Ep130
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Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 130 of the Decide Your Legacy podcast. Today's episode is on why I don't like old people. Yes, I said it. I don't like old people. I'm going to tell you why as you listen to the episode. I'm your host, Adam Gragg. I have been a coach, a family [00:01:00] therapist, a speaker, mental 25 plus years.

And my passion, what gets me excited is helping people face their biggest fears and they need clarity to do that because that will propel them forward to face those fears and live their legacy. I talk about stuff I struggle with myself and I don't have it all figured out. I'm a fellow traveler. I struggle with fear.

That's why one of my passions, probably the biggest passion that I have is helping people overcome their fears, relational fears, even, you know, fear, adventure fears, you know, doing things that are different, doing things that are new. And so last year I was invited to go snow skiing with some buddies of mine that are in a business mastermind group.

And we went skiing last January. ~So it's kind of trickling into the fall here. I can, I can feel the snow almost, you know, I'm waiting for more skiing. I like to ski. ~I skied a lot growing up, but I didn't ski much from age 22 until [00:02:00] four years ago. And so I'm 50 years old. So when I went skiing with these guys.

One of the guys was kind of a daredevil skier, and I mean, his name's Doug, and I remember thinking that as we were on the mountain and he was deciding to go down some more challenging runs, I don't want to do that, I'm going to get hurt, you know, I was starting to have this negative voice chime in, you're going to embarrass yourself, you're going to fall, it's not going to go well, even though I have a lot of experience skiing, I mean, I grew up skiing, ~you know what I mean?~

And during some points of my life, every weekend, I lived that close to the ski slopes in Lake Tahoe, parent's house. I could go there skiing, ski all day, ski in the morning. I mean, leave in the morning, ski all day, come back and be home by 6 30 for dinner, you know, seriously. So, but ~I, ~I had this mindset and it was negative at first.

But I stuck with it. ~I mean, I don't even necessarily want to go skiing when people invite me to go skiing. ~So when the whole group decided they wanted to go skiing, my initial reaction was, well, I mean, it could be bad. So, I mean, that can be, I'm just being honest with you here. That is an old mindset. So when I think of an old person, [00:03:00] I think of someone that's not willing to grow, to challenge themselves, to face fears, to do scary things.

~And. ~An old person is somebody who wants to stay the same. Don't do anything new. Don't try anything new. They feel like they have it all figured out because they're experienced and seasoned. Yet, they can always grow and they can always learn. I meet people who, in fact, I have a cousin, a first cousin of my dad, Stan, who I would say ~is ~is young.

He is in his 90s and he's a young guy, okay? ~I, ~I have a buddy who has a dad. His name is Dave and his dad is 95, 96 years old. I would say his dad has a young mindset. He's learning, he's growing and he's that old. I mean, his parents, his mom recently passed away. It would have been this fall, their 75th wedding anniversary.

Amazing. I mean, yeah, his parents were married in like 1948. Or 49. That is crazy to me. So you can choose to have a young [00:04:00] mentality and to be a young person, or you can choose to be an old person. It's your mindset. I am best when I'm behaving in a way where I'm young. And so there's this whiteboard that I like to show clients frequently.

I call it DCG. DC hyphen G. Okay. And so the D stands for you get to decide something you want to commit to doing. You get to decide. And I'll ask clients, are you going to commit to that? And they'll say yes, and then I'll ask them, well, what action will you take next? Or who can hold you accountable? Or how are you going to take that next step?

What is the next step you're going to take? So we get very specific on what they're deciding to do. And we want to be specific enough that we can measure it. And you generally will have to measure something by with a deadline, a time, a date, like age 50, or by Friday, or next month, or by the end of the year, and, or by a specific result.

So I will achieve X, Y, and Z, or I will get the degree by this date, or it's some sort of measurable date. So they [00:05:00] decide that they want to do something different. ~So ~it could ~be something that's, it is going to ~be something that is scary to them. It may not be necessarily scary to you. And then the next part of that process, the C, is they have some level of courage.

Because they're brushing up against an area of their life where they have fear and uncertainty, but they're deciding to go ahead and do that thing. And then they hit this wall of fear and uncertainty and anxiety, but it's going to take courage for them to break through that wall. And that's the next part of this DCG model is they develop confidence.

