Walking into Wisdom: Discovering Life’s Lessons One Step at a Time

Michael Hughes 00:07
Hi there, and welcome to The Art of Aging, which is part of the abundant aging podcast series from United Church Homes. And on this show, we look at what it means to age in America and at other places around the world with positive and empowering conversations that challenge, encourage and inspire everyone everywhere to age with abundance. Today, I’m super excited because we’ve got Joe Morgan on the show. Joe comes to us after four successful decades of experience in executive leadership. He began his career as a chemical engineer and progressed to CEO and board member positions for many public and private companies. Currently, he is an entrepreneur as CEO and founder of siY, LLC where he advises senior executives and mentors high potential future leaders, driven by his purpose to help people see the unseen and do wicked off some things with the discoveries, Joe has walked hundreds of miles of key influencers as part of the dialog miles journey, which we’re going to get at to on the show today. The resulting stories are part of this platform for inspiring engagement, both personally and across organizations. Joe, welcome to the show.

Joe Morgan 01:06
Thank you, Michael, glad to be here. Actually, I’m going to call you Mike. My best friend’s Mike, too, if that’s okay, you can call me just, just don’t call me Joseph. My mother called me Joseph. But yeah, that’s another story. Maybe we’ll get to that.

Michael Hughes 01:17
And just a reminder that this podcast series is sponsored by United Church homes is Ruth frost, Parker center for abundant aging. To learn more about the center, including our annual symposium in October, please visit United Church homes.org/parker-center. So Joe, I always like to open up these podcasts, just with the why question, right? I mean, here you are. You’ve got decades of experience as an Executive leader. You coach executive talent, and now you’ve got this project going on with dialog miles. You know, what is really driving your curiosity about, let’s say, the world of retirement, on retirement, and really just engaging people with this particular project?

Joe Morgan 01:59
Yeah, I could. This is, like, one of my favorite topics. Big surprise, right? So, right, I would say that it goes back a little bit into why I even established siy. Siy means something. It means Be safe, be inspired. Be you. And I’m a people centric leader. Always have been once, once I got into my business career, and the reason for that is because my mom and dad were school teachers, and all we did was talk about kids and people at the dinner table. I didn’t have a lot of business experience, so I got to talk to my sister and my grandma and my mom and dad, and it was always about the kids, and so that was really the catalyst of what started it for me, and be safe. Be inspired. Be you. Means, you know, create a safe environment. Inspired. I’m not big on motivation as much as I am on inspiration. I think you need to get out of bed in the morning, and once you do, then I’m going to ask you, like, what are you most passionate about that you would love to spend your time on? And I’m going to inspire the hell out of you to achieve that. That’s what I want to do. And then the U, capital Y, o, u was founded on the unique attributes of people that I’ve been around in my life and in celebrating what’s different in a positive way. Because it turns out, we have a lot of things in common, not just what the world will tell us is different. We have a lot of things in common with us. So really, what caused me to begin this journey. And when I started dialog miles, it honestly was called the 100 miles of dialog, which originally was to walk with people that have influenced my life, that have been with me throughout my entire life. And you say,

Michael Hughes 03:36
Well, you mean physically walking. This is not a physical walk, yeah, metaphor. This is actually cranking with people, hiking

Joe Morgan 03:42
with people, walking with people. And the key thing for me in being people centric is, you know, I’m not always. I’m a very sympathetic person, but empathy has been a journey for me to really see the world as another person does. Is to me, one of the hardest things in the world. If you walk shoulder to shoulder with somebody in nature where there’s no phone, there’s none of this stuff, you get to see the world as they do in real time. And so what I did is I said I’m going to meet you where you are, and I’d love to go for a walk with you. Some people said, Is this your walking eulogy? And it’s not my walking eulogy, it’s not my final tour, but it really was an opportunity for me to share with people what they mean to me. And I did that. And, you know, 100 miles was chosen by Chloe, who works for me at sa why? And I talked, and she said, you know, why don’t you set it as 100 miles? She wasn’t really so sure whether I’d be able to achieve it. I walked over 400 miles with people that have influenced my life. You know, one of my best friends, Kevin Young, and I walked 20 miles. And the reason we did that is because he wanted to overachieve against anyone else we walked against. So he said, but I picked the last walk in 100 miles of dialog with Mike Moynihan, my best friend I’ve known since I was three years old. I. Walked with my wife, but she did. She’s not a social media person, so if you watch the 100 miles of dialog, you’ll see two shadows walking down a path. That’s my wife and ink. So I’ve walked with, you know, countless people, for almost 50 people, and I miss some people too, and we’re going to move that into the dialog miles. But what would happen with dialog Miles is, I said, you know, these are influencers in my life, but what about the people that I’ve yet to meet? And so I found that the dialog miles platform is a bit of a disarming moment, where you can actually just have a conversation about people, and I can sprinkle in some stories along the way that I think will be tingling to you because they’re so impactful, but also just maybe inspire you to do something different too.

