Are you ready for the third half?

This interview with Campbell Gerrish and Caroline Brecker was recorded on September 5, 2024.

00:00 Campbell Gerrish: People developing a portfolio of activities now rather than having one job to say I’ve got a lot of different things that I can do.

00:10 Caroline Brecker: At this age it leads to what we would say is the best part of life. If you can really hook onto this idea of this rich portfolio life, it can be absolutely the most wonderful time of your life.

00:19 Peter Bowes: One of the goals of this podcast is to explore what it is that we need to do to ensure that when we grow older, we’re still physically and mentally able to enjoy life to the full. We focus a lot on exercise and nutrition, good sleep and social connections to prepare us for the next chapter, or the third half, as our guests today call it. The question is, how do we navigate the bonus years that we’ve worked so hard to enjoy.

Campbell Gerrish and Caroline Brecker co-founded Third Half Advisors to do just that, as they put it, to envision a different future.

Hello again. Welcome to the Live Long and Master Aging podcast. I’m Peter BowesThis is where we explore the science and stories behind human longevity. Campbell and Caroline, it’s great to meet you.

Campbell Gerrish: Thanks for having us, Peter. Nice to be here.

Caroline Brecker: Thank much. Thank you for letting us join you.

00:19 Peter Bowes: Good to talk to you. Let me start with you Caroline. From your perspective, what is the third half? I was brought up to believe that there were two halves. So, what is the third half?

01:37 Caroline Brecker: Well, the third half, as it sounds, is sort of an incongruous combination. So you’re right, there is no third half. However, it’s a nod to really the longevity that we have later in life that we don’t actually know lengthwise what it’s going to be. So it can either be a long period of time or a short period of time. But the fact is we are aging and living much longer. And the blueprint for how we age is quite different than it has been for our parents. So the third half is a signal to that incongruity. In addition, Campbell will tell you a story about the third half that is actually more sports related. So Campbell, maybe you want to share how we came up with the actual name.

02:22 Campbell Gerrish: Well, Peter, you’re from England and you know the game of rugby and I played rugby in college and there two halves played on the field and then there’s generally a third half, which is after the game and there’s more camaraderie and friendship and it’s the only sport I know where people gather opponents after a game and begin to become friends. And so the idea here, the analogy is that this is the third half. It’s a bonus half that you get to spend the way you want with your own decision -making powers.

02:55 Peter Bowes: And would you say that it’s fair to acknowledge that the traditional idea of retirement, which I guess most people would consider to be part of that third half, that the very concept of retirement is really changing quite radically these days?

03:10 Campbell Gerrish: Yeah, well, I certainly think that’s true, Peter. Retirement can last much longer because of longevity dividend, but the break-off of retirement, as traditionally known with the gold watch and the commencement speech, is just not what it once was. Because most people at this age, or the normal age of retirement, are still vital, and they’re interested and willing to give back. And I think one thing that Caroline and I were intrigued with was so many talented people with their relationships and resources and education and careers. What do they do post -retirement? And all that talent seems to be lost to many communities. And one of the things we set out to do is to make people aware of their own strengths so that they could gather and focus on the things that they really enjoy and can help other people at the same time.

04:02 Peter Bowes : Well, before we both of you dive into that subject a little deeper, let me just ask you about your lives to date. I know you both have kind of a background in finance, insurance and banking. Caroline, what brought you to this point and what piqued your interest in the third half?

04:22 Caroline Brecker: A very good question. So I’m a recovered banker. So I spent a long time after getting my BA and MBA in finance, both institutionally and in the private wealth space. And I spent a couple of decades at JP Morgan and then moved on to work for a family foundation after that. And as I was making that transition, I was looking at both my spouse and a peer group that was really grappling with what to do next after that, what we sort of dubbed warrior career, if you will. And the transition I noticed and in conversation with Campbell, Campbell and I have had a long relationship in financial services. We were struck by how little resource was available. All the way through your professional career and even leading up to that, there are lots of resources around leadership and what to do and choices, et cetera. But then it sort of crickets after, you’re thinking about moving off center stage. So we were really thinking, you know, this is just an immense opportunity to help a group of talented individuals who have time, treasure and talent, but just don’t know what to do with it. The other interesting thing is there’s a lot of sort of correlation between high net worth people and their motivation and how to figure out meaning and purpose with people who have retired who are just not sure what to do. So that white space that people are dealing with can be paralytic and very disorienting. So we worked with some wonderful coaches to create this curriculum that helps people really take a pause, think about who they are, because while you can do anything, you can’t do everything. So helping people really filter out what would give them energy and then from there what an explorer would look like at this stage. So we’ve been very fortunate. We’ve had hundreds of people who have gone through our program and we would just continue to hone and observe this transition not only for the individuals themselves but for a demographic that’s really writing the script on how to age in a healthy way.