They grow after they push through the fear. On the other side is freedom. On the other side is where they get the confidence. On the other side is where they get new capabilities, new abilities, where they get competency, and that's a growth cycle. ~And if this is interesting to you, I am going to send you and post on my YouTube channel a video of me walking through this DCG model.~

Very helpful. Something you can utilize and use as inspiration again and again. We're talking today about this model, basically, in action. I'm going to talk to you about why you don't want to be an old person, and why you want to [00:06:00] engage this DCG model. This model illustrates it for you. How you can stay young consistently, and the cost of not staying young consistently.

Very important, because I want you to be young. I don't want to dislike you because you're acting like an old person. The old people in my life can be young in age. So some of the people I know ~that are young, ~that are old, they get offended very easily. They're extraordinarily sensitive to things because it's pushing up against things that they have decided in their mind need to be so for them to be comfortable.

So they have these rules, this rigidity. I don't want to try this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to try this new food. I don't want to do this, meet these new people. And sometimes they're teenagers, potentially, or they're in their twenties, potentially. I meet young people in their twenties. I meet young people in their thirties.

I meet old people in their thirties. I'm both an old and a young person, depending on my mindset, when I'm at my best, which is a great question that I love to ask clients, activity for groups and clients, is what are the [00:07:00] times in your life when you were at your best?

What were they? You know, at work, with your family, personally, what were they? You know, was it right out of college? Was it in high school? When did you feel alive? When were you at your best? And then if it's a group setting, I'll have them discuss that with different people in that group setting. And they share very similar types of stories, very similar types of traits in those situations that they were in.

I mean, they were applying certain skills they were applying and engaging life, utilizing different capacities that they have. I mean, I'm sounding, I'm making it a little more complicated than it actually is, but they were doing things differently in those moments when they had the most success in their life.

Those moments where they really felt alive. And I want them to process that with other people to see these similarities. That is, in all those cases, they're behaving in a young fashion. They're committing, they're having courage, and they're choosing to push through to grow. So, that mindset is crucial. So, ~one of the reasons that, ~one of the major [00:08:00] reasons that you want to have a young mindset is because that old mindset, ~It ~increases anxiety in your life and that anxiety is going to get worse over time.

The world is going to get smaller over time as you're not willing to push through those situations that are uncomfortable and fear triggering and apply courage, which means that you have fear and you're still doing it. You're feeling the fear and you're doing it anyway. That's what that courage means.

People will often treat me sometimes like, well, not often, but sometimes they'll act as if, or they even say it, that this is easy for you, you know, because ~you've, ~it doesn't seem like it's hard for you to get up and speak in front of people, or it's hard for you to ~go ahead and, you know, ~ask for A business to purchase a speaking, ~an ~engagement type contract, a company, and I will tell them that, ~well, it, it, ~well, I don't want to just argue with them about it, but I think in those situations, I think,

the fear is there. It was there this morning when I made a list of [00:09:00] companies I want to reach out to ~this, ~this week and clients I want to reach out to this week. It was there. And so much so that I didn't even want to look at it and think about that list. The fear is there, but it's that willingness to say, I know it's going to be there.

I'm going to still do it anyway. ~And I'm going to apply the courage ~and my courage actually grows and gets bigger when I'm committed to that uncomfortable situation, relationally, making the call, talking to the person, inviting somebody to do something, going first, being assertive. Reaching Out, the list goes on and on.

All the different areas of the Shatterproof Yourself Light model and the Shatterproof Yourself Light model is for you to engage right now for free. All that stuff I'm talking about, it's scary stuff. So what happens when we end up fixating on not wanting to change because it's hard and uncomfortable, we're focusing on what can go wrong and we're doing it because that can keep us safe.

And it's causing us to have tunnel vision And to not see our [00:10:00] full potential and to not see the opportunities in this situation and only see the obstacles. It's not a very encouraging, positive situation. I mean, it's not, it's not fun because we're stuck. We're stuck. And that, that anxiety just grows over time.

We become more controlling, more obsessive. about situations. We become even more compulsive, like we have to say that, or we have to do that thing because we're compelled believing that it's going to relieve our anxiety when actually it's just propelling and escalating our anxiety. We make ~these, these, ~these false dichotomies in our mind, either or thinking, and we make these false rules in our mind that if we do that thing something bad is actually going to happen.

And again, They're not going to help you. I mean, our anxiety is going to decrease as we do stuff to engage new activities, as we challenge our thinking and realize that the way we [00:11:00] view this situation might be wrong, or the way we feel in this situation is very often wrong, and it's nothing to be afraid of, actually, although we ~think ~think it's something to be afraid of.

