4-Quarter Lives

Terri Harrington is one of the members of the first cohort of a new program at the University of Colorado Denver, called Change-Makers. In this podcast series so far, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox has talked with people who have gone through equivalent programs at Harvard and Stanford, and she has been intrigued to see new options opening up at a number of other schools not only in the US but in other countries. In this conversation she was keen to understand what the Denver program is offering, what drew Terri to it, and what she is hoping to emerge from this shift in direction after a lifetime in the law.Terri Harrington is a founding attorney of Harrington Brewster Mahoney Smits law firm in Denver, Colorado. In this role she has practiced law for over 40 years, providing counsel and support to clients throughout the greater Denver area and across Colorado. Her specialization has been in family law, mediation, conflict coaching and divorce. She is an ardent advocate of mediation in family disputes as an alternative to litigation and lectures on collaborative law, mediation, and alternative dispute resolution. She formerly served many years on the executive council of the Family Law Section of the Colorado Bar, was a board member of the Colorado Collaborative Law Professionals and is a current member of the Rocky Mountain Collaborative Law Professionals. Terri worked tirelessly for ten years until Colorado enacted the Colorado Collaborative Law Act in 2021. She was awarded the ICON award in 2022 by the Family Law Bar.Useful Links:* Denver Change-Makers Program: https://www.ucdenver.edu/change-makers  * Terri Harrington bio: https://www.hbmslaw.com/terri-harrington* ‘Old School – Mid-Life Transition Programs Take Off’ – Forbes Article* ‘Next Chapter Matters: Two More Universities Launch Mid-Life Programs – Forbes Article (Part 2)    * The Race2Dinner Book Club, mentioned by Terri: Race2Dinner Book Club   Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox is delighted to have Professor Claudia Goldin, the newly crowned winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, join her on 4-Quarter Lives. Claudia is Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University and co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Gender in the Economy Study Group. Her research uses history to explore the origins of issues in the present, particularly with regard to women’s lives and careers. She has explored the history of women’s search for career and family, co-education in higher education, the impact of “The Pill” on career and family decisions, women’s surnames after marriage as a social indicator, the reasons why women are not the majority of undergraduates and the new lifecycle of women’s employment.Professor Goldin’s most recent book, published in 2021, is Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity.  In it she provides a history of all these factors in women’s advancement and concludes with the impact of the pandemic on women’s careers and couple equity.  As she and Avivah discuss in this episode, lengthening lives and careers is an important part of this story of a century of progress, stumbling blocks and future opportunities for both men and women around the world.Useful Links:* Claudia Goldin: Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity. (Princeton University Press)* Claudia Goldin: Wikipedia Bio.* ‘A Century of Women, Work – and Juggling Family’ – Forbes Article by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox   Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

The guest this week in 4-Quarter Lives is Barbara Waxman, whose work Avivah Wittenberg-Cox came across early on in her exploration of the topic of how to manage our ever longer lives. Barbara is a gerontologist and coach and has combined both these areas in a career focused on helping people become both more effective professionally and at the same time truer to who they themselves are as individuals. With a background in gerontology, she found at the start of her own empty-nester years a chance to reconsider her own trajectory, and realised just how much more opportunity the years ahead had to offer. Recognising the similarity between this turbulent time and that of adolescence, she coined the term ‘Middlescence’ and authored a book aptly called The Middlescence Manifesto: Igniting the Passion of Midlife. She serves as an Advisory Council Member for the Stanford Center on Longevity and is a faculty member of the Modern Elder Academy. In this conversation Barbara and Avivah talk about the ‘3Rs’ of the subject – Reality, Response and Roadmap and about the different challenges of this time for men and women.  And Barbara introduces yet another wonderful reframing – that instead of thinking about ‘retirement’ we should move to ‘preferment’.Links relevant to this episode:Barbara Waxman’s Website: https://barbarawaxman.comBarbara Waxman’s Middlescence Website: https://middlescence.coTo buy The Middlescence Manifesto click here (Amazon.com)The Stanford Center on Longevity: https://longevity.stanford.eduThe Modern Elder Academy:  https://www.modernelderacademy.comLinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbarawaxman/Twitter:  https://twitter.com/BarbaraWaxman Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