06:46 Peter Bowes: And Campbell, you’ve had a life in insurance. Are you at a stage where you’re also recovering from that past career? Is that how you see it?

06:54 Campbell Gerrish: Well, I wouldn’t put it that way. I really enjoyed my career in the life insurance business. Peter, I built an independent brokerage firm with one other fellow, two of us, and now we have 120 employees with offices all around the country. And I still have an interest in the business. I stay as a mentor and an advisor to that group. But this really, as we said, was another chapter in my life. And at some point, I do believe that for many professionals, the fire goes out of their belly. You you’re just not prepared to do the things that you had done for many, years. And when that moment arrived for me, I said, you know, it’s time for me to take a step back, to move off cener stage and make room for my younger partners to thrive. And that’s really what’s happened. The idea of white space was very foreign to me because I would have four, five, six appointments a day every day. There’s always something moving, something happening, somebody to talk to. And when you’re in control of your own time, to a certain extent, it can be daunting.

07:59 Peter Bowes: I’m very much with you on the idea of white space. It’s something that I’ve tried to incorporate into my life, that just the beauty of space and time to do things. And I guess that’s what the third half, the next chapter of your life brings you. I know that one of the issues that people grapple with is the loss of identity when they move on from their long career. And this question, who am I now, comes up. So I’m curious, and I know this is something you talk to people about.

How, Caroline, do you begin that conversation to persuade someone that they are still someone and that there is a life to continue to live?

08:38 Caroline Brecker: It’s an excellent point and I would say there are actually three components to re -envisioning yourself. We affectionately call it TIP, which stands for time, identity, and place. Those are the three things that are really turned on their head when you leave a job that you’ve been in or a career that you’ve built over decades. Where do I spend my time? How do I structure my week with this ambiguity of time where I used to have meetings every moment? What do I do with that? And then to your question of identity, who am I if I’m not going into my office? Who am I if I am not leading this or doing this, the doing versus the being? And then the place of where is my community now? It’s, you know, it’s someplace else and I have to figure that out. So it’s really, what we like to do is take people back a step just to do a little bit of introspection. And we start with CliftonStrengths, which is an assessment we find very powerful in that it is very asset -based. We’re not trying to fix people and make them different. We’re trying to elicit what makes them truly energetic. And so we find CliftonStrengths really brings out that conversation in an extremely concrete and tangible way. And then we talk a little bit about motivational values. So people’s strengths don’t change a lot of life, but their values do. So we use that coordination of strengths and values to really create a profile for somebody to say, these are the things that really drive your energy and interests and build from that some passion and exploration. Getting people from that sort of hard charging warrior to explore takes a little bit of iterative thinking. And we do a lot of brainstorming around that.

10:33 Peter Bowes: This is a conversation that I guess most people are having with you, with themselves, in their 60s. The seventh decade traditionally being the decade that people retire in. I just wonder, Campbell, how much we could benefit ourselves by beginning to have that conversation decades earlier, thinking about it in our 30s, 40s, and 50s and preparing for that time so that it doesn’t come as such a, as it seems to, such a sudden jolt.for so many people.

11:02 Campbell Gerrish: Yeah, I think that’s a great idea, Peter. you know, many of the people who have been through our program are planning towards retirement, but most of them have already hit that age, as you expressed. But I do think it should be built into many employment situations where you’re preparing people for the next phase of their lives. It’s good for the business and it’s also good for the people. And that’s where Caroline was relating to that TIP idea. I think in many independent and even bigger businesses, succession is a real problem because people don’t want to leave the stage. They don’t want to give up what’s defined them. And many times we found that, well, a study showed that four out of five businesses fail because the principles won’t get out of the way. And so I think your idea of beginning to plan for the third half earlier on is very sensible. We’re working with an insurance distribution group right now who have study groups within the confines of the bigger organization. And that’s exactly what we’re setting out to do, is getting people to start thinking about it. So when the times comes, it’s easier for both parties, the business and the principles.

