to go through that.
So I'm going to give you some tools to help you break free from that thinking.
And the first part, the first part of that tool is understanding where age comes from,
why we keep age and it's just something inside of our heads.
And that's it.
Our body's age, yes.
Everything ages, yes.
But if you're 80, you can still maintain a healthy body and a healthy mind.
You don't have to succumb to the perceived notion that as you age, you decay.
I mean, there is decay going on in your body, but you don't have to succumb to that and
think, I'm too old.
I can't do this here because I'm 80 or I'm 70 or I'm 60 or I'm 50 or I'm 40, any of that
stuff.
So that's all nonsense right there.
Just get that out of your mind because it's nonsense.
If you really want to take care of yourself, take care of your diet.
Walk out, get plenty of sleep and drink lots of water because an age will take care of
itself.
It won't even matter at that point.
So let's break this down.
What is the concept of age?
Age basically measures the length of time an individual or an object or entity, meaning
anything that exists in this universe has existed.
And we typically express it in years.
You know, that's how we understand it as humans.
365 days make one year.
That's not the same anywhere else outside of our planet.
That's pretty much indicative to our planet and the way we think.
But the question is, has time always been kept by man?
First of all, we have to come to the assumption that we're the only humans, that we're the
only living sentient beings on this planet that can keep time.
I mean, there might be other planets, but this isn't a conversation about that with
people on it.
But we are the only people that I know of, the only species that keeps time the way
we do.
And the practice of recording human age began in ancient times, where we have the earliest
recorded systems of weights and measures, which include the measurement of time and age,
way back in the third or fourth millennium BC.
I mean, we're talking about civilizations such as those in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
These civilizations needed to measure systems for practical purposes like agriculture, you
know, for trade and for legal systems.
So the practice likely evolved from the necessity to track seasonal cycles in life stages for
social and religious reasons.
This helped aid in the structuring of societies and their respective rituals and norms.
So age itself is manmade in the sense of how we keep age for ourselves.
So when you think about it, we said, this age, this age, this happens to us in society.
This is supposed to happen.
This is the rituals we go through.
This is when we become a man or a woman.
And it certainly has tied to your biological clock for men and women, especially for women,
when you, when you start your period and you become a woman, so to speak, you know, or
you have your quinceanera in the Latin cultures or your sweet 16, you become a woman type of
thing.
So age is relevant and keep in track of that.
But that's all the age is for.
It has nothing to do with your ability to succeed.
That again is a myth.
And we're going to get into that.
We're going to keep getting into that.
We're pushing that down your mind.
So you understand that age is nothing but a number in that it's fictional reality in
the sense of your ability to achieve what you want to in your life.
And I'm going to give you plenty of examples of people who have been successful after 40,
50, 60, 70, 80, 90.
Folks it's true.
Okay, we'll get into that.
Don't get me wrong folks.
Age recording age has benefits to society and especially with someone like with OCD
like myself, I like to categorize things and having spent 30 years in marketing.
Age is relevant because it's based on the products that we sell, the messaging that
we create and the legality of people's ages, whether they can buy or not buy a product.
So age has its place and keeping that age, but it doesn't necessarily translate into
success.
I think the only time that age might play a factor in someone's success, if it has to
do with their cognition, if somebody has cognitive impairment and can't do basic functions, then
I think age at that point is going to play a factor for anything they do and has nothing
to do with success.
But success themselves could be the fact that they're walking or talking or eating or whatever
it might be at any age and that still could be successful.
So that brings me to the topic, what is success?
We know that age is a fictional reality in the sense of achieving your dreams and your
goals and becoming successful.
It has a practical application in how we categorize humanity and our life events, but when it
comes to an individual's ability to succeed, it's irrelevant, completely 100% irrelevant.
You're going to have to rewrite that script in your head and we'll talk about that.
But success is another fictional reality inside your head.
It's another thing that you're taught, oh, you've got to go to this school or you've
got to work at this job or you've got to have this career, you've got to make this
kind of money or drive this kind of car, then you're successful.
Nonsense.
Success itself is a multifaceted and subjective concept, as I said.
Again, it's what we believe to be successful, that is success.
I think I kind of confused myself on that one.
Whatever we think success is, is success.
