From Striving to Serenity: Navigating the Second Half of Life

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What's working on purpose anyway? Each
week we ponder the answer to this question.

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People ache for meaning and purpose at
work to contribute their talents passionately and

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know their lives really matter. They
crave being part of an organization that inspires

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them and helps them grow into realizing
their highest potential business can be such a

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force for good in the world,
elevating humanity. In our program, we

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provide guidance and inspiration to help usher
in this world we all want working on

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purpose. Now Here is your host, doctor Elise Cortez. Hi there,

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Welcome back to the Working and Purpose
Program fixtor tuning in again this week.

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I'm your host, doctor Elis Cortez
too, a newli from Dallas, which

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is home base for me. If
you don't know me yet, I'm a

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management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose, organizational lago therapists, inspirational speaker,

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social scientists, and author. I
help companies discover and articulate their purpose to

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thread of through culture and operations at
work with organizations to develop inspirational leaders who

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create cultures where people actually want to
come to work and do their best.

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And I provide programs like the Grab
Your Gusto that enable individual team members to

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discover an unlease their passion and purpose
at work to catalyze fulfillment, engagement in

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productivity. You can learn more about
me and how we can work together at

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Alis Cortez dot com or Gusteau dashnow
dot com. Let me thank my partner

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and sponsor work Proud. We are
a perfect collaboration. Everyone wants to know

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they matter and that the work they
do is meaningful and appreciated. Work Proud

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helps companies to adjust that through their
mobile platform that is built to encourage employees

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to share stories and recognize each other's
contribution. Work Proud empowers hr and business

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leaders to help create company cultures where
all employees are inspired to feel proud of

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their work and proud of their company. Learn more about work Proud and the

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recent study they've commissioned about pride in
the workplace at workproud dot com With us

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today are two learned rabbi women.
Rabbi Maka Drucker has written twenty one books,

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including The Southwest Pet Penn Award winner
White Fire, a Portrait of Women

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Spiritual Leaders in America and Christopher Award
winner Rescuers, Portraits of moral courage in

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Holocaust. She was most recently the
Rabbi of Temple Har Shalom in Idlewood,

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California, from twenty sixteen twenty twenty
one. Also with us is Rabbi Nadia

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Gross. She's the director of the
Hashbaya training program with for Jewish spiritual Directors

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in the alef Ordination Program. Together, they co authored Embracing Wisdom, Soaring

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in the Second Half of Life,
which will be discussing today. Rabbi Markol

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joins the day from Santa Barbara,
California, and Rabbi Nadia's coming in from

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Boulder, Colorado. Nadia and Malka, welcome to Working on Purpose. Thank

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you, thank you. It's so
great to have you both here. And

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you know, as you know,
this show is really designed to be able

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to help develop conscious leaders who are
trying to elevate people in the workplace,

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and we do business at matters of
the world. And the reason I wanted

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to have the two of you on
is because I think that the work that

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you're doing to really steward people from
aging to saging, as you say,

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is really a critical element and a
dimension and a lifeline for us as we

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continue our trek through the world of
work, and I think what you put

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forth is so important because, as
you say in your book, you know

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increasingly more of the elder population is
getting pushed out of the workplace when they

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don't want to. They're so much
more to offer. Still, So as

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we settle into our conversation today,
I want to first start by talking about

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just how in the world that it
happened that the two of you came together

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to write this book. It came
out in twenty nineteen. How did the

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magic happen? Well, at least
I can tell you that way back in

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two thousand nine or two thousand and
ten, as Malka entered a program that

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I was on the faculty to train
saging mentors, to train people to deliver

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this work from aging to saging that
was sourced in our teacher, Rabbi Zalman

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Jack Shlomi, And of course I
was getting to know Malca. We were

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developing a friendship. I knew that
she was an amazing writer, and during

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the two years of that training program, I brought to her a workbook that

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I used when I trained, end
of Life duelas a workbook on for people

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who were dying which I thought was
fabulous. And I said to Malca,

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this work needs a workbook like this. I think you should write it right.

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And Malca, Malca, I think
probably thought about it for about twenty

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seconds and said, well, I'll
write it if you'll write it with me,

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So tell us about right. So
that's where the idea began. She

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insisted that I'd had more content.
Of course, she's also, you know,

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my elder. She likes to remind
me often that she's ten years older

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than me, and therefore we also
had that span of perspective. I had

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been doing the saging work since before
I was fifty, and so really became

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my spiritual practice for eldering through the
decades. We got Rabbi Zalman Shakter Schelomi

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was still alive then, and Malka
brought the idea to him and he blessed

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us on this endeavor. And then
life got in the way. Both she

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and I were busy with many,
many other things, and in twenty fourteen,

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our beloved reb Zalman died, and
some time after that Malka came to

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me and said, well, we
got the blessing, so I think we

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need to do this job and we
began our process of working together and living

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in two different parts of the country. We would get together on Skype that

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was before zoom, and we had
our book on a Google doc which meant

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that we could see what was being
written live at the same time, and

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we started our process. We would
engage in conversation with each other. We

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would imagine what this next chapter was
about, and then one of us would

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begin to write, and the other
would edit what the other one was writing,

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and then the next one would take
over, and and so the book

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was written as a conversation, really
in conversation and in relationship, and in

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the process I learned how to write
a book from my beloved elder, who

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is really the expert. How beautiful. I'm so grateful that that came together.