12:16 Peter Bowes: And of course, it isn’t just a workplace mindset. We live complete lives. It’s our lives outside of work as well. I think that perhaps we need to think about preparing. For example, I spoke to someone recently who is in his early to mid -60s and retirement is coming up. And this person said to me, I don’t have any interests outside of work. What am I going to do? And I think that’s a common mindset that people…really think that there is going to be nothing beyond that day of retirement because their lives have been completely full of work. So I suppose the challenge is to make sure that we have fuller lives, that is financially, if that is practically possible, during those decades earlier, Caroline.

13:03 Caroline Brecker: So an outstanding point in that that exploration it blooms into this portfolio life So whereas you may have had 90 % or 85 % of your time geared towards your vocation and then try to smudge everything else into the remaining amount of time We really want to see multiple sectors, if you will, filled out. So we think in the portfolio life terms of six different aspects, and they are financial, meaning income, or however you’re sustaining yourself financially, learning, you know, very rich opportunity for people who are aging, giving back, and that giving back can be an either small ways, family oriented or bigger. We have clients who’ve done some very big things, but it doesn’t have to be that either. There’s recreation, which of course many people enjoy building that out and probably we’ll love to see even more of that happening, people really having fun and enjoying this piece of it. And then there’s lifestyle and just thinking about how you wanna live and what environment. And that takes some real thought. And then finally, the relationship piece of this, where you’re going to spend your time and with whom when you may not have had the luxury to do that in your more formative career years. So again, we think about each one of these aspects and help our clients really build out aspirational ideas. And they don’t all have to be firing off at the same time. We do have clients who have the big idea and all of sudden they want to focus on –one aspect for period of time. But it’s the calibration of that, that I think at this age leads to what we would say is the best part of life. If you can really hook onto this idea of this rich portfolio life, it can be absolutely the most wonderful time of your life. And we’re really trying to get people to reframe that as less of a loss part of life and more at a gain of this rich fabric of portfolio life.

15:12 Peter Bowes: And how important, is the continuance of your social circles? Because I know, clearly for a lot of people, their work environment is an extension of their family. There are people that they’ve known for very long time and worked with and vitally provide that social link to the outside world, which I guess may suddenly stop for a lot of people. And there’s so much mounting evidence these days. The Surgeon General in United States has talked about this. The epidemic of loneliness because people are suddenly in their older years shut off from other people. I guess managing that situation so that you don’t suddenly find yourself by yourself or with a much smaller circle of people around you, that has to be approached quite delicately.

16:01 Campbell Gerrish: Yeah, well put Peter, and I think a good way to approach that is through communities of interest. So things that you’re interested in, you sort of have to force yourself to get out there and engaged with other people because you can’t face this on your own. And I’ll give you an example in my small community, a suburban community of New York, we’re starting a men’s association. It happens to pertain to men more often than women. But what we’re trying to do is arrange a gathering once a month where we’ll have a speaker and develop some friendship and camaraderie. It’s been done successfully in other communities and that’s the type of idea that people can build on their own. Reaching out to a larger group of people and you’d be surprised how many people feel the same way. They’re glad to have an opportunity to come together, to meet other people, to learn new things and to share ideas. I think your thesis is absolutely correct, Peter. Look for communities of interest and force yourself to get out there and participate because that’s how you will grow new relationships and build on what you’ve already learned along the way.

17:10 Peter Bowes: Well I want to dive into the practical steps that people can take if watching this, listening to this, they want to get involved with what you’re doing. Just one more question about the bigger picture. I know a lot of people approach retirement with the thought that now is the time to downsize, to move house, maybe move town, state, or even country. And I’m just wondering what your thoughts are on that move as to whether it’s necessarily a wise thing. Yes, maybe downsizing is good idea, but moving away, creating a new community, is that always the best thing to do?

17:43 Campbell Gerrish
Well, one of our speakers and advisors is man named Ryan Frederick who wrote a wonderful book called Right Place, Right Time. And it’s a guidebook as to how to help people make that decision. But in many cases, it’s not the best idea to move away from a community that you’ve been a part of your whole life, your family, your friends. Moving to a community, golf community, for example, can sound idyllic, but it’s not always that attractive once you realize that you have common interests with people that are somewhere else. And so I think we would recommend caution in making a quick move in that regard. And Caroline, maybe you can add something from what Ryan has told us.