But for the sake of our discussion, so that we don't get into a debate here with people
sending me emails about success, we're going to limit success to personal and professional
achievements, be it family, fame, wealth, physical strength, building a business or anything
that comes along the lines of personal or professional achievement.
We're going to simplify this, we're just going to stick to that, those topics defining success.
Okay, folks, when we come back, we're going to define the various ways in which this myth
has perpetuated itself.
We're going to discuss, there's four different reasons why this myth still lives on in us.
And we're going to break that down, I'm going to give you some successful people who've
been successful after the age of 40, all the way up until after the age of 90.
And these are just the famous people that gained fame.
There are a lot of people that have become successful that aren't famous, but they're
successful because their success is different than these other peoples that we're going
to talk about.
Okay.
And then we'll get into the strategies for getting the script out of your head, just
rewriting, deprogramming it and reprogramming your mind.
All right, that's when we come back.
So why do we think that we are too old to succeed?
I mean, there's several reasons why this myth persists in our society, in our thinking.
And the first one that I'm going to cover is that we tend to be biased towards a younger
crowd.
We tend to believe that they're more innovative and have more energy, basically undervaluing
the experience and the wisdom that us older cats have, you know, as far as understanding.
And I find that to be the opposite.
I think in reality, the first thing that you should think about is younger people really
don't have that wisdom.
How can they be more innovative?
They may not be stuck in this perpetual script of a certain way of thinking true, but when
it comes to innovation, don't you think for one second that the age has a benefit?
The more experience you have, which usually equates to an older generation, the more innovative
you can be because you can draw upon all that experience and be innovative in your thinking
and in your creation.
So to write off the bat, that should be the first Lithmus test for you when you're trying
to debunk this myth.
The fact that younger people are innovative, now they might have more energy granted when
I get up in the morning, my back hurts, I'm in pain, I have zero energy, trust me.
But as the day goes on, my energy progresses and if I eat healthy, get rest and exercise,
I have the energy of a 20 year old.
At least I like to think so.
In my mind, I do.
I don't feel like I'm a day over 19.
But in any event, you have to understand that this perpetual myth that the younger generation
is more innovative is completely malarkey.
It's a myth.
It's not even real.
Because if you look at average CEOs, they're not in their 20s or 30s.
The media likes to play that up.
And then that's what our next reason is for why this myth of being too old to be successful
perpetuates itself is that the media representation, success stories in the media often focused
on young entrepreneurs and prodigies.
How many prodigies are out there?
A dozen?
Five?
One?
You keep hearing a couple of them.
Like the Mark Zuckerbergs when they were young.
They were in college.
Okay.
There's one.
There might be a couple more.
But in reality, is that what you want as success?
A tech company?
You can do that in your 40s, 50s, 60s.
You don't have to be young.
You could take all that experience with you.
So the media represents basically the success stories of the youth, of the young entrepreneurs
basically skewing our perception of what success is and when success happens.
And the fact that it happens at a younger age and nothing to be further from the truth
again.
So we've got, we've got the societal bias towards younger people saying that they're
innovative and have more energy and the media coming out and saying, oh, we're going to
highlight a few stories of these young entrepreneurs and we get into our mind that, oh my God,
you have to be young.
You have to be this, this young 20 year old, you know, in college or right out of college
to be successful.
And again, those are just myths.
They're perceptions.
They're not based in any scientific reality whatsoever.
And here's another one.
There is a misconception of success that success happens at a fixed point or peak in early
life.
We think that you have to be at 25 success has to happen or forget about it.
And again, not true.
I don't even know where that myth comes from.
It's just a misconception of our society that we believe that.
And again, that's probably perpetuated through the media and our own bias towards the younger
generation having that innovative mind when it's not really true.
And then we have the justifications for personal shortcomings, folks.
I mean, this myth basically is used defensively by the person or the individual to justify
them not achieving their perceived success, or it could be to reflect deeper social anxieties
about aging and productivity.
So all of the stuff that we've talked about can get into your mind and then you'd begin
to justify it, you know, for your personal shortcomings.
I'm too old.
I should have started at this age.
You know, you might not believe that you can achieve it.
There might be a lot more going on, but really it comes down to just justifying, you know,
your shortcomings, which again is in your mind.
It's in your head.
It's in that script that you've been programmed to think.
Okay, so we're going to talk about some of the people that have been very successful in
life after the age of 40.
In fact, after the age of 50, 60 and 70.