So when we get stuck not doing new stuff, it's going to destroy your life ultimately, where you're going to be less creative. Your sense of humor is going to leave because you're stuck in anxiety and you're not wanting to try new things. Your brain is actually going to atrophy. And we have very good evidence that over time, as we challenge ourselves to learn new things and do new things, that we are less likely to deal with dementia as we age.

And we're less likely to have a sense of, we're actually less likely to, to feel unproductive with our lives. We're less likely to feel, tend to live without a sense of purpose in our lives because we're engaging new, bigger, better things. So the second thing that is crucial is as you live in [00:12:00] anxiety. And fear, you're releasing a bunch of hormones that are destructive, like cortisol.

And these are things that over time slowly erode your system. I mean, they destroy you slowly. In fact, they slowly kill you as you're flooded with cortisol. Fight, flight, or freeze, or faint. ~hormone, you know, ~we're less likely over time to stay healthy. I mean, we retain even we, our, our metabolism doesn't work nearly as well.

So when we have this anxiety, when we're not doing things and trying new things and getting in this adventure mindset, we're aging ourselves, not just mentally, but physically as well. And that mindset that I have nothing to offer, or I, can't do this new thing, or they won't like me, or I'll be rejected.

It's keeping you safe, you perceive, because you're not engaging those situations, but it's releasing all these hormones that are actually [00:13:00] aging you. When I was skiing, and I decided to go ski with my friends, well that keeps me young. I'm trying new things. And you know, in that situation where Doug was going down these hills that were harder than me, that I didn't believe actually I could actually handle, I thought and told myself in my mind, I'm going to get hurt.

You know, I'm going to tear an ACL. Like I hear all these horror stories about people tearing on ACL while they ski. ~so I was, ~but the reality is, is that I was between a rock and a hard place. Cause I was up on top of the mountain and partially because of my ego, I didn't want to not ski the same hills. And then I did it ~and did fine ~and didn't get hurt. ~I need to be a little more careful next time. ~But what I've found is that as I challenge myself to do these things, I face that anxiety because I'm around other people who are willing to face their fears. Then I'm doing stuff I didn't think I could actually do and realize that I have all these skills inside of me to handle the situation and actually skied much better than I thought I would.

And I'm excited about it this [00:14:00] year. And I know I'm a decent skier, but I also know that I can struggle with anxiety, and I got to be able to step back from it and notice it and name those feelings and say, it's just my fears. It's not true. It's not going to kill me. Although skiing can kill you and you can have injuries from skiing, but I realized that it is a situation that I can handle and I can just slow down.

If I need to, I can just go ski more cautiously if I need to. I can make decisions in the process and then I stay younger in the process because as I do this stuff, it's actually reversing the aging process. It's like, it's like the more I engage in healthy adventuresome activities, I can just feel the stress hormones decreasing in the moment. Even though the behavior is actually riskier in the moment. As I engage people and meet new people and try new things, I can feel my body getting younger. And in many ways, I'm younger now than I was five years ago, physically. Now I sleep better. I actually feel like I have more energy now than I had five years [00:15:00] ago.

I have less caffeine, at least lately, than I used to have. So there's some other ways that having an adventuresome life not being an old person is going to keep you young. Physically, just like my dog, Max, who one reason I'm convinced he's so young at heart at age 15, is he's excited about the, what the future holds.

His mindset ~is, ~is that good things are ahead. ~He doesn't look always, he looks, ~he looks really young ~for his, ~for his age, being 15 years old, but I believe it's his mindset. He's just excited to live life, ~even though he is old, he's excited about it. So, and ~I look at the people around me that age well, and nearly all of them have this same mentality. They're going to face adventure. They're going to do ~new things. They're going to try ~new things. They're not done yet. ~Once you're done. ~That's why I don't like the word retirement, because it just makes me feel as if you're in a mindset at that point where there's no more useful life to you.

Use a different word. I'm going to something new, but the moment you have this, I have no more usefulness in me, then it's going to age you. And you're going to start potentially acting like an old person. Be very careful with that. Be very careful. [00:16:00] So how can you identify in your life where you're being inflexible, where you're not trying new things?

Do people ask you to try a new game or eat a new food or go to a new place, engage in a new activity and you're turning them down? Maybe you're acting like an old person. right there. It's going to aid you physically. How are you not wanting to change? In what ways are you being challenged to learn new things and you don't want to do it?