Michael Hughes 05:45
But I want to go back to this idea of empathy, not sympathy, because I think that’s it. A lot of people may consider themselves to be an empathetic person, but I don’t know how strength tested that might be with people, right? I mean, how do you do it? How did you recognize that you were now achieving more of an empathetic worldview versus a sympathetic worldview?

Joe Morgan 06:07
Was there, yeah,

Michael Hughes 06:09
more or was there, yeah? You

Joe Morgan 06:11
know what? The interesting thing about this whole situation for me was, the older you get, this doesn’t always happen. It did happen to me, the more honest I became about myself, I began to see the strengths I have. Certainly I wouldn’t be able to have accomplished what I have accomplished if I didn’t have certain strengths. But I also have some areas that need improvement and I need to work on. And I took a Gallup poll, not a poll, a Gallup behavioral analysis thing 25 years ago, and I think my lowest rated item was empathy. I was like, what? How can that be? Because I viewed myself as being, you know, a caring person, and also, so I went home and I asked my wife, I said, Hey, her name’s Amy. I said, Amy, what do you think of this? Oh, absolutely, you’re not empathetic. Like, really, wow, that’s a shock. So if I hadn’t taken this study, I never would have had that conversation with my wife. So then I was kind of bummed about it, because I thought I was a different person. And then I started to think about it, and it turns out, it’s true. I tend to see things in people. I believe in people, and I want them to be successful, but I don’t listen necessarily, or haven’t listened enough to their view on life. They may see those same things in themselves too. They may not know how to activate it, or maybe they don’t see the need to bring those things forward. But to me, it’s totally clear, but that’s because it’s about me. It’s not also

Michael Hughes 07:45
you’re also a problem solver, correct? I mean, that’s your problem. Sorry. You’ve built an entire career up around leadership, and you need to, not only, you know, support somebody in their development, but you need to do stuff for you. You need to attack a problem. You need to actually take action. And that doesn’t necessarily lend to kind of an empathetic, you know, I think for at least for me, I don’t see the direct line, because you’re required to be more directive to to it’s kind of like that whole there’s a somebody told me about this philosophical theory of communitarianism, where, you know, the philosophy is that, you know, I will pay attention to you as a human being, you know, and until your actions may threaten the health of the entire community, then I have to look to the community. So if I’m leading an organization and everybody is valuable, everyone has their own special things that they bring to the table, but if they’re not performing, then you know, you can’t be that. You can’t be fully empathetic with that. I don’t know. Am I making sense here?

Joe Morgan 08:43
No, no, I hear what you’re saying. I think you asked me for some examples first. So one example that comes to mind, which is a really interesting one. So there’s a woman that I walked with who was an influence in my life, Ashley and we went for a walk, and she knows a ton about nature, far more than I will probably ever know, and we’re walking along talking about a lot of different things. And she said, do you hear that? No, I mean, and she literally, like, ran off the path into the woods, and it was an owl, because she was so in tune with where we were, she heard something. And to me, she was probably listening, as it turns out, to nature the entire time, and I missed a little bit of that, but she taught me in that moment that it’s not just the person that I’m talking to that I need to be aware of, it’s the environment we’re in. So that’s an example of empathy that to me, we were shoulder to shoulder on this path talking about meaningful things, but I missed out on something, and it happened in another one with I was walking with a guy, Michael, and we were pumping up this hill, and he said, Do you realize what you just walked by? And I’m like, No. He said, Joe. Oh, come back here. And it was a historic thing. And he said, you know, stop and smell the roses. That was the first time in my life that I’d actually experienced that really, real way. And I was like, man, you’re right. So what that’s done for me is I don’t have to walk fast anymore. I don’t, I mean, I, my nature would be to be competitive, but everything’s not a competition. So I’ve slowed the pace down when I walk with my wife. I walk, I try to walk at the same pace together, and I experience something very differently than I would have otherwise. So that’s a real life example, and I think it’s meta, some ways metaphorical to what we should be doing in leadership is to slow it down just a little bit like, if you really want to understand somebody, change the questions that you ask and sit on try and sit on the other side of the table a little bit more frequently, you know. And this whole

Michael Hughes 10:52
The experience that you’ve led up to this is all an exercise, it seems, in gratitude, you know, really unpacking and spending quality time with the needs of the people that you care most about, and now you want to have new conversations. So who do you want to have those conversations with? And what are you hoping to achieve?