And the first one I'm going to bring up and you probably, you already know this person.
It's Colonel Sanders, you know, Kentucky Fried Chicken, the KFC guy.
I know and people are being, well, this is the only one that I ever hear about.
Well, no, there's a lot of them, a lot of people that have been successful, but he's
been very successful.
This is just an example of somebody older who became very successful, meaning you can
achieve that.
I mean, Colonel Sanders, he didn't begin his franchise, I mean, franchise restaurant,
you know, idea KFC and his fried chicken until he was age 65 folks, 65 years old.
I mean, if you haven't heard of KFC by now, then you're probably, you probably, you probably
don't like chicken.
I mean, I can't imagine anybody in this country, even outside of this country, because KFC
is all over the world.
But Ray Kroc, another one, Ray Kroc was a shake salesman.
He was 52 years old when he joined McDonald's, basically transforming it from a, from just
a standalone place up here in San Bernardino, California to a international franchise.
52 years old.
Now you, now that's a little, to me, that's young, but 65 is a good age.
I mean, you have Julia Childs, you know, the celebrated American chef and author and television
personality, whose first book was published at 49, became a TV show host on the French
chef at age 51.
I mean, Laura Engle Wilder, Laura Ingles Wilder, if you've, if you're, if you're of age, then
you'll know Little House on the Prairie, the show.
This is what Little House on the Prairie was based on, Laura Engle Wilder's books.
She didn't begin writing her books until she was in her 60s and published her first book
at the age of 65, which later went on to become The Little House on the Prairie, a very successful
television series.
I mean, Vera Wang, a fashion designer, she became a designer at the age of 40.
She was a figure skater and a journalist before that.
I mean, how do you go from a figure skater and a journalist to a fashion designer?
Very popular brand, Vera Wang.
So she's not only, she not only, you know, switched careers, which a lot of people do,
switched careers mid life.
I mean, she became a very famous fashion designer.
You have Ann Mary Roberts Moses, also known as Grandma Moses.
She didn't begin painting until age 78.
This is due to arthritis in our hands, where she couldn't do embroidery anymore.
And she wasn't a famous embroiderer.
She just did embroidery, but decided to turn to painting, which later made her famous.
I mean, she kept painting up until the death, her death, up until age 101.
And then you have Fajah Singh, ran his first marathon at the age of 89 and ran until he
was 100.
So what am I saying to you folks?
The big takeaway here is, yes, these people are famous, but they're not born famous.
They have achieved fame based on what they've accomplished at their age.
It doesn't matter how old you are to be successful and forget about their fame.
They're just a few.
There are many more who have reached that level of success that have not made it into
the media and that's okay.
And these were probably their mentors or their role models.
The point I'm trying to drive into your mind is that you're not too old to succeed, not
in the least bit.
And there's scientific proof to prove that, which I turned to the formula, the universal
law of success by Albert Laszlo Barbazai.
I can't even pronounce his name.
I'm sorry.
He offers, you know, insightful analysis into the dynamics of success, basically challenging
traditional views and highlighting often overlooked factors that influence success.
I'm going to go through his, uh, his key points quickly.
This is based on research and science that he's done.
And basically his science was looking at scientists, theoretical physicists like Einstein, who
believed that if you hadn't peaked in your thirties, then success was not going to happen
to you as a scientist later in age, where Laszlo basically said, Balarke.
And then his research found that it was actually older scientists in their 50s, 60s and 70s
who became successful in their research, which led him to write this book.
Basically Laszlo Barbazai, I'll call him Barbazai because I mean, that's, I can't pronounce
his name.
I'll call him Barbazai.
Um, basically challenge the notion that success is predominantly achieved at a young age.
Basically what he's saying is that success can happen at any age and it's really not
contingent on age, but his analysis indicates that what matters is the continuous effort
and persistent in your field and what you're doing.
If you're consistent, we consistency, I mean, that's a whole, that's a whole different podcast.
I'm talking about the importance and value of consistency because there's two schools
of thoughts on that.
But basically if you're consistent and you're persistent, it's achievable.
Your success is achievable.
I believe that, I believe that because anytime I've set forth and set my goals and I've become,
I've written them down, I've developed my strategy and I've been consistent.
I have achieved that success, mastering software, writing a book.
It doesn't matter.