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As you we were talking about before
we got on air. I read

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your book cover to cover as I
do all of my guests, and of

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course I take copiats notes, and
I want to do next really share some

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of the points that I thought were
really really pertinent to what I know my

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listeners have surfaced over the years,
and so I'll do what I do for

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a lot of these conversations where we're
kind of dig deep into the real beautiful

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depth of what you wrote about,
and have you really kind of expand on

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that. So one of the first
things that I wanted to talk about is

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just really the promise of what you're
putting forth in the book. You know,

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people talk about, oh I'm getting
old, you know, I can't

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do as much as much energy,
oh whatever. But what I appreciated about

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what you've done in your book,
among other things, is you talk about

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this own opening new space. And
so if we situated in context, you

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talk about how Eric Ericson, who
was the early twentieth century developmental psychologist,

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saw eight life stages from birth to
death, and his seventh stage, which

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is adulthood, spans twenty six to
sixty four, which is crazy, and

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the eighth stage, which he called
old age, is from sixty five to

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death. And yet in the twenty
first century, we are enjoying a brand

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new developmental stage never known to the
generations preceding us, a chapter as significant

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as an lessons you say, tell
us more, that's beautiful, Well,

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thank you. Alse I actually learned
about the new stage from Mary Catherine Bateson

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who died this year, and in
her book Composing a further life. And

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it was she who suggested the notion
of adulthood too, because this is our

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generation is revolutionary and that no generation
before us has had this length of time

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to jestate wisdom. So we have
this extended period to now to harvest not

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only because we've live we get to
live long enough, but also because we

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live at a time where technology has
given us tools to harvest from many other

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faith traditions besides our own, to
really see different approaches to aging. And

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we've often said, you know that
that if you were a child, perhaps

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growing up in India, especially out
of the cities but in villages, that

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who would you want to be when
you grew up your grandparents because they were

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the ones who wore listened to.
They're the ones who respect it. In

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a traditional indigenous societies. We have
grown up at a time of the industrial

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revolution where it's the opposite. The
faster you are this, you know,

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the younger you are, the more
advantage you have. There's no such thing

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as apprenticeship anymore. So that we
you know, we really saw that in

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fact here we were given this time, the sense we were given this time.

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Then it becomes a great discovery of
why what is there for us to

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learn? Okay, and that brings
me to the next point. Thank you

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for that, mom, because that
was just yummy, And just you did

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something similar to what you just did
there in the book, which was just

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so great. So why is that
interesting to me somebody who's who's totally anchored

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in meaning and purpose. You then
go on kind of extending that idea.

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You share a quote by Rabbi Salman
Shakter Salomi Salomi, You say that he

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says, why should anyone live longer
than the time of begetting and raising children?

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If we do live longer, then
nature must have a task. There

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must be some kind of purpose.
The purpose is and I love this phrase

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to hothouse consciousness generation by generation so
that the older generation and can transmit something

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to the younger. Yes, yes, and yes, yes indeed so Rebbi

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Zalman Shakter Shalomy we call him reb
Zalman, so it's an easier way to

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refer to him. Reb Zalman,
our teacher and really the founder of this

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work and started the whole process of
spiritual eldering way back in the early nineties.

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He consciousness purpose, meaning, those
were those were the tools that he

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worked with those Those were the things
that gave his life juice. In fact,

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he's quoted as saying, the afterlife
I can look forward to is that

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I'll be able to pour all my
experience into the storehouse of the planet so

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that human awareness can grow a little
more. So he his whole idea this

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hot housing consciousness, right, was
that we as humanity are continuously consciously evolving,

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and with that evolution, we want
to transmit We want to capture it,

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hot house it, let it grow, and transmit it to the next

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generation. And he developed ideas about
mentoring, and he saw mentoring as a

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two way relationship, not just the
elder pouring information in a funnel into the

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head of the younger, but that
relational aspect. And with every relationship he

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felt his consciousness grew and expanded.
And so that was what he saw as

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our opportunity. When we grow to
that beyond the child rearing years where we're

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no longer totally focused on our own
children, our own family or whatever children

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were engaged with. What do we
do as elders, right, there is

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something that wants to be developed,
nurtured, nourished, and grown and then

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transmitted, not exactly smacks in alignment
with what I've sort of come to believe

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about this ongoing storating of consciousness through
our lives as we serve through our purpose.

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So I'm so happy that I've gotten
to know him. Even though I

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didn't get to meet him in person, I'm getting to know him through you.

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So it sounds like he and I
had an awful lot in common the

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way we think, So thank you
for that. So okay, So the

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next thing I want to get to
is you did something really gob smacking for

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me in the beginning of your book
when you introduce the notion of our lives

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as one cycle of a year,
so each one of those, so you

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know, it's twelve months basically to
comprise our whole life. And I did

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that exercise and I found it to
be extremely useful. So can you tell

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us where did this come from,
this exercise and why does it work so

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well? Why is it so efficacious? Well, at least I'd love to

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take credit for the brilliance of it, but I can't. It's actually Rebsalman's

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concept as you put together. First
of all, seven is a magic number

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in judies, and then also other
other peoples seven is a number of completion,

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so seven became a natural and apparently
there's a biological basis for this as

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well in the body that every seven
years is a certain renewal. So Rebsalmon

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took the twelve months and divided our
lots into seven year intervals, so that

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January is zero to seven and then
February eight to fourteen, et cetera.

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And what's wonderful about this, and
I'm glad that it worked for you,

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is because you take your life in
little bite what's the word four spies,

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like a little order or a little
ten. Yeah, it happen to It's

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much easier to do that and to
look at your whole life and you sit

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down, I'm going to write my
memoir. Huh. You know where do

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you start with this little bides?
Then you're able to enter into now as

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a writer, I really saw the
benefit of this as a structure for a

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memoir. That this would be that
I could teach this and say a six

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week class. I could give people
away to write for each chapter of their

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lives so far so that they would
depending on their age, you know,

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I have ten chapters or perhaps twelve
chapters, depending on how old they were,

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and that in doing that, in
doing this it look. The other

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thing is what Nady didn't say about
our working together is there were two things

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here. One is I was really
looking to write another book, and my

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passion now was turning to this work
that I was learning Nauga and other teachers.

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The other thing is I'm yet to
meet a rabbi who doesn't want to

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write a book. I know that
I can say to any rabbi in rad

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community, want to write a book
with me, They're going to say yes.