18:29 Caroline Brecker: So I think one of the thesis that Ryan really thinks about is that this is a much deeper decision than just sunshine and leisure activity. That when you make that decision to move, it actually is really a very rich, multi-pronged decision – uses the Gallup Wellness Index, for instance, all the way from value systems of a place you’re moving through to financial considerations, et cetera. And even further to that, because we use CliftonStrengths, we know how people function in relationships. And some people are very gregarious outgoing in which a move could be easier because they’re what we call anywhere people. You can plop them into a community and they’ll be the first ones to make friends in five minutes. But some people are not that, and they don’t present and get energy out of people. Sometimes those people can be somewhere people, meaning they really build layers of community over years and leaving that can be very hard on them. And it may be simply just moving across town is the change that can be beneficial to them. So I think it’s a very important reflection period because the frictional costs of moving as you age are higher. It’s harder to undo when you’re also not on a soccer field with other parents and the community element that sort of naturally brings you together or the office isn’t there anymore. So you really want to consider that move. And it’s an important one, especially with partners who may differ on that feeling of moving to really have a good guide and coach oftentimes to help think through that. Because it is a very big step. Not one that you shouldn’t embrace because doing nothing also is not necessarily the solution. But there is a pretty deep and meaningful thinking process to it.

20:37 Peter Bowes: So Campbell, for the people watching, listening to this conversation, whose interest you’ve piqued, and you’ve certainly piqued my interest and I think raised some subjects that I hadn’t previously talked about, where do they start in terms of getting involved with you and what would it involve?

22:13 Campbell Gerrish: Well, our website is thirdhalfadvisors.com and that’s probably the principal place to gather information about also what we’ve been doing for the last six years. But we have a number of different modalities to offer people. The most traditional is what we call our milestone and it’s two three-hour sessions that we do online one week apart. And we do that for somewhere around 10 to 12 people. We have a full course and we have a workbook that people will move through during that period of time. We also have one-on-one coaching with some of our great coaches and facilitators if people prefer to go their own way. And we also do retreats. We’ve had a number of very successful retreats that we’ve done with individuals around the country. So there’s a number of different ways to get engaged. We also have what we call our lift series. We have speakers on a regular basis that our community can access and they talk on all different interesting topics for the benefit of third halfers. So there’s a lot of different ways to get engaged but the primary way would be to look at thirdhalfadvisors.com You get a full idea of all of our offerings and some of the feedback we’ve gotten from people who have been through it.

22:10 Peter Bowes: What sort of success stories have you had?

22:13 Campbell Gerrish: Well, I’ll start with one and you know, what we love to find is that people who have explored with us have chosen to do something interesting that’s really bringing value to them and to other people. A friend of mine who actually played rugby with in college was a very successful engineer. He retired. He didn’t have a real focus, but he loved music. And he found out about a school in Richmond, Virginia, where he lives where a group of underprivileged students are educated to go to college and 100 % of the students do go on to college. But he said, you know, I would love to teach them something about music. And so he began by giving voluntary courses on playing the guitar. lot of people were very interested. And from that, they built an entire piece of the curriculum on music appreciation and how that can benefit people’s thinking and expose young students to a much broader world. And so it’s just an example of exploring your own passions and being able to relate them to a broader audience and bring a lot of value and meaning to yourself as well as to other people. And just along those lines, I think Peter, people have always been focused on their external resume, building a resume in business or in whatever it is. They’ve created a tremendous external resume. But the rewards in the third half many times come from building your internal resume. And that means the satisfaction that you get from doing something like my friend did.

23:51 Peter Bowes: Caroline, do you have any notable stories of people who’ve maybe done things that they hadn’t previously even thought about?

23:58 Caroline Brecker: Yes, indeed. One of our wonderful members who went through the program was a high -powered CEO, redefined her life, moved to a completely different community, and she actually founded a culinary institute, which was fantastic. She really enjoyed the creation of the school. And interestingly, what she found is that she was so absorbed in it, she almost felt as if she was back in her CEO life. And when she was working with us, what we helped her do was actually recalibrate her interests. So being able to be involved in the culinary institute, which she was very passionate about, but also, as we talked about, really getting involved in other aspects of her portfolio life. So that was really fulfilling to watch her step into other aspects of her life and really enjoy the culinary institute that she created. You know, stories that we have have these wonderful opportunities and creations, but they can be small steps as well. There was a wonderful woman who went through our program, Cindy, who had an amazing consulting practice that she had created after she retired. But she just wanted to figure out how to spend some time with her mother, a relationship that was extremely important. So after our program, she figured out a way to systematically do that every week. You know, it turned out that her mother passed away after she had made that change in her schedule, and she was just so…happy that she had made that change in her life just to honor that relationship and really have what are very cherished memories for her now. So they can be big enterprises that people do after they go through our course, or they can be small tweaks that can be incredibly valuable as they build that portfolio life.