Joe Morgan 11:09
So it’s hard to predict, to be honest, there’s a little randomness to it, because you meet people in your life. I was sitting in a bar. It sounds like a crazy story, but, you know, you’re sitting at a bar and a hood. But I was at an airport. My flight was a little delayed, so I was sitting in a bar having a pizza, and I had a beer, and this young woman was sitting next to me, and, you know, I’m a very paternal person, so I’m always very curious and careful about conversations and stuff, but we started to talk to one another, and it was really interesting where it led, because she shared with me the work that she does, and I shared with her the work that I do. But what I talked about was dialog miles. I didn’t talk about my profession. I talked about something that I thought would connect with the work that she did. And it turns out there’s a person that works in my organization that is from the same town, and I said, you know, maybe someday we might be able to take a walk and you could share the actual work that you do in your community with me and my colleague. So there’s a random person out of nowhere that I would not have expected to to talk to and with dialog miles, it used to be very centric on walking in nature, and now what I’ve realized it’s about the dialog, and maybe it’s my miles to get there, is the miles. It doesn’t always have to be about walking, because I’ve had people say to me, what if I’m impaired and I can’t walk any longer, I have some disability? Would you be willing to sit with me on a park bench? Totally, totally would be willing to do that. So to me, it’s more around people that want to have a dialogue, that together, we could create something meaningful that would help someone else in a way. And so every time we have these conversations, we extract two or three things that we think would be usable by others. And so today, I mean, I still have a bunch of people that I didn’t get to walk with during the 100 miles of dialog, and they’re on the list, and we’re scaling it, but now there’s a bunch of other people that have reached out to me and said, Hey, would you be willing to go for a walk? And I’m like, force, absolutely, it’d be great.

Michael Hughes 13:21
What do you unpack on these? I mean, so if you’re working with somebody totally new, how do you start that experience? How do you kick it off? Where does it go? Where does the conversation go? Well,

Joe Morgan 13:32
It’s interesting because there’s not a lot of stress, like, I’m a good conversationalist and I’m a good storyteller and stuff. So and again, this is my empathy journey. I used to start with me, and now I start with you. Like, you know what I mean? I’d start, well, let me tell you about me, and I gotta work, yeah, so now I start with you. So I’ll give you a really good example. So I have a, I sit on the board of a company, and there’s an up and coming star in the organization, and I was asked to spend some time with him, so I said to him, you know, kind of give you three options. Option one, we’ll go out to dinner. Option two, we can meet for a beer and we’ll have a conversation. Option three is, I’ll pick you up at the hotel where you’re hiking stuff, we’ll go to hike, and then I’ll take you back to your hotel and freshen up, and then we’ll go out to dinner. I didn’t know what he would say, but if you think about it, right, there’s something there’s something to be learned. And based on the response, what do you think he said? I bet he shows the walk, right? Not a surprise, given what we’re talking about, right? So that was a little bit of leading the witness. But he chose the walk. We walked four miles, and then he said to me, you want to have a beer. So we went and had a beer, and we had further conversation. Then I took him back, freshened up, and then we went out to a really nice dinner. But the conversation was like right out of the gate. Was, you know, tell me about you, tell me about your life, like, what do you do for why did you choose this? Of all, the option of the three options, why did you choose this? And, you know, once that started, we talked about family, we talked about we happen to be walking around a golf course. We talked about the fact that we like to play golf. We talked about the business, of course, but really that was less important than getting to know one another. Because you know what I really have discovered also, Mike is in. I would suspect this is true. When you and I first met, we were introduced by someone that we knew in common, and you knew that person better than I, but this person, Gloria, had witnessed me in another experience, and said, I think this guy might have some value in what we’re doing. And then you and I met, and you agreed, but you really also pushed the conversation along further, and here we are today, delivering on the commitment that we made, I would say, in the condition, in the situation I had that I just described. It was very similar. The difference was, there was nothing in between us electronically. You know, we were both. We didn’t have the cues. Did

Michael Hughes 16:10
you mean? A lot of, you know, you talk about a business dinner and you talk about the formality, everyone kind of goes into this automated routine because, you know, you’re supposed to act a certain way to a business dinner. You’re supposed to talk with what, I don’t know what, but you’re removing all those things, right? Yeah, and

Joe Morgan 16:25
It’s not awkward. It’s sort of a natural thing, you know, you know, not everybody wants to do it. I mean, there will be people that say, Geez, the last thing I want to do is put on gym clothes with somebody that I don’t know very well. And I’ll get that, and that’s okay, but in this particular case, it changed everything in the relationship, and it was really good. And I would say that’s almost almost 100% of the case when I do it. And the other thing that I will say about this that’s really important is meeting people where they are is more important than inviting people to meet you where you are. And that’s been a big part of this as well. For me, I try to ask people to set it up in a way that I can meet them where they are. Now, sometimes they’ll ask me to, like, I have a friend that I met during covid Because we have a common interest in safety, and she lives in Australia. So I’m like, you know, I can’t meet you in Australia, but we’re going to have a, you know, a digital call, which was never my original intent, but now I’m going to be able to talk to someone in Australia as part of dialog miles. And it’s an amazing opportunity, because we would have video calls throughout covid talking about safety and health, and now we get a chance to talk about different things. We just have to find a time when it works. So it’s pretty awesome.