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It could be about baseball, would
be about anything. So so I

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knew that I could, you know, and I could do this. And

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I actually was feeling very much that
in doing this work as a staging mentor

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as a writer, that's the combination
of those who skills. This is really

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the moment when people perhaps have the
time and this desire. This is the

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perfectest sort of do this harvest day
of our lives. So this structure of

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the seven year, twelve months is
perfect for the harvest. So yeah,

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can hang out of this all day
long. With that though, here we

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are time for our first break.
It goes by so fast. I'm your

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host, Doctor Elise Cortez. We've
been on the air with the authors of

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Embracing Wisdom, Soaring in the Second
Half of Life. Those authors are Rabbi

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Malka Drucker and Rabbi Nado Gross.
We've been talking a bit about where the

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book came from and some of the
opportunities of living from ageing to saging.

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After the Rake, we're going to
get into this really interesting concept called recontextualizing

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our lives. Stay with us,
We'll be right back. Doctor Release Cortez

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is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose and inspirational speaker and author.

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She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose
among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and

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meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment,
performance, and commitment within the workforce.

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To learn more or to invite a
Lease to speak to your organization, please

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visit her at a Lease Cortez dot
com. Let's talk about how to get

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your employees working on purpose. This
is working on purpose with doctor Release Cortez.

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To reach our program today or open
a conversation with a Lease, send

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an email to Elise ali Se at
Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to

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working on Purpose. Thanks for staying
with us, and welcome back to working

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on Purpose. Before we get back
to the program, I do want to

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invite to check out my first book, which came out in November. It's

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called Purpose Ignited, How Inspiring Leaders
Unite Passion and late Cause. It's on

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Amazon. I wrote this book to
awakened readers to their passion and purpose and

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helped transform them into inspirational leaders that
actually help bring up people to their best.

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And I wrote it as a basis
to be able to create and serve

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from my programs like Grab Your Gust
in the Bilin Spy programs. So I

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hope you'll enjoy it if you're just
joining the program today. My guests are

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authors of Embracing Wisdom. So we're
in the second half of life, Rabbi

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mak A Drucker and Rabi Nayak Gross. Let's first before we get into some

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of that recontextualizing stuff that I think
is so fascinating, I do want to

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hit an important point that you brought
up that I wanted to talk about,

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and that is this idea of coming
to terms with our mortality. I really

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love this. As somebody who works
in in the purpose space, because purpose

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and part works because we don't get
forever. So what I thought was so

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beautiful about what you've written here,
again from Reb's Elman, when we come

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to terms with our mortality, we
enter the present moment with fearlessness, increased

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intensity, and a sense of gratitude
that makes everyone and everything seem almost unbearably

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precious. Wow. Yeah, that's
it's breathless. That's a breathless quote.

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I just I love it and and
I will let you in on little secret.

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This is one of the areas where
Malca and I had a lot of

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tussling because I had worked for many, many years in the field of death

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and dying, a trained end of
life dulas I work with people at end

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of life I've made I've become comfortable
with my own mortality and with the fact

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of mortality, and it was one
of those things that I had to get

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Malt on board with me to be
as as available to this conversation as I

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feel I am. And what I
see in this quote and what I've experienced

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in my own work, is that
the thing that fear of dying, or

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that idea that death is something that
happens to everybody else but not me right,

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which you know is a wonderful quote
from another rabbi, is we expend

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a lot of our personal energy keeping
death at bay. Right, as long

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as I ignore the fact of my
mortality, as long as I fear the

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fact of my mortality, then a
huge chunk of my personal energy is being

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devoted to keeping that door shut,
to keeping that idea at bay. When

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I come to terms with the fact
that I am mortal, and that life

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will end at some time, and
there are no guarantees, and I don't

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know when that will be. When
I come to terms with that, the

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first thing is I free up all
of that energy, yes, to be

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present to the life I am living
right now. The other pieces that when

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I acknowledge and accept the fact that
my life will end, that there are

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no guarantees, it means that this
present moment is the most precious thing I

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have, because I don't know if
there'll be a next moment or a tomorrow.

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So I so it wakes me up
to the gift of life, to

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the beauty of life, to the
magnificence of this present moment, and it

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inspires me to live fully this present
moment, not to waste the drop of

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it. And that's what reb Zalman
is saying. I believe here, and

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that's what I've come to learn in
the work that I've done all these years.

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Two things to that, not yet. One is that smacks of this

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this Japanese concept called ichiko ichigo ichia
which I had. I featured the authors

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of that idea on on my show
a couple of years ago, and it's

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the same thing that p perish this
moment because it will never come again kind

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of thing. It's what's sort of
what the concept is about. That's the

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first thing. Then what I want
to get to is, now you talk

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about this idea of mortality that on
the other maybe not the other end of

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that, but certainly on the other's
fear of that is this notion of the

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quintessential midlife crisis, which I find
so fascinating. I've it's a it's a

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believe it is a real phenomenon.
However, you know, you talk about

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it as it's this notion of something
is missing. We don't know exactly what

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it is, and it's definitely wreaking
emotional havoc on us. I've come to

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understand that it's an existential crisis and
it's a it's an important part of navigating

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our journeys. I would say yes, I agree. At least there's no

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question that it is essential. Richard
Rore has said that all the skills that

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you need for the first half of
your life are irrelevant or interfering for the

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second half of life. That sense
that you're going to live forever, so

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that you have no fear. You
just plunge into whatever it should be,

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and for a long part of your
life you get to stay up all day

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and all night and you have a
great time, and then the day comes

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or suddenly you discover you can't do
that anymore. Now, what's going to

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happen for a lot of us?
We could have come into this, as

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you say that midlife crisis doing it
as actually pathology. What is wrong with

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me? Right? What I used
to do? What you know? And

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because things like intuition which become part
of the compass of the second half of

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life, which is why that's so
you can soar in the second half of

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life. Because you don't have to
continually have the ego make every decision for

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you. You begin to listen more
carefully to something within and you may not

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have an answer to what the purpose
is. Look, let's say you have

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been, by outward standards and Western
standards, enormously successful, and everything you

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set out to get you've got.
You know, the perfect partner, you've

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got, the perfect children, the
house, the car, the work,

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everything, You've got everything hand.
Why aren't you a happy camper? Not?

