Have You Reached These Milestones? - Life Lessons Part 6

On this episode of Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older we unravel the milestones of successful aging.

Have you found your passion? Have you learned how to forgive?  How is your journey to true inner peace going?

We're looking at these life milestones and more in seeking to understand how achieving them can help you find personal success, and how does aging aid in this journey?

Your journey is unique, and we want you to share it with us! Hear how you can become part of this thriving community, exchanging stories and experiences about the aging process. I invite you to spread the word, subscribe for free, and be an integral part of this ongoing dialogue. There's power in togetherness, and as we navigate the complexities of growing older, remember that your voice matters. Be kind to yourself and others, and never forget that in this shared journey, you are never alone.

Chapters

• 0:00 Guide for Successful Aging Milestones
• 11:25 Podcast Promotion and Encouragement

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older. On this episode I want to look at some of the milestones in life that you can look at to kind of gauge and judge if you've been successful. Not to say that you must hit all of these milestones to be successful. I'm not trying to say that at all. You could be very successful and content in many ways and not have hit any of these, but these are some that I read about on a website called A Conscious Rethink. It was written by Jack Nolan. I thought he brought us some really great points and would love your feedback too. So if you get the opportunity, be sure to scroll down to the show notes. You can leave me a message. Just click on the leave me a message link and it will take you to my SpeakPipe page and you can leave a 90 second message for me. Really easy to do. You don't have to give me your first born or anything like that, just your name and, if you want, you can give me your email and I'll write you back when I get the message. Easy to do for you to become a part of the show and to present some of your feedback to me. So these are some of the milestones that Mr Nolan brought up, and let's see if we agree with them.

Speaker 1: 1:19

I read over them and I think yes, I think he hit the point on some of them, the first one being you have overcome your fears. That's kind of a broad one and sort of tough to look at For me. I'm claustrophobic, and I have not overcome my fear of tight or closed spaces. It is not possible for me to go into an MRI machine without being heavily medicated or unconscious. To be honest, it just doesn't happen at all. So that's a real big problem with medical issues.

Speaker 1: 1:53

I believe, though, that what the author was talking about here was perhaps some of the fears. Like you were in a relationship that ended badly and do you stop yourself from getting into another relationship for fear of being hurt again. Did you get let go from a job, or did you leave a job under bad conditions, and now you're just kind of sitting back saying, well, it's not worth it. These are the fears that I think you have to worry about. You know, it's the old saying if you fall off a horse or, in our cases, we were growing up a bicycle you get right back on and start all over again. That's how our parents taught us not to be afraid of things or afraid of life. So once you confront your fears, we have to remember there is no limit to what you can accomplish.

Speaker 1: 2:40

Another point brought up is you've learned to forgive. This is a huge one for me. Learning to forgive is something that people struggle with their entire life, and I'm so jealous of people that can do it 100%. I'm going to be honest with you. There was a situation in my life from about five or six years ago, and I have not found the capacity to forgive. In other ways, though, people have done me terrible wrongs in my life that I absolutely have forgiven, and I know that I have hurt people, especially when I was younger. I did things that were perhaps not admirable, and those people forgave me, and I thank you for that. I think also, part of it is you realize after a while that when you hold on to something for too long, it doesn't hurt the people that did you wrong. It only hurts yourself. It prevents you from moving forward in life. So forgiveness brings peace and clarity, and that's something we should all be striving for.

Speaker 1: 3:44

You've built great relationships in your life yeah, isn't that one? Now I'm going to tell you something. You know we talk about being older in this podcast and one of the things I've noticed and many, many other people I've talked to around my age a little bit younger one of the things we all agree on is it's very difficult to make new friends, close friends, as you get older. But still, my best friends are the ones that I knew in high school or in college or that I knew from a long time ago. There are very few people currently in my life that are more than acquaintances or good acquaintances. Most of my friends are people I have known a very, very long time, decades and decades. So it's nice to know that I have built those great relationships and I hope you have too, and I hope you have too, and I hope you keep trying. I know I do, but I wish someone could explain to me and this is a great idea, maybe for a future episode why is it so hard to make a new close friend as you age? I can't think of anyone who says, yeah, my best friend, I met them a year ago and you're in your 60s. You know, your best friend is someone that you knew decades ago and was probably your best man or, you know, a bridesmaid at your wedding or something like that.

Speaker 1: 5:02

You have discovered your passion. Passion brings joy and fulfillment and purpose. You know, I was someone who for a long time, let my job, my work, define who I was. I lost sight of my goal. My passion became work and I'm going to tell you, in my opinion, my friends, that is not a good thing. Work should not be a passion. You can be passionate about work and want to do the right thing. Obviously, this is how you get financial reward, how you achieve, maybe, financial security of some kind. But if it's overriding what's happening in your life or daily life or your family, if you're neglecting doing the things that bring you happiness, that's not a good thing. So, discovering your passion and pursuing that, what a wonderful idea and wonderful thing to do.