26:00 Peter Bowes: Now this podcast is about human longevity. It’s about living as long as we can, but with full health, the mental, physical ability to do what we want to do in our older years, especially pursuing health span as the most impor tant aspiration as opposed to lifespan, staying healthy so we can do all of these things. I’m just curious from both of your individual perspectives, speaking very personally, do you think about your own longevity? And if you do, how do you apply what you’ve learned through what you’re doing now in your third half? In other words, how do you apply the lessons that you’ve learned along the way in creating this new life, new lives for yourselves as it applies to you, Campbell?

26:45 Campbell Gerrish: Well, I think we’ve talked quite a bit about a portfolio of activities and I think that’s one of the keys is to build out your own portfolio of activities and to allocate time to each one of those. It’s like a portfolio of assets in many cases and you say to yourself, how much am I going to invest in this area and another area and the whys and wherefores? So I think people developing a portfolio of activities now rather than having one job to say I’ve got a lot of different things that I can do. I can rebalance it whenever I want and it gives me fulfillment knowing that I’m focused on the things that are highest priority to me.

27:23 Peter Bowes: And I guess it’s having that portfolio of activities that still gives you more of that white space that we were talking about earlier, that it might be a seemingly busy lifestyle, but it’s a lifestyle that allows you the downtime and the space to just breathe that you might not have previously had.

27:43 Campbell Gerrish: I think that’s right, Peter, and one of the coaches that I used in the process of moving to this next phase talked about the difference between being and doing. And we’re very much human doings. We’re constantly doing things, but you’re right, having white space to reflect, to become self -aware, to say, are the things that I really want to do? Not the things that I should do, but the things that I really want to do. Having that privilege at this stage of the game really makes a big difference.

23:14 Caroline Brecker: You know, Campbell and I have had a professional relationship in finance for decades, but just to speak personally, you know, we will have, you know, our things related to third half we’re working on and Campbell might say, now I need to go because I need to pick up my grandson, you know. A decade ago, we wouldn’t have been saying that probably to each other. But I think what is really great is we have permission. And because of the work that we’ve done in third half, I say, well, good for you. I’m so glad you’re taking time to do that. And I think just having the spaciousness to say with confidence, this other part of my life is just as important is a really big step for people. And interestingly, when we do our work often we have a particular exercise where people are talking about values and they’re quite serious and stewardship and lots of these vocabulary words come up. And then, you know, the 10th person will say fun. And all of a sudden you’ll see like dominoes every going, why didn’t I put fun as my top value? And so again, I think one of the things personally is to honor the fun part and make sure that you’re enjoying what you’re doing. Campbell’s point about the shoulds, that is something that really needs to move off of people’s plate.

29:35 Peter Bowes: And just going back to the point that we were making earlier about possibly thinking about these things earlier in life and kind of beginning that conversation. In terms of people getting involved with your programmes, is there an age limit? Do you involve people of any age?

29:52 Campbell Gerrish: People of any age can participate in our program. Peter, we’ve had some people who have had unusual financial success and they’re early on and now they’re trying to decide what they’re having to do with a much longer life ahead. The process is the same. It’s the same thinking process. We use the same tools and I think it’s beneficial for people to go through a program, fill out our workbook, to write a statement of purpose and then come back to it from time to time to review it. Many people who have been through the program, you know, ask the question, well, what’s next? And what’s next is a review and to deal with the hurdles that are getting in your way. So we offer ongoing coaching as well.

30:35 Peter Bowes: Well, I think it’s fascinating what you’re doing. In the show notes for this episode, I’ll put a full transcript of this conversation. I’ll put a link to the website that you mentioned so people really can dig in and dive into the subject and hopefully get involved with what you’re doing. I wish you all the best and continued success with it. Thank you both very much indeed.

30:55 Campbell Gerrish: Thank you very much, Peter. Thank you. We enjoyed it.