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Even by the way. Where reb
Zlin began his work, he was

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sixty years old. Things were going
pretty well for him. He was doing

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fine professional and personally everything was okay. But there was this little itch,

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this little flatness, this dullness,
that he couldn't understand what it was.

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So he decided to take a forty
day retreat. And he talked about this

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in his book Where the Pioneering Book, and he says he went to Lama

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Foundation in Taos, New Mexico,
and after forty days he came down the

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mountain and he knew exactly what this
was about. It was about living in

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a society that basically tells says to
you, you might as well be dead.

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You're not reproducing anymore, you're not
working hard anymore. What's your purpose?

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So if you're in a society that
you know, and suddenly you know,

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if you're a woman in there,
no lover looked at the way you're

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once looked at twenty years ago,
and what's your value? And if you're

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a guy and you're being passed over
because your people are coming into position,

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what's your value? And that was
what Ribs Almon wanted this generation to recognize

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that it had value, it had
purpose, and that by doing the exercises

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and doing this work with others and
being real and being honest about what your

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real fears were, that we would
come to discover the meaning and purpose of

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our lives that we had no glimpse
of in the first half. So Ali,

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Robbie micl with what the work I've
been doing as well in the Awakening

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piece and using that discomfort to go
and discover and look, and there's something

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in that. There's there's a I
like to call it a wild life scratching

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to understand what's behind that and what
it presents and what's there for us to

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see. And I love that.
I would have loved to have met that

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man, So I have to read
more of his works. So with that,

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let's get into this notion of recontextualizing. I think this is so so

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important, especially you know as we
go through the aging to saging process,

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and this is such an it's so
again smacks so beautifully in the work that

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I do. But you say,
when we live long enough, we see

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that we have a new way to
tell our story. Times give time gives

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us the detachment to gain a larger
perspective. While several interpretations of an event

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may all be true, recontextualizing calls
us to find the story that serves us

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best. So we step back and
we tell a different story. So,

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first of you could say a bit
more about this notion of recontextualizing and maybe

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some of its benefits, and then
give us an example. You do one

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beautifully in the book if you want
to share that, but give us an

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example of what this looks like.
Well, this is actually something that I

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think it's at the heart of the
staging work. You know, besides coming

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to terms with our mortality, is
that ability to take the long view of

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our lives and understand it for what
it is, and recognize the gifts even

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in the difficult moments, and and
and tell our story differently. I grew

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up with a grandmother who, from
the time I was a very young child,

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would say to me is that really
the way you want to tell that

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story. I'd come to her with
a victim's story. You know, somebody

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did this to me, whatever it
is, that how you want to tell

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that story. So from a very
young age, I learned that there are

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different lenses. What reb Zalmon teaches
us is that, you know, we

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go through life and we carry with
us stories of different moments in our lives,

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different experiences, and we slept these
in his language, right, we

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slept these stories as this was a
time that something terrible was done to me.

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And this is a moment that I
remember with shame, and I hope

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nobody else remembers that one because I
feel so ashamed or this is a moment

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where I don't know, I was
so wounded and nobody was there for me.

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And then when we take the long
view of those experiences, so I

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can give you an example that was
actually one of the examples that Rev Zomin

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often would use, and that was
an example of being fired from a job,

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right, being fired from a job
and carrying the memory for so many

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years of this guy did me wrong. They didn't understand me, you know,

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And and all I remember about that
moment is that is how wronged I

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felt and how wrong the whole outcome
was. Now I take a look at

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the long view of my life and
I see, and this will be Reb's

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Alman's story that as a result of
being fired from this job where he was

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a congregational rabbi, he moved into
the life that we ultimately met him in

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this you know, global rabbi and
teacher, a man who started so many

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different programs and inspired so many other
leaders in the world. And if he

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had remained in that little synagogue,
which he could have done the rest of

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his life like many rabbis you know, or other spiritual leaders do, he

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would have never read that big stage. And so now he could look back

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at that moment and bless it.
He could recognize it. Rather than being

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so angry or feeling ashamed or feeling
like this was a shameful chapter in his

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life because he you know, he
wasn't good enough to be their rabbi,

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he can see it as this was
the moment where my life took a big

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turn, and now I'm so grateful
for it. That's a recontextualizing And I

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think Malca can tell the other story
because it's really her story. The story

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that we tell in the book,
or a story that she knew, not

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her personal stories. Please do welcome. Well, this is a story that

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a woman who was a photographer had
her first show and was very excited about

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her first show and a lot of
people were in the gallery that night,

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and then her mother came in.
And her mother was a vain woman,

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somewhat narcissistic. It wasn't exactly the
easiest relationship this this artist had with her

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mother. And her mother comes up
to her and the artist has the expectation

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that a mother is going to say
congratulations, but instead her mother says,

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how do you like my necklace?
And the artist is like ah, And

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it became the perfect narcissistic mother story
for years and years and years. After

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the mother dies, the the artist
decides she's going to write a book,

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a memoir about the mother, and
in doing this, she looks at the

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photograph. She looks out to the
photographs, looks at the photograph of the

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necklace that the mother was wearing,
and she realizes that it was a piece,

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no thing like anything else from other
owned. It was contemporary, it

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was modern, if you will,
and it was clear she had bought it

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purposely for this occasion, thinking that
her daughter this would be something her daughter

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would really like, and that it
was in a sense honoring the daughter,

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honoring the evening to all those years
later, she came to realize what it

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was, and look, a lot
of the apologies that we make, if

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we're lucky, we get to do
them while we're both on the planet.