Maybe it's professionally. In what ways are you challenged to meet new people and you don't want to do it and your first thought is negative or they're going to hurt me? Well, I challenge you on that. ~That's this cycle. ~Commit, Decide is the D, and then you have courage to face the fear, and then you grow afterwards, after you push through.

Don't age yourself ~physically. A lot of other things you can do to not age ~physically. I mean, one thing I think is crucial for me is to be around people that have a very young mindset. And again, these may not be always the people that are younger than you. You're [00:17:00] going to have people that have a young, flexible, open, challenge, challenge me type mindset that are 80 years old.

Be around them. They're going to stretch you. I like to build relationships with teens ~as well. And some of my nieces. ~as well and get to know them and my daughter and people that she knows because they can have a very young mentality, a different mentality that stretches me. They can also be old sometimes too and not want to change.

You know what I'm talking about if you're a parent out there. So that's the second. It ages you physically. And if you've found this content helpful, you know, Shatterproof Yourself Lite, it has seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health. You can get access to it here, download the worksheet, watch the videos, and each of these are actions you can take to stay young.

Because they are going to challenge you to do things that are uncomfortable for you. That's Shatterproof Yourself Light. Hit the link and check it out. The third reason you [00:18:00] want to have a mental A young mentality is because you're going to miss opportunities and you're going to die with regret remembering that you had a chance to do these things and you didn't do it like I would had I not gone skiing in Colorado with all these guys in my business mastermind group.

I would have said a year later, two years later, maybe five years later, why did I not do that thing? Why did I not engage in that activity? I've gone to my recent reunions Because I went to my 30 year reunion two years ago, because of this mentality, I don't want to miss out. I would have been the guy, and I've heard these people say this, well, you know, it was so long ago, I don't want to live in the past, I don't want to go to these reunions.

But that's really a problem, obstacle mentality. What about meeting somebody great there? It's not about being stuck in the past, it's about the future. These people you already have a connection with. Why not have a young mentality and then meet this person from high school ~in 1992 was when I graduated from Jesuit high school in Sacramento ~and get to [00:19:00] know these people again and to reconnect.

I want to be the guy that goes first because I want to have a young mentality and I don't want be stuck in the potential rejection. I wanna be stuck on the potential opportunity. And so if you love and wanna learn more about focusing on the. Opportunity over the obstacle. Check out the last episode of the Decide Your Legacy podcast.

We'll link to it in the show notes as well. That's episode 129. So this last Saturday, September 14th, I got a Facebook message, which this is the reason I'm a fan of social media. So ~out of the blue, Seriously, ~out of the blue, I got a message and I don't even check my Facebook messages on Messenger very often, maybe a couple times a week at the most, but I checked it on Saturday and I saw that I had a message and it was a high school friend named Johnny and he said he was flying into town because he was purchasing a plane in Wichita.

So Cessna Aircraft is [00:20:00] located here and he was purchasing a Cessna 182. All right. And so he's like, do you want to get some coffee or grab a drink or go out? ~for dinner or whatever. ~And I said, yeah, it's cool. So I texted him right away. And it was like an hour after he had messaged me, I believe, and said, yeah, let's go.

~And he, ~we met for coffee the next morning, had a good time catching up. It was a lot of fun. He took a risk. And I thought this is really great. And then I got to know him and some very interesting, interesting things about him.

~Super cool stuff, ~super exciting. And that was an opportunity that I could have missed if I wasn't willing to do things that were awkward. Sure. It's awkward talking to somebody you haven't seen in 30 years. Sure. It's awkward. I mean, I didn't even know if I'd recognize him when I saw him. I did, you know, he smiled.

I smiled. We had a good time. We talked and I knew where I was meeting him. Obviously met him in a coffee shop in Wichita, Cool coffee shop called Reverie. He wanted to go to like a local place, not, ~not a place, ~a national chain kind of thing. It sounded like, at least he expressed that, subtly expressed that to [00:21:00] me.

So it was really a cool thing. Made some great memories. All these situations in my life where I've had a young, Attitude. I've done things spontaneously. They've been some of the best memories of my life. When I have an old attitude that I got to stay safe, I got to do what I know is safe. I got to stay in the same situation.