I have achieved success every time I set out to be consistent and persistent.
It's when I drop off and decide I don't want to do it that I don't gain success.
And that's, that's obvious.
And it doesn't matter what age you are.
And here's another kicker that discovered in the book, the formula, is that it doesn't
have to do with talent.
Because I know some of you are going like, oh, these are, some of the people are talented.
I'm not talented.
That's not true.
It has to do with your network.
Who's in your network?
If you don't have anybody in your network, go find people to put in your network.
Begin to network with people.
If you're a senior citizen, whatever that means nowadays, if you're 50, 60, 70, find
people that can help you, that can network with you, that can give you ideas, that can
support you, that can guide you.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
And it's easy to make friends.
You just have to get out of your comfort zone.
And I know there's a lot of older people out there that they're stuck in their ways.
Folks, if you want to be successful, you got to get out of that mold that you're in.
You actually have to break free of that, get into your discomfort zone and begin to feel
uncomfortable.
And that's when you begin to grow and begin to see progress.
It's not when you're sitting in your home watching reruns of the Price is Right game
show or whatever, Hogan's Hero or any of those other shows back in the 60s and 70s.
And basically in your networks here, you want to be in networks that offer diversity, where
information flows.
And when I mean information flows, you can exchange information with other people, get
information, exchange, share ideas.
Let them know who you are.
Let them know what you do.
There's nothing wrong with saying, hey, I'm a new real estate guy.
I'm 67 years old and I just got my real estate license and I want to sell houses, you know?
Just let people know what you want to do.
Build that network up.
But here's the thing.
You can be very well connected, but if you don't perform, forget about success.
Again, performance comes back to being consistent and producing quality work.
So if you're going to do this half-assed and say, I just want to be a real estate agent
or I want to be a, you know, a business owner and I'm just going to kind of go through the
motions.
I'm 50.
I'm entitled to this.
That's not going to happen.
You're going to have to perform.
You're going to have to be consistent.
You're going to have to be persistent.
Then your network can help you.
It doesn't matter how well connected you are if you're not doing any of that stuff.
It really doesn't.
Because at that point, you're not producing anything.
You're not producing quality.
You're not out there, you know, doing what you need to do to be successful.
So don't even think that's going to happen at that point.
And folks, the takeaway from the book, the formula is that success can happen at any
age to anyone across any type of profession.
Whether you want to be an artist, a physicist, a writer, a banker, a broker, a realtor, whatever
it is you want to be, a site hustler, you know, an online business entrepreneur.
It doesn't matter the industry that you're in.
The formula basically is consistent, persistent, build networks.
And you know what?
Fake it till you make it.
If you don't have success behind you already, fabricate the success.
You can embellish a little bit to help yourself get noticed.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I mean, I wouldn't flat out lie, but embellish your story a little bit.
Build credibility.
Build success that you've already done.
And embellish that because that alone will help you even get further with your network.
Okay.
So our key takeaways in this segment is that, again, you're running a script in your mind
that you're thinking you're too old to succeed and that is a myth.
It's not true.
It's based upon, you know, society, societal thinking, our belief systems, the media, how
it portrays younger folks versus an aging population and so forth.
We also understand that there have been people who have been very successful at a later time,
at a later date in their life.
There's countless numbers of people, not just a few that I read.
There's countless numbers of them.
And we understand that science is on our side as we age because really it doesn't have anything
to do with age.
And remember age is just a number.
It's fabricated by man in a sense of how we categorize our life span, put us in the little
nice little chunks or groups.
But what it comes down to is how persistent you are, how consistent you are, the quality
of your work and how well you network with people and get out there.
And you do that, I will guarantee you will be successful because I've seen it happen.
I've seen it happen with me and others who are persistent.
It comes down to what is the price you're willing to pay to be successful?
What is it you're willing to do and you got to go do that?
I know easier said than done, but you don't have to be young to be successful.
Okay, when we come back, we're going to talk about rewriting the success scripts.
How we can get you to change your thinking.
That's when we come back.
How do we rewrite these success scripts in our head?
How do we get out of this?
But first we need to understand one thing.
Okay, so the success scripts basically are internalized beliefs.
They're how we believe and they're perpetuated by what we talked about earlier.
They're perpetuated by cultural messages.
They're influenced by the media, personal experiences, early education and even parental
guidance.