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But we do find ourselves at a
certain point in our lives making apologies the

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things that we did a long time
ago, and maybe those people aren't here

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anymore to receive them, or at
least we hope in some realm that by

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doing this there is some repair by
our coming to understand the truth of that

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moment, and that we've gotten to
tell at least a better story than the

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story we told ourselves as victims from
years. So empowering, which is why

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I wanted you to share that so
beautiful. It also really aligned to us

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on the logo therapy work that I
do as well. So here we are

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already coming to our next break.
I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortez.

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We've been on the air with the
authors of Embracing Wisdom, Staring in the

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Second half of Life. Those authors
are Rabbi Malc Drucker and Rabbi Nadia Gross.

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We've been talking a bit about this
idea of reachntextualization. After the Rake,

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we're going to talk a bit about
some of those beautiful mistakes that we've

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made along the way and what they
really are as gifts. Stay with us.

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We'll be right back. Doctor Release
Cortez is a management consultant specializing in

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meaning and purpose and inspirational speaker and
author. She helps companies visioneer for greater

405
00:32:45.279 --> 00:32:52.680
purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment,

406
00:32:52.960 --> 00:32:58.960
performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite

407
00:32:58.960 --> 00:33:02.160
a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elise Cortez dot

408
00:33:02.240 --> 00:33:14.519
com. Let's talk about how to
get your employees working on purpose. This

409
00:33:14.640 --> 00:33:19.160
is working on purpose with doctor Release
Cortez. To reach our program today or

410
00:33:19.240 --> 00:33:24.359
open a conversation with Elise, send
an email to Elise ali se at Elise

411
00:33:24.440 --> 00:33:31.119
Cortez dot com. Now back to
working on purpose. Thanks for staying with

412
00:33:31.200 --> 00:33:34.680
us, and welcome back to working
on purpose. Another thing I want to

413
00:33:34.720 --> 00:33:37.720
share with you, this just came
out. This just in if you will,

414
00:33:37.960 --> 00:33:40.119
is this anthology that I've been curating
for the last two years where I

415
00:33:40.160 --> 00:33:45.039
have literally scoured the globe for twenty
five women to share the most intimate stories

416
00:33:45.079 --> 00:33:49.279
of how they've discovered their purpose and
are now serving from it. So it's

417
00:33:49.319 --> 00:33:52.279
just come out a few weeks ago. It's called Passionately Striving and Why,

418
00:33:52.720 --> 00:33:55.319
And I'm so proud of it I
could quest and so we celebrated that to

419
00:33:55.359 --> 00:33:59.680
the couple a couple of weeks ago, and Rabbimaka also put some words at

420
00:33:59.680 --> 00:34:01.319
test in that for us as well, so I wanted to share that with

421
00:34:01.359 --> 00:34:05.480
you. Check it out if you're
just joining us my guests, our Rabbi

422
00:34:05.519 --> 00:34:09.679
Malka Drucker and Nadia Gross. Let's
get next into this notion of mistakes.

423
00:34:09.679 --> 00:34:13.800
We kind of we did sort of
services in the last little bit there,

424
00:34:13.840 --> 00:34:15.920
but I think this is so so
important for our listeners to get it so

425
00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:21.519
yummy, so you also write,
you see, perhaps the ultimate wisdom isn't

426
00:34:21.559 --> 00:34:24.840
so much in our transmission of what
we know as an allowing the generations to

427
00:34:24.880 --> 00:34:30.679
have their own experiences. They need
their mistakes. When we look at what

428
00:34:30.199 --> 00:34:35.400
life has taught you, most of
the biggest lessons came from falling down,

429
00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:42.880
Yes, ma'am, ma'am's yes,
yes, yes, at least absolutely.

430
00:34:43.039 --> 00:34:47.559
I think if we can be really
honest with ourselves and tell ourselves the truth

431
00:34:47.639 --> 00:34:54.679
about ourselves, those things that we
are most proud of in our character,

432
00:34:55.280 --> 00:35:05.599
in our accomplishments, in our relationships
emerged out of big oopses. We learn

433
00:35:05.800 --> 00:35:12.159
incredible lessons when we fail, and
that's that's the work. That's that's the

434
00:35:12.199 --> 00:35:15.719
work of spiritual practice. That's the
work of you know, the soul's evolution,

435
00:35:15.960 --> 00:35:22.880
and of seeking meaning in everything that
we are and everything that we do.

436
00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:29.920
I'll tell you a wonderful story of
rib Salman. Right right near the

437
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:32.920
end of his life, the last
book that he was a part of came

438
00:35:32.960 --> 00:35:38.159
out called The December Project, written
by Sarah Davidson, and he was chronicling

439
00:35:38.519 --> 00:35:44.360
his December years. We talked before
about the cycle of our lives as a

440
00:35:45.719 --> 00:35:52.719
so he was chronicling the December years. And they had a public celebration and

441
00:35:52.880 --> 00:36:00.599
questions and answers here in Boulder,
Colorado, where Rebsalman lived, and and

442
00:36:00.079 --> 00:36:04.679
he said, at a certain point, you know, there are times that

443
00:36:04.760 --> 00:36:09.760
I still want to get angry with
my younger self, and I want to

444
00:36:09.800 --> 00:36:15.039
say to my younger self, why
did you do that? Or why weren't

445
00:36:15.039 --> 00:36:19.159
you smarter about this thing? Or
how could you have made this kind of

446
00:36:19.239 --> 00:36:24.239
mistake? He said? And then
I experience my younger self standing up to

447
00:36:24.280 --> 00:36:30.119
me and saying, don't you blame
me, old man, it's because of

448
00:36:30.159 --> 00:36:35.320
me that you are you. Oh, that's so good, so good,

449
00:36:35.400 --> 00:36:37.400
it's so good, it's so right. Thank you for generating out the way

450
00:36:37.400 --> 00:36:40.599
that you did. It's gorgeous.
And then we have to go on to

451
00:36:42.079 --> 00:36:45.800
another part here there's it's just amazing
to me how many overlaps there are and

452
00:36:45.880 --> 00:36:52.519
what you've written about and my methodology
and approach so definitely overlap here. When

453
00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:55.239
you say, only when we no
longer have the mini task of the second

454
00:36:55.599 --> 00:37:00.840
act can we reflect upon what it
means that we did those things. This

455
00:37:00.880 --> 00:37:04.320
is when we begin to think about
legacy and the purpose of our lives.