I can't take that risk. That's an old mentality. You know, I was watching recently, somebody interview other people on YouTube who were really wealthy people. And he was asking them if they had ever gone bankrupt or been broke. And he talked to this guy and the guy said, yes, I've been broke. And the guy owned this multimillion dollar business.

And he said, well, how'd you get started again? How'd you get the cash when you were broke to start your business? And he said he had worked in corporate America for many years and he had a 401k and he cashed it in to take advantage of a business opportunity. And my initial reaction to that was like, dude, that guy is freaking awesome.

Because he believes so [00:22:00] much in his business that he put all his skin in the game, including his retirement plan. And I'm like, I want to be like that guy. You know, I'm not like that guy right now, but I was challenged to be like that guy. Cause that's a young mentality. He knew he could lose his retirement and he could start over.

And that's close to where I am. ~I mean, I gotta be real honest with you. ~I want to be at that place where I'd put it all a hundred percent. ~And I, ~I believe I'm like, Very close, if not maybe inches away from having that mentality with Decide Your Legacy. It challenges me every day to be there. I believe in it so much that I'm willing to sacrifice a lot, and I believe I would, I would cash in my retirement as well.

I can't make any promises right now, but I'm pretty sure I would. I'm pretty sure I'm at that spot right now. So I get to see so many cool things with the job that I have. ~So you'll miss opportunities. So again, that's ~In summary, let's go over these three things. This is what, this is what, why you don't want to be old.

Have that mentality of being old and not engaging in the new and not being flexible and not trying new [00:23:00] stuff and getting stuck in those old person mindsets, that retirement mindset. So number one, it increases your anxiety and it's going to increase your anxiety over time because the world's going to get smaller.

You're going to miss more and more opportunities because of fear. You're going to get ~increasing. ~Increasing worst case scenario focus, and it's just not good. That tunnel vision is going to grow, and I've been a mental health professional for 25 years. I have not seen anxiety get better for people who just let it go.

~on its own. ~You have to be proactive to start replacing it with truth and gratitude and the good stuff. And just imagine, how would your life be different if you didn't worry at all? ~I had a question, that was a question I asked a client today. You know, he was just kind of flabbergasted by that question.~

He didn't even know what to say. Like, I don't even know what I'd do with myself, how much free time I'd have, how much creativity I'd have, the relationships that would be benefited by that. ~by not having any worry in my life. ~So, so anxiety is a major reason why you want to have a young attitude. It ages you physically to have an old attitude, okay?

You can [00:24:00] be young. Just go ahead and start thinking that you are going to live to a hundred. Start telling yourself the truth. If you want to live to 100, I mean, you'll start doing things differently. You'll start eating differently. You'll exercise. You'll start stressing less. You'll go to bed earlier.

You'll sleep better because you have this vision of how your life can be extended. Amazing stuff. And the third thing is you're going to miss opportunities. Places that you can go. Activities you ~can get, ~can engage in. People you will meet. Grandkids that you will get to know. Because you've extended your life believing that you have so much more life to live.

Children that you'll get to see grow into adulthood because you have a young mentality. So I don't want you to miss opportunities as well. So share this episode with your team, especially with those on your team that love to be challenged. and or need to be challenged, give it a rating and review on Apple or Spotify.

This [00:25:00] helps the Decide Your Podcast, Decide Your Legacy podcast grow organically and spread the word. Just one person today, please share it with your team or just one person. So again, if you want to be challenged to do more uncomfortable stuff so that you can stay young and not have an old person mentality, check out Shatterproof Yourself.

Light. Seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health. These are seven steps that you can take to challenge yourself to have a young person's attitude. I walk you through each one. You can download the Decide Your Legacy app. ~It's free on the app. And ~there are videos and a worksheet that I take you through.

And there's some bonus sections that you're not going to want to miss. Check that out, Decide Your Legacy, the Shatterproof Yourself Light app. So, in closing, remember that 20 percent of change is going to [00:26:00] be information, alright? So you want to make changes, you're gaining ~information, you're gleaning ~information, you're reading a great book, you're talking to great people, you're getting inspired, but 80 percent is action.

You have to do something with that information that you have gleaned. An okay plan that you act on is a thousand times better than a great plan that you sit on. What resonated with you most from this podcast today? By the end of the day, apply it, take action, and by the end of the day, teach it to somebody else, even your six year old daughter.

I want to sign off the way that I always do. Make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for 10 years after you're gone. Live that life today. You decide your legacy. No one else. I appreciate you and I'll see you next time. [00:27:00]