Our parents, like in my case, basically wrote that script in my head telling me that after
a certain age you're too old to achieve anything.
And that's not true.
That's absolutely not true.
So we have to understand that success scripts are internalized in our own thinking based
on societal and impact on society and what other people say and do.
Once we realize that, we can realize that it's just a bunch of BS.
We can move on beyond that.
Begin to realize this is not true, but I can achieve.
But the challenge is, is you're going to have to get these common scripts that affect you,
such as I'm too old to start a new venture, innovation is a young person's game, or the
opportunities diminish as one ages.
These are all again BS.
These scripts lead to self-doubt, folks.
They reduce your ambition and lead to a withdrawal from you pursuing any new goals.
All this can affect your personal and professional life very significantly.
It can actually cause you to get a divorce.
And I'm not laughing at the fact that you can get a divorce, but there have been people.
I knew a couple, let me tell you a true story here.
I knew a couple where the wife would beat emotionally, I'm not physically, but beat
the husband up basically saying, why weren't you successful?
Because she would base what their life should be on a wealthier family's life.
So she would always complain to him, well, if you would have done this, we could have
been successful and wealthy and we would have been like the Joneses, for example.
This is a true story.
I've heard this couple argue over that.
It created such stress in their marriage.
I mean, they didn't get divorced, but they didn't have a very pleasant lifestyle either.
There was always misery and discomfort because she was always holding him to a higher standard
because she saw another couple who had a lot of wealth, who were successful in her eyes,
and he didn't believe that he can be successful.
So that belief system led to the lifestyle that they lived, which was unhappy.
So it has an impact on you when you think that way, whether you think it or not.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to take, not right now if you're driving, but if you're sitting down or later
this evening or wherever you are, whenever, what time of day it doesn't really matter,
start a journal in self-reflection to uncover your personal success scripts.
Things you want to write down are, you know, what stops me from starting new projects?
Or do I feel my age affects my professional credibility?
So for example, if you're, I'll use the real estate example again, if you're wanting to
be a very successful realtor and you're 67 years old, you basically want to ask yourself,
what stops me from starting that career?
What's stopping you?
Is it yourself limiting beliefs that you're too old?
Well, that's, that's not an excuse.
It's a myth.
We've already talked about how it's not true.
We've seen examples, talked about examples of people who've made it.
There's countless other people.
So you want to keep a journal.
And when you write this journal or when you keep this journal, I would open up to some
trusted peers.
Now here's what I'm talking about, trusted peers.
Don't go to people who are already negative, who think negatively.
Don't go to people who have not achieved the success that you want to achieve because there,
even though they want the best for you, they're going to play it safe and tell you not to
do it or you're too old or you should have started, blah, blah, blah.
Okay.
You want to go to people that find people that are successful in that field, whatever that
field is or area and have them help you, have them mentor you.
And you might know these people and they don't have to be famous people, folks.
They can just be anybody who's been successful in the field that you want to be successful
in.
If it's an author, find that a local author, look around, go to the bookstore or library,
look around, you know, maybe contact somebody online, an author that you like that's, you
know, you find successful and gain some feedback from them.
Ask them what their journey was like.
You know, if they say they started young, that's fine.
It's okay.
That's what they did.
But ask them for some pointers.
Let them know what you're struggling with.
Successful people are going to help you out.
It's the unsuccessful people, the people that are miserable, that couldn't do it, that don't
want to do it or too lazy to do it.
They're not going to, they're not going to offer you any positive suggestions or positive
guidance.
And every time you have a thought that comes in your head, I want you to stop and think,
write it down or think about it.
You know, is this a rational, logical thought of limiting beliefs or is this completely irrational?
And it probably is irrational.
I mean, if you say something like I want to be a, okay, so if I want to go into the military
at the age of 50, I'm not going to be able to go into the military at the age of 50.
That's a reality.
Okay.
So no, you're going to have to strike that goal.
There are ways though, from what I understand, you could become a medical doctor and in some
cases they'll take you in your fifties or sixties, you know, if they need you.
But for the most part, if you want to go be a grunt in the army or the Marines and you're
in your fifties, that's got to be off your list.
Okay.
There's just some limit to this success thing.
If you want to be an artist, if you want to be a designer, if you want to be a business
person, start a business, then you're going to have to eliminate those self-limiting beliefs.