Speaker 1: 6:02

Hey, for me it's been podcasting. Look for better or for worse, no matter what you or other people might think of the podcast, it's a passion for me. I enjoy doing it, I enjoy showing up, I enjoy spreading the information and for me, if a thousand people listen or if 10 people listen, the passion is there. It's all the same. Would I like a thousand, 10,000, a hundred thousand. Of course, would I like to be Joe Rogan who wouldn't? But then again, there's a lot of pressure with being Joe Rogan, huh, and having to maintain all of that. I like you. I thank you for being a member of this podcasting family, because this is my passion. Work is no longer my passion, that's just a means to an end.

Speaker 1: 6:48

You have made a positive impact. You know, recently I was a guest on another podcast and someone asked me how I'd like to be remembered and I said I would like to be remembered as someone who made a difference. That's kind of been my motto in life for the last few years. Make a difference is what I tell people they should do. Make a difference in life. You've had a positive impact. I was at one job where I was able to create a program for teenagers to get more involved in the arts. Even though I'm no longer at that job, that program continues years now since I helped create it back in 2010. It's still having a positive impact on the life of teenagers in the community that I live in.

Speaker 1: 7:31

You've learned from your failures, man Failure. Just tell you this, my friends failure is not a dirty word. In fact, it's a normal path to success. Failure teaches us lessons that we can't learn when we are succeeding. So true.

Speaker 1: 7:51

I remember when my first marriage broke up, I thought I was a failure. My parents had been married since briefly out of high school and their entire lives. I thought that's the way life was supposed to be. I believe what was happening in my family and what I saw in the movies and TV shows, and so I felt like a failure for a long time afterwards. There are things that I've done in my life where I thought, well, I failed at that and I let it bring me down, let it have a negative impact. As I look back on my life now, I realize that every time it happened, I actually learned from it. My first marriage might've only lasted a very brief time, but I'm currently in a marriage that's about to celebrate 40 years in 2025. So do you think I learned from that failure? Absolutely, we can't let failure define us.

Speaker 1: 8:43

Failure is what propels us forward. It's not a dirty word. It's actually a positive thing, because if you go through life and this is for all the younger listeners here if you go through life thinking you will never fail, that if you fail that's bad, then you're always going to be looking over your shoulder when you're attempting anything and you can't do that. Sometimes you have to plow straight into a project or a desire or a passion and if you fail at it or it doesn't succeed completely the way you wanted it to, that's okay. Failure is not a bad thing, folks. The way you wanted it to, that's okay. Failure is not a bad thing, folks, as long as you learn from it.

Speaker 1: 9:24

And the last one you have experienced moments of true inner peace, moments like this that can be fleeting in life, friends. It can be hard to find inner peace, especially in today's world with everything that's going on, all the stress, all the tension I know. For me, whenever I have been close to or able to access the ocean, that's when I really had inner peace. I've talked before also about how mindfulness meditation has helped me, but really, in the times I've been on a boat or a cruise and I can just find time to just sit quietly by myself and stare out at the ocean or go to the beach, not for the purpose of getting a suntan or of swimming or anything else, but just simply to look out at the majesty of the ocean, it really does make me feel peaceful and whatever that is for you, make sure you do it and try to do it on a regular basis. We're constantly hit with negative news, negative impressions. We're buried in our phones. Social media hits us all the time. It's like we never hear any good news anymore. So find those moments of inner peace. That's when you'll know that you've been successful in life.

Speaker 1: 10:47

My friends, I want to thank you for joining me on this episode of Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older and our current series, life Lessons. We went through a whole bunch of life lessons in this episode right here, and I hope that you can relate to some of the things that I've talked about. And again, as I mentioned at the beginning, please scroll down in the show notes, leave me a message Very easy to do and tell me about the things that you've done in life. Have you overcome a fear? Have you found that moment of inner peace? Have you made a positive impact? If not, is that what you strive for, what you're trying to do? I hope so. I also hope you'll take a moment to just hit that like button.

Speaker 1: 11:25

Share this episode and the podcast with your friends and family. Comment I'd love to know what you think about it and subscribe. Subscribing doesn't cost anything. It just means you'll be notified when a new episode drops. As always, my friends, I thank you so much for being a part of Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older, for being a part of my passion, and until we speak again, I remind you please always be kind and be safe. But you're feeling cold, you're not sure what to do. Without a friendly shoulder, you're not alone, so start feeling bolder. Welcome to Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older.