In this week’s episode of 4-Quarter Lives, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox talks with Dawn Browne. Dawn is the People & Talent Director of Fuller’s, a hospitality company that runs some 200 hundred pubs and restaurants in the UK, across London and Hampshire, and employs 5,000 people. In today’s talent-strapped Britain, Fuller’s has been running contrary to the ageism many people accuse companies of. They have been going out to recruit older workers, and wooing them with flexibility and benefits. Recently they announced a new partnership with Rest Less, a digital community and advocate for people aged over 50, with a view to attracting more mature workers.Dawn Browne is a highly experienced people and development director, with a background in both hospitality and travel – two sectors where customer relations are key for consumer loyalty. She is convinced that older people bring particularly high levels of customer service and interaction. She tells us why this is so important for the business, what generational balance brings, and how to build it, sustainably.Some Useful Links:* For a link to Fuller’s, click here* For a link to Rest Less, click here Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

Focus on Stage (Not Age)Susan Wilner Golden is the Founder and Director of the dciX initiative at the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute, or DCI, a similar program to the one at Harvard (the Advanced Leadership Initiative). Her focus is on the intersection of longevity and innovation and the unique entrepreneurial opportunities that longer lives and the growing $22 trillion longevity economy present. She integrates multiple perspectives based on her professional experiences in public health, venture capital, and as an advisor and mentor to startup companies and teams. Her aim is to help entrepreneurs identify the unique features of starting companies focused on older adults and the many market opportunities for new products and services in the fastest growing sector.Susan’s book STAGE (Not Age) was published in 2022 by Harvard Business Review Press. She shares fascinating insights into how companies are thinking and innovating around the massive longevity opportunity, which she also outlines in this podcast.Susan Wilner GoldenSusan is a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and an adjunct professor at Stanford School of Medicine. She also serves as a mentor in residence to the Techstars Future of Longevity Accelerator, and is a thought leader partner with Pivotal Ventures for initiatives on innovations for caregivers of older adults. Previously she was a partner at Schroder Ventures, a firm specializing in life sciences and healthcare investments. She also worked at Genentech, taught at University of California San Francisco, where she was a Pew Health Policy Fellow, and was an assistant professor at the Boston University Medical School. Golden received a Doctorate of Science from the Harvard School of Public Health.Get a Discount on the BookHarvard Business Review Press is generously offering a 30% coupon code for purchasers of STAGE (Not Age) for listeners to the 4- Quarter Lives Podcast. To benefit from this opportunity please click here and enter the Promo Code STAGE2023.Other Useful Links:* Stanford Distinguished Career Institute* Stanford Center on Longevity* Stanford dciX* Techstars Future of Longevity Accelerator Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

This week’s guest with Avivah Wittenberg-Cox on 4-Quarter Lives is environmentalist and educator Dr. Mary Pearl. Mary was born and raised to be a New York debutante but had other plans. Her mother wanted her to go to Wellesley College for Women, but Yale opened to women just in the nick of time (1972). She then flew the coop again, becoming a biologist and exploring the behaviours of primates in the wild. This led her to connect the dots between the health of humans, wildlife and eco systems – the concept of conservation medicine - well before this was on everyone’s agenda. As president of the Ecohealth Alliance, Mary helped build careers of local scientists and educators in 20 high-biodiversity countries around the world. She also sits on the boards of Brazil’s Institute for Ecological Research and the Center for Large Landscape Conservation and is convener of the International Biodiversity Network.Move into EducationMary’s 3rd Quarter saw her move into academe where she became the founding dean of Stony Brook University’s College of Sustainability. Later, she became the Dean of Macaulay Honors College, the City University of New York’s school for its top students. At 72, she decided to step back and to go to Stanford’s Distinguished Careers Institute, a move that has taken her in interesting, and surprising new directions.This episode was recorded in 2022, when Mary was still at Stanford. Since then she has continued to write, and has recently become an advisor to the Helping Africa  Foundation for their program extending high quality education, especially in the STEM fields, to every district in Ghana.Some useful links:* Dr. Mary Pearl bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_C._Pearl* Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute: https://dci.stanford.edu* International Biodiversity Network: https://www.biodiversitynetwork.org* Center for Large Landscape Conservation: https://largelandscapes.org* Helping Africa Foundation: https://helpingafrica.org Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