You're going to have to recognize that what you're thinking is not a rational thought,
it's completely irrational because you can achieve that.
It's been proven, we've talked about it, and it's not out of the realm of possibility at
all regardless of your age.
And you want to reframe your thinking.
What I mean is, if you're saying things like, I'm too old to start a business, you may want
to switch that to my years of experience to give me a unique advantage in starting a business.
You see how we reframe that?
It's like a spin doctor in politics where they spin it, just spin it to yourself because
it's just a string of words that create a meaning in your mind.
So if you're saying, I'm too old to start a business, you're right.
But if you say, look at the wisdom that I have at my age, it's a benefit to starting
a business, you're right.
It depends on which way you want to go.
If you want to stay in a state of negativity, then go with the former, I'm too old to start
a business.
But again, just remember that it has nothing to do with your age, but everything to do
with your thinking.
So change your thinking, and you begin to see your progress, you begin to see your movement
towards the success that you want to achieve.
So reframe your thoughts, folks, reframe your thoughts.
Take what you have negative about being successful at an older age and change that to a positive.
So you also want to visualize it.
They've done studies on visualization.
And visualization actually does improve performance, especially in athletes, but you don't have
to be an athlete to visualize.
I mean, you can constantly set positive affirmations like my age adds valuable perspective and
wisdom to my endeavors and constantly say that to yourself.
Because basically what you're going to be doing is you're going to be rewiring rewiring
your brain.
You're going to be taking that negativity that you have in your brain that I can't achieve.
And you're going to be saying that there's an advantage to my age and that advantages
I bring a lot of wisdom and experience a lot more than the younger generation has set goals,
set smart goals, and goals that are very specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time bound.
Don't say I want to be an astronaut at the age of 60.
It's not impossible because we've seen that with the exploration of the commercialized
space programs.
However, in reality, if you don't have the money to dish out, that's probably not something
that's realistic, but you could work in a space program, so to speak.
So keep your goals specific, be able to measure them, make sure they are attainable, make sure
they're realistic based on your goals, not unrealistic goals and their time bound set
a timeframe for them and work towards that timeframe.
And one thing that's one of my biggest, it's the number one on my list is continuous learning.
Don't stop learning.
And I'm not saying you have to go sit in a classroom somewhere at your age, pick up
a book, read a book, take an online course, watch a documentary, talk to people who've
experienced what you want to experience.
Always be learning because learning leads to growth and growth is what leads to your
success.
Okay, so what I want to do now is help you leverage your age as an asset so we can start
to change your thinking.
Forget about the youth.
Get rid of them.
We don't need them anyway.
They're too young.
They don't know what they're talking about and they're not very innovative or creative
anyway.
So the first thing is understand that your age is an advantage.
It's the accumulation of resources and wisdom in the expansive network that you have that
you could bring to the table that's a significant advantage to you to become successful.
I mean, you've got professional settings, you've got personal projects you've done,
a whole host of stuff in your lifetime that you can leverage as experience to help you
get to that level of success that you're looking for.
So begin to change the cultural mindset, the cultural perception that you have that you're
too old to achieve to wonder where your age is a benefit and a value, not a hindrance.
Because age with age comes basically all that experience I talked about.
It provides a broader perspective that is invaluable in problem solving, strategic thinking, and
innovation.
It's the opposite of what society tells us where society says younger people are more
innovative.
That is not true.
It is the older folks that have more of the innovation because of their wisdom, of their
experience, of everything they've gone through.
They could bring all that knowledge to the table and begin to shape it and mold it into
innovative ideas that lead them down the path of success, whatever that success is to them.
And another thing you have at your age is a network of people that you're connected
to.
Be it family, friends, coworkers, previous coworkers, colleagues, you have a richer network
of people that are more established and wiser than a younger generation has.
Sure, a 20-year-old might have 40, 50 friends, but are they really friends and do they really
know anything?
Whereas a 40-year-old, a 50, 60, 70, 80-year-old, they're going to know more people, they're
going to know more, they are going to know more quality people, and these people would
also have the experience and wisdom that they can bounce ideas off of and share and develop.
So again, leverage your age and your network of people to help you become successful.
Look, a lot of this here, to change society, it's a group effort, folks.
It's not just one person's job.
We have to change the script.
We have to change how society looks at people 40 and older, especially in their 60s or 70s.