456
00:37:04.679 --> 00:37:07.599
Without purpose, we lose zest and
passion for living. Jewel deviv is a

457
00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:14.440
key part of wisdom. Amen,
sisters, Amen, Yeah, I mean,

458
00:37:14.519 --> 00:37:20.599
I you know what I've thought about
since actually writing a book that when

459
00:37:20.679 --> 00:37:25.039
Nardi and I talked about this is
what happens for people who never developed a

460
00:37:25.159 --> 00:37:32.199
practice of jud Yeah, this is
a major difficulty. However, I will

461
00:37:32.280 --> 00:37:37.360
say that there are you know,
people at different stages of their lives may

462
00:37:37.400 --> 00:37:40.840
come to a certain awaken it.
There's no question for a lot of us

463
00:37:40.840 --> 00:37:46.559
that being busy has been an m
again for that first half of life for

464
00:37:46.599 --> 00:37:52.599
so long that we're terrified of the
stillness. We're terrified first of the client

465
00:37:53.280 --> 00:37:59.360
and then then though if we can, you know, bind ourselves the courage

466
00:37:59.599 --> 00:38:05.119
to end were into that place or
we're forced into it, because whatever happens,

467
00:38:05.159 --> 00:38:07.840
it's we've gotten sick. We're in
that moment of stillness. Suddenly we

468
00:38:07.960 --> 00:38:14.480
discover the things that we've done in
the past, that we did without really

469
00:38:14.519 --> 00:38:20.440
even savoring the goodness of it.
Yeah, you know, the gift that

470
00:38:20.519 --> 00:38:25.280
somebody gave us, the triumph of
something that we've accomplished. Now now we

471
00:38:25.320 --> 00:38:30.280
can look at those things. I
mean, he said, Wow, that

472
00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:32.960
was pretty amazing, you know,
And I had the courage to do that

473
00:38:34.360 --> 00:38:37.039
when I was thirty one years old
or whatever, and that you know,

474
00:38:37.079 --> 00:38:42.960
I didn't know it then my Grib's
almon that that would be a turning point

475
00:38:43.039 --> 00:38:46.000
for me when I responded the way
that you know. You know. An

476
00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:51.960
example for me is I began as
I was going to write a book about

477
00:38:52.039 --> 00:38:55.760
Tom c the Great Baseball Picture,
and I was supposed to have an interview

478
00:38:55.800 --> 00:39:01.519
with him, and I never got
it because if his manager wanted to have

479
00:39:01.760 --> 00:39:07.159
I mean, not a second enough
is a star's life should be taken without

480
00:39:08.239 --> 00:39:12.679
getting some money for it. And
I remember just thinking, what am I

481
00:39:12.719 --> 00:39:15.280
going to do? I hear I
traveled all the way from California to New

482
00:39:15.360 --> 00:39:19.760
York to meet him, and I
wasn't going to meet him. So I

483
00:39:19.800 --> 00:39:24.159
went downstairs. I had some Chinese
wanton soup, and I contemplated my future.

484
00:39:25.039 --> 00:39:30.280
At that point, boys came to
me and say, you can't give

485
00:39:30.360 --> 00:39:34.239
up. You got you can go
called one of those publishers that you met

486
00:39:34.480 --> 00:39:37.960
at a writer's conference a month or
two before and see if they weren't just

487
00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:42.280
talk to you so what they think
about the idea of doing this. And

488
00:39:42.360 --> 00:39:46.639
I did that, and I knew
that regardless of the result, that I

489
00:39:46.880 --> 00:39:51.679
got up and I would go forward, and I didn't give up. And

490
00:39:51.719 --> 00:39:54.920
I can look at that now now
my elder self can look at that young

491
00:39:55.000 --> 00:40:00.639
person and say yeah, yeah,
so all of that debt, self debt,

492
00:40:01.079 --> 00:40:05.440
not necessarily liking myself so much.
I'm in love with myself, my

493
00:40:05.519 --> 00:40:08.920
younger self now, my other way
I never put when I was that age,

494
00:40:10.320 --> 00:40:14.559
and also being in that moment.
Right. I know this because I

495
00:40:14.559 --> 00:40:17.840
if you listen to my language,
I am helping to address the literal walking

496
00:40:17.880 --> 00:40:22.320
dead who don't know what it is
to experience a show of Daviv and they've

497
00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:24.440
lost the ability to be a child
and giggle at the smallest of things and

498
00:40:25.039 --> 00:40:29.000
enjoy and revel in that kind of
a moment. That's exactly a lot of

499
00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:32.039
the work that I'm doing with leaders
inside organizations because we spend so much time

500
00:40:32.039 --> 00:40:36.000
there. So I had to talk
about that, So thank you, Malcolm.

501
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:38.119
All Right, so a couple more
questions I definitely want to get in

502
00:40:38.159 --> 00:40:43.079
before we have we run out of
time. I really fascinated it. I've

503
00:40:43.119 --> 00:40:46.920
only with one other person heard anybody
talk about this notion of dropping the body,

504
00:40:46.960 --> 00:40:51.119
and of course it was Paul Skinner, who I love in the UK,

505
00:40:51.519 --> 00:40:55.320
very very conscious man who taught me
about meditation and to get into meditation.