Morag Lynagh is Unilever’s Global Director of the Future of Work, with particular responsibility for new employment models, age and longevity.  As as an employer of almost 150,000 people, Unilever is one of the first companies to recognise that people have different needs and expectations of work throughout their working lives. This has led to the creation of U-Work within Unilever, a new, internal ‘gig’ employment model that is redefining how people relate to the world of work.Morag is a graduate of Edinburgh University.  She worked in the travel, property and conference industries before joining Unilever in 1994. Within the company she has worked in HR business partnering, recruitment and reward, and spent more than a decade as Unilever’s UK Employment Policy & Law expert, leading teams in this area.As one of the innovators behind U-Work, Morag Lynagh is rethinking the management of careers to reflect shifting needs at different life stages. In her conversation with Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, she explains what this means, and how leading companies are thinking about - and preparing for - ageing societies, both from the consumer/ market side, as well as the internal/ employee side.Key Takeaways* Don’t make corporate policies for older employees alone, redesign policies to make them inclusive of everyone* Flexibility is key to the young, the old and the parents - flex up!* Unilever is leading the way, more companies need to get on the age inclusion bandwagonSome Useful Links:* For Unilever web pages on U-Work and the future of work, click here* For Unilever’s report on ‘The Future of Work’ Summit, click here.* For Unilever’s Future of Work Goals, click here.* FORBES Article by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox about U-Work: Flexibility for ALL: U-Work Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

4-Quarter Lives initially focused on individuals role modelling the new 3rd Quarter. This episode, however, looks at the impact of longer lives on the one before - that normally insane phase of life from 25 to 50. Avivah Wittenberg-Cox speaks with two men who have consciously stepped back from their full-on and very successful tech careers to live more rounded lives.Cain Ullah is Founder and former CEO of UK-based digital transformation company Red Badger. Kevin Maguire was an executive with Google for almost a decade.  Both were on stellar professional career trajectories. Yet as young fathers in Q2, they have both made big career and life choices. Their aims are to profit from the opportunity to plan and pace longer lives, to be true to the idea of more gender balanced couples and to prioritise work/ family balance more than most prior generations of men were able to do. This is a tale familiar to many women but may encourage listeners of all genders to rethink their Q2 career strategy.  Having taken this decision, Kevin has also decided to write about it, and produces a regular and fascinating newsletter on Substack, which he calls The New Fatherhood.Some Useful Links* For Kevin’s blog: * For Red Badger: https://red-badger.com* Follow Kevin on Twitter: @kevmaguire * Follow Cain on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cainullah/ Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

John Bateson is an expert on the Third Age Consumer, the period of healthy ageing after retirement and before age restricts consumption. Few people can have his breadth and depth of knowledge about the growing consumer interests and needs - and business opportunities - among those in their 3rd and 4th Quarters. Now a visiting Professor of Management at City, London University, he publishes a newsletter Consumer Ageism on Substack, has a website on The Business of Age and is completing a new book on the subject. Previously John was a Senior Partner in the MAC Group, Senior Vice President at Gemini Consulting, a member of Cap Gemini’s Group Executive Committee, CEO of SHL and has chaired multiple businesses. He was also  Professor of Marketing at London Business School and Stanford Business School and has written extensively on services marketing. He holds a doctorate in marketing from Harvard Business School and an MBA from the London Business School.Some Useful Links·      For John’s Substack blog, Consumer Ageism,  click here·      For John’s highly informative website TheBusinessofAge.com, click here. Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe

In this last episode of 4-Quarter Lives’ first season, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox talks with Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot. A sociologist and Harvard Professor of Education, with a teaching and writing career spanning five decades, Sara was one of the first academics to examine and focus on the third quarter of life. Her book The Third Chapter: Risk, Passion, and Adventure in the Twenty-Five Years After 50 uses interviews and story-telling to explore how people respond to this time of new opportunity and activity – or not.Life Before & After 50Across her distinguished career, Sara has studied educational culture and ecology, and the relationship between human development and social change. She has written 11 books ranging from an examination of the relationship between families and schools, and parents and teachers, to a study of the quality of respect in human behavior and experience. More recent books include ‘Exit: The Endings that Set Us Free’ and ‘Growing Each Other Up: When Our Children Become our Teachers.’Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot has been a fellow at the Bunting Institute and at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences at Stanford University. She is a recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Prize, was awarded Harvard's George Ledlie Prize for research that makes the "most valuable contribution to science" and "the benefit of mankind" and has been the recipient of 28 honorary degrees from colleges and universities in the USA and Canada.  Since 1998 she has been the Emily Hargroves Fisher Endowed Chair at Harvard University. Upon her retirement, this will become the Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot Chair, making Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot the first African-American woman in Harvard's history to have an endowed professorship named in her honour.Useful LinksFor Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’s full profile, click here.In the course of the conversation, Sara mentions three of her many books:* The Third Chapter: Risk, Passion, and Adventure in the Twenty-Five Years After 50* Exit: The Endings that Set Us Free* Growing Each Other Up: When Our Children Become our Teachers Get full access to Elderberries at elderberries.substack.com/subscribe