We live our life thinking we're going to go get a job, we're going to work in this job
for 20, 30, 40 years, then we're going to retire old and sit on a couch or take cruises or whatever
old people are supposed to do.
There's nothing further from the truth.
I will work to the day I die, and what I mean is I will work not for someone else, I will
work for myself until the day I die, because I enjoy what I do.
But that's because I debunk all the myths and snub my nose at them because I don't believe
any of them because it's all fabricated in the mind.
It's all inside your head, it's self-limiting, it puts you in a box, it says you cannot do
something and when someone tells me I cannot do something, I do the opposite, I go and
do it.
And that's how you should be.
We should begin to reshape the thinking of society that age, wisdom is where it's at.
Age and wisdom are innovative.
We need to begin to reshape society's thinking about the older generation and that we bring
wisdom, we bring experience, we bring networks of people, connections that provide lots of
value.
If you're over 40 or over 50 or even over 60 and you're out looking for a professional
job, you know it's hard, right?
Everybody wants to hire somebody younger.
That's because they believe younger people are more innovative.
To kids today, I'm telling you right now, they don't even want to work.
They don't have the work ethic that my generation has.
They just want to come and do what they want, they want all this feel good stuff and that's
not reality.
I mean, that's their reality, that's not my reality.
So we have to begin to reshape how people think about the aging by explaining and reframing
the conversation and saying that it's the older wiser person that brings to the table
the innovation and not the younger person.
And this is not the knock young people.
I mean, they have a place in society as well.
And we can all coexist.
But what the message I'm trying to get to you is to get out of that thinking that you're
too old to do achieve, you're too old to do anything because none of that is true.
It's zero truth in any of that.
In one way, you can kind of celebrate your achievements and your progress towards your
success is to celebrate your milestones.
Even if you're out there trying to reframe people's thinking, set milestones, set goals
and celebrate them.
Because when you celebrate those small wins towards your achievement, it begins to boost
your motivation even more.
And you begin to see the progress, which helps fuel your passion and your motivation to keep
moving forward.
So my hope is that if you'd listened to the podcast this far, first off, thank you very
much from the bottom of my heart.
I mean that sincerely.
I really do.
I appreciate it.
But I want you to walk away knowing that you are completely capable and that and if you
think you're too old to succeed, just know that that is an irrational thought inside
of your mind that's been placed there by societal conditioning, parents, education, other outside
influence, the media and all that other stuff.
And it might be a little challenging to override it, but you can override it with positive affirmation.
You can override it by deciding today is the day I'm going to start to be successful.
I'm going to move myself forward.
My age is irrelevant.
Age is a fabricated thing anyway to place us in the little compartments in our life cycle
that's manmade.
So it really has no bearing on the reality that I can be a successful and I can achieve.
I mean, we've emphasized that age should not be seen as a barrier, but rather a unique
asset.
You're unique at your age.
I mean, the wealth of experience, wisdom and established networks that come with age are
invaluable.
They're invaluable folks and valuable resources that can be leveraged for any type of success
across any type of industry.
So as we close this episode, I want you to remember that your age is a testament to your
journey with each year adding layers.
I'm talking layers of depth and strength to your character.
So you're not, you're not getting younger.
You're getting older and with each year that you get older, you're adding more experience
to your character.
Despite the fact that we celebrate youth, you need to stand tall and be proud of the
years you carry because each moment of your past has prepared you for today and beyond.
And that's no bull.
You have to look at your whole life experience as preparation for your success.
And success isn't overnight folks.
People struggle 20, 30 years and then all of a sudden they hit that success threshold
and they're successful.
And I'm not saying that you haven't struggled 20 or 30 years.
You might be 60 years old.
That's 60 years of struggle right there folks because everything behind you is the experience
that's led you to where you are today.
My assignment to you is a challenge of status quo.
Let society dictate the bounds of your aspirations, of your goals, of your dreams.
So whether you're seeking to start a new venture, change careers or achieve personal
growth, know that your age is not just a number.
It's a badge of honor folks.
Wear it with honor.
It's a collection of insights and the toolkit of skills honed over your lifetime.
So step forward with confidence and let your experience be your guide and your age a beacon
that lights the way forward.
I want to thank you for listening.
I really appreciate you.
Until next time.
I'm Alan Stafford and this is Life on Safety.