506
00:40:55.840 --> 00:40:59.719
But you start talking about this,
you know in your book when you

507
00:40:59.719 --> 00:41:05.159
say, swiftly or slowly. Aging
is immutable. Becoming an elder person elder

508
00:41:05.239 --> 00:41:08.920
requires shifting from identifying with the physical
that is the body, and learning who

509
00:41:08.920 --> 00:41:13.960
we are beyond what we do.
Each new discovery is a mini death,

510
00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:17.440
a preparation for what Ramdas calls dropping
the body, that gives us a foreshadowing

511
00:41:17.519 --> 00:41:25.199
of death that is actually incredibly alluring
to me. I love that that it's

512
00:41:25.199 --> 00:41:31.360
alluring to you. So Ramdas referred
to dying as dropping the body, because

513
00:41:31.360 --> 00:41:35.000
it was only the body that was
going to be gone. The rest,

514
00:41:35.480 --> 00:41:40.519
the essence of the person, and
the residue left in this world that doesn't

515
00:41:40.639 --> 00:41:45.360
end, that doesn't die, right. The thing is is that as we

516
00:41:45.480 --> 00:41:54.760
grow older, as we become elders, we have to first and foremost shift

517
00:41:54.960 --> 00:42:00.719
our focus from the body and the
doing that the body does in order to

518
00:42:00.760 --> 00:42:07.559
embrace the gifts, the magic,
the opportunities of eldering. And we as

519
00:42:07.639 --> 00:42:13.559
women particularly you know, this can
be a really difficult thing. Where we've

520
00:42:13.679 --> 00:42:22.159
learned that how we look and what
we accomplish with our physicality is how we

521
00:42:22.239 --> 00:42:30.559
get a sense of meaning and how
other people see us as being important or

522
00:42:30.840 --> 00:42:39.920
worthy of taking up space in this
world, and so learning to actually disidentify

523
00:42:42.199 --> 00:42:46.360
as our body changes, as our
capacities wan, we have less energy.

524
00:42:46.519 --> 00:42:51.360
Malka referred to that earlier. Now
I need a nap, You know I

525
00:42:51.400 --> 00:42:53.920
didn't. I used to be able
to work from sun up till almost the

526
00:42:53.960 --> 00:42:59.480
next sun up without thinking about it. No way, now, you know,

527
00:42:59.599 --> 00:43:04.559
my rain sort of says it's time
to shut down. When I go

528
00:43:04.679 --> 00:43:08.199
downstairs to prepare dinner for my husband
and myself, I'm not coming back to

529
00:43:08.280 --> 00:43:13.760
my desk afterwards to continue working.
There was a time that I would do

530
00:43:13.800 --> 00:43:16.519
that till one, two three in
the morning. No way, right,

531
00:43:16.599 --> 00:43:23.760
So I have to come to recognize
who I am, my purpose and my

532
00:43:23.920 --> 00:43:30.440
meaning beyond what I look like,
right, how I present physically to the

533
00:43:30.480 --> 00:43:35.480
world, and what my body is
capable of accomplishing in a twenty four hour

534
00:43:35.559 --> 00:43:43.400
period of time. And each time
we come to terms with that little bit

535
00:43:43.440 --> 00:43:49.239
of loss, that's a mini death, and so we and when we recognize

536
00:43:49.239 --> 00:43:55.559
it in that way, we come
to identify more with our essence, with

537
00:43:57.159 --> 00:44:00.239
the meaning of the life that we've
lived, with the purpose that we have

538
00:44:00.480 --> 00:44:07.119
spread out in the world, with
the legacy that we are leaving and we

539
00:44:07.199 --> 00:44:13.519
can actually embrace the joy, the
delight, the magic, the opportunity,

540
00:44:14.559 --> 00:44:20.760
and the wisdom of elderhood. I
could have this conversation four days, but

541
00:44:21.159 --> 00:44:22.800
I think we have time for one
more question, and I want to bring

542
00:44:22.840 --> 00:44:25.960
that to the notion of guilt and
regret. That's so important. So many

543
00:44:25.960 --> 00:44:30.239
people carry that, and you do
this so beautifully in your book. So

544
00:44:30.880 --> 00:44:34.039
you say, we learn to distinguish
between guilt and regret for what we have

545
00:44:34.199 --> 00:44:37.960
done self. Forgiveness allows us to
know that everything in our lives had to

546
00:44:38.039 --> 00:44:40.800
evolve the way it did so that
we could learn what we needed to know

547
00:44:42.239 --> 00:44:45.880
to become complete human beings. This
is an act of humility that enable ennobles

548
00:44:46.280 --> 00:44:52.639
and expands consciousness that we have pain
in remembering our behavior in a past incident

549
00:44:52.679 --> 00:44:55.679
demonstrates that we have learned from it
and would not in our present consciousness do

550
00:44:55.760 --> 00:45:00.920
it again. In this we can
rejoice and we can also forgive ourselves.

551
00:45:00.679 --> 00:45:06.760
That's incredibly powerful. Well. Yes, one of the things about ribs Amans

552
00:45:06.840 --> 00:45:15.519
of the last words in the December
Project is I noticed how many times the

553
00:45:15.559 --> 00:45:22.320
word forgiveness, forgiving, forgive,
came up, that that that the way

554
00:45:22.360 --> 00:45:27.559
to have to feel a complete life
is to come to that place of forgiveness,

555
00:45:27.599 --> 00:45:30.760
and it has to begin with oneself. So there's a there's a poem

556
00:45:30.800 --> 00:45:36.000
called The Art of Losing by Elizabeth
Fishing. I couldn't tell you that I

557
00:45:36.119 --> 00:45:39.599
think in a lot of ways that
one of the ways we've become sages is

558
00:45:39.639 --> 00:45:45.639
by recognizing that as the what do
we lose, we lose our egos.

