By Steve Moran

Chip Conley (The Modern Elder) recently wrote about having a future funeral. The idea is that you get to tell your own story in your own way. It seems kind of creepy to me, and maybe even a little egocentric. Though I confess to being completely captivated by Ken Dychtwald’s recent memoir, Radical Curiosity. And when I think about it there is not much difference between a “future funeral” and a memoir.

So maybe this all needs some rethinking.

But Chip writes this:

“I happened to have crafted my Future CV when I turned 70. This part elaborates on what I intend to do for the rest of my life. I added that it seems that the peak of my life has not arrived yet.”

For me at age 66 writing a CV for 70 seems more like putting down some near team goals for my life than some kind of terminal, peak accomplishment. I really like this idea of thinking about what my life will look like when I am maybe not 70, but 80, 85, or 90.

Terminal Impact

What is critical for me is this big idea that “the peak of my life has not arrived yet.” I confess that where I am right now in my life blows me away because I am having a bigger impact on the world than I could have ever imagined even 10 years ago.

But I also know that my potential to improve the lives of other people is higher right now today than it ever has been.

Things Worth Thinking About

  1. I am not going to write my 80 year CV. But I am going to start thinking about it and will share it in the future. Though it will probably take the form of a story of what can be.
  2. I would love to hear what your 80-year-old, 90-year-old, 70-year-old story might look like. As you write it, dream big.
  3. I find myself more and more wondering how much different senior living would be if we assumed our residents had not yet peaked.

As I grow older, I find myself wondering, worrying, thinking that senior living’s greatest missed opportunity, and therefore our easiest low-hanging fruit, is rethinking what living in senior living looks like. What if we assumed that residents had more to get, more to learn, more to grow?