559
00:45:45.159 --> 00:45:50.840
What do we gain? We gain
our souls. And the only way we

560
00:45:50.880 --> 00:45:54.519
can do this is by the admission
of what we have done in this life

561
00:45:54.880 --> 00:45:59.239
and to be able to forgive ourselves
or what we've done, and in doing

562
00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:05.199
that we we do we enter into
a certain nobility that will take us to

563
00:46:05.239 --> 00:46:09.239
a place of ultimate completion. But
it's true that in many ways, I

564
00:46:09.320 --> 00:46:14.360
mean, I find myself saying to
my friends, to anybody who might who

565
00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:16.480
is willing to listen to me,
you know, look, yeah, how

566
00:46:16.599 --> 00:46:20.159
arrogant are you going to be?
Like? You should be better than everybody

567
00:46:20.159 --> 00:46:25.320
else? That that there there's an
assumption that the only way for us to

568
00:46:25.400 --> 00:46:30.079
do this life is for us not
to make mistakes, not to have done

569
00:46:30.119 --> 00:46:34.079
the wrong thing, and that to
ultimately come to the admission of these things,

570
00:46:34.559 --> 00:46:37.639
and then to come to the forgiven
forgiving ourselves and maybe having to do

571
00:46:37.840 --> 00:46:44.920
something to reach that forgiveness by making
some amends, doing some reparation, whatever

572
00:46:45.039 --> 00:46:49.880
it should be. I mean that
is ultimately that I would hope that everybody

573
00:46:50.360 --> 00:46:52.880
who might be listening and watching this
will come to a place and saying,

574
00:46:53.360 --> 00:47:00.039
wow, I might actually free myself
from the prison of my eating to always

575
00:47:00.079 --> 00:47:05.199
be right. That's a big thing, and I think that's one of the

576
00:47:05.320 --> 00:47:09.079
gifts that we can get as we
become elders, and recognizing that nobody needs

577
00:47:09.199 --> 00:47:14.679
us to be right, but they
need is to be loved, and they

578
00:47:14.760 --> 00:47:16.920
need to be loved by us.
And that's one of the things that we

579
00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:23.199
can learn to do as we come
into better relationship with ourselves by heavy doses

580
00:47:23.239 --> 00:47:28.199
of stuff. For you, Thank
you for that rabbet trucker. That was

581
00:47:28.360 --> 00:47:30.079
just delicious. So we've come to
the end of the show, and I

582
00:47:30.159 --> 00:47:34.079
want to give you both just a
chance to maybe in like fifteen seconds,

583
00:47:34.159 --> 00:47:36.639
just what would you each like to
lead our listeners with it. We have

584
00:47:36.719 --> 00:47:39.559
listeners across the globe. What would
you like to leave them with? Molcol?

585
00:47:39.599 --> 00:47:45.639
You go first, Okay, now
go buy our book. That's buy

586
00:47:45.800 --> 00:47:52.239
two commus. Seriously, you could
read a thousand books on this subject.

587
00:47:52.760 --> 00:47:54.199
You can read all of the Lias's
books, you can read all of our

588
00:47:54.360 --> 00:47:59.880
books, and you will not get
home until you sit down with somebody else

589
00:48:00.599 --> 00:48:05.800
and you actually talk it through and
do the work together. So that's that's

590
00:48:05.800 --> 00:48:12.480
what I'd like to thank you,
Rabbi. Yes, and just as Malca

591
00:48:12.559 --> 00:48:16.960
and I have become saging buddies to
one another, that is the single most

592
00:48:17.119 --> 00:48:22.360
important thing as we grow into elderhood, as we have to confront our mortality,

593
00:48:22.480 --> 00:48:24.880
as we have to deal with those
mini deaths. You know, I

594
00:48:24.960 --> 00:48:30.320
had to let my thirty one year
old body die and acknowledge my sixty six

595
00:48:30.440 --> 00:48:35.079
year old body and love it just
as much as I had loved the younger

596
00:48:35.159 --> 00:48:39.320
one. We need somebody to witness
us, to hold us, to love

597
00:48:39.480 --> 00:48:45.920
us unconditionally into our elderhood, and
to help us tease out the pearls of

598
00:48:46.039 --> 00:48:52.320
wisdom from this long life experience that
we are living together. So find your

599
00:48:52.840 --> 00:48:57.599
saging buddy. Oh thank you,
Rabbi notio. What a beautiful way to

600
00:48:57.639 --> 00:49:00.119
finish. Thank you both, What
an honor and just filled my heart and

601
00:49:00.239 --> 00:49:04.719
soul to be reconnected with you and
to read your book. So very grateful

602
00:49:04.719 --> 00:49:07.239
to be on the journey with you
listeners and viewers. If you want to

603
00:49:07.320 --> 00:49:12.920
learn more about these amazing women,
you can find Rabbi Maka Drucker at Maka

604
00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:19.000
Drucker dot com. You can find
Rabbi Nadia Gross at RuSHA dot org.

605
00:49:19.199 --> 00:49:25.239
That's y r Usha dot org.
And thanks to our partner sponsoring again work

606
00:49:25.280 --> 00:49:30.159
Proud, which helps companies build a
platform where were your workforce receives meaningful feedback

607
00:49:30.199 --> 00:49:32.559
and thanks for the work from their
people from across the company. Last week,

608
00:49:32.559 --> 00:49:36.719
if you missed them live show,
we can always catch it recorded via

609
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recorded podcast. We were on the
air with Jeff Tuff and Stephen Goldbach talking

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about their book Provoke How Leaders shape
the Future by overcoming fatal human flaws.

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So fascinating conversation about the limiting mindsets
and cognitive bias we humans must learn to

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intervene to be our best. Next
week we'll be on the air with you

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need to Or and Tiny from Norway
talking about her work understanding the criticality of

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loneliness in today's time and out impedes
are well being. See you there nor

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00:50:02.119 --> 00:50:10.039
that works at least or their life. So let's work on Purpose. We

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hope you've enjoyed this week's program.
Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose,

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00:50:15.760 --> 00:50:19.960
featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortez, each week on the Voice America

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00:50:20.079 --> 00:50:25.840
Empowerment Channel. Together, we'll create
a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership

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00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:31.519
inspires impassioned performance, and employees are
fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and

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00:50:31.599 --> 00:50:36.960
purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.