Michael Hughes 17:43
Yeah, and yeah, and I’m thinking about where you are. I mean, you are in your career right now and you’re still working, but you get to do this project. Do you find that many of your interactions, or the interactions that you want to have are those where you want to help others kind of get to that passion project, or, you know, we’ve had guests on the shoulders talking about retirement before, and this idea of working this long life, a life in an industry, and your identity associates with that job, with that industry, and then it’s over, and then we have to find something else to do, you know, And it looks like you’re you seem to have projects, which is interesting. You know, they get different projects going. Do you find that, you know, there’s truth in that? Do you see that again and again when you’re talking to people that may be in that situation?

Joe Morgan 18:30
I do, and I think that, you know, everyone’s a little different. And so I have a really good friend, Mark peel, and he retired a couple years ago, and he had a great career, and we did some amazing things together. And we often talk about this because he retired, and, you know, he is a little bit older than me, but not a lot. And he always says, you know, just wait until you get to this next phase. I mean, like, the difference between us is I actually decoupled from my corporate career almost eight years ago now I wasn’t, I didn’t stay in corporate. So I think my view on this next transition would be very different if I was in my corporation and then I went corporate to freedom, you know, like, what am I going to do with whatever people think that they want? Yeah, in my case, I chose to start my own business, I said, the one thing I’ve never done, I’ve never been an entrepreneur. I’ve worked with tons of them. So again, going back to empathy, you think you know what it’s like to be an entrepreneur, until the day you wake up and there’s no paycheck, there’s no healthcare, there’s nothing and if you don’t do something yourself, it’s not going to come to you. So I did that, and it’s been amazing, the most amazing reward. So I know for myself that when I transition to a time when I don’t deliver the services I do today, I feel comfortable in the sense that I have done a lot of the things that I set out to do my way. Yeah, and I feel really good about that, and I do believe that along the way, most of the time, I would say all of the time, my heart was in the right place, my intentions were in the right place. And I would say most of the time I delivered on that intention. Sometimes the circumstance caused me to not be able to do it, or sometimes I had to make decisions that didn’t feel the right way, but I was able to do it. But I do think it’s true. And you know, I’m a middle aged guy, so I know a lot of middle aged guys that have transitioned out. The thing that’s really true the day after you leave is that there’s a dramatic drop off and connection with you because you have no more platform. You can’t make any decisions, and it really does now come down to you and what you want out of your life, and you can get lonely pretty quickly if you haven’t planned for the friendships and the relationships and the experiences that I want to have when I don’t go to the office tomorrow, or maybe you don’t even go to the office anymore because you’re doing this. So I think that’s actually an interesting one. That’d be a, you know, if I was much younger, that’d be an interesting thesis to see, what’s the effect on retirement for people at the end of their career that no longer go to an office. I bet that would be that that would be really,

Michael Hughes 21:23
The thing that really stands out to me, too, is this idea about doing things your way. I mean, aside from being a Frank Sinatra song,

Joe Morgan 21:29
I was gonna, I can’t. I cannot sing, by the way, otherwise I would have sung that too. But

Michael Hughes 21:36
what I’m observing here is this, this idea that you taking more control, gradually, however it came about, you know, makes the choices that you make more accountable to you personally, which can be stressful for people, but on the other side of it, people are not making the choices for you, right? You don’t have to. Boss says, do this. I have to do this. That’s the way I live my life. And then suddenly, when you get into the world of retirement, it’s much easier to think that, think that things are outside of your control. And that’s one of the tropes that we have about Senior Living and things like that. I’m here because I have to be, you know, I sort of have this learned helplessness. My choices are being made for me fine, and that leads to a lower quality of life. You’re talking more about this opportunity to take more control, again, with risk, also with that reward too, right? We

Joe Morgan 22:26
Yeah, because many think about it. I mean, if there are some people that I know that have had one job, one company, one career, so the thought of change is really daunting professionally, but for me, I mean, I’ve been CEO of seven companies. I’ve lived in Massachusetts. I grew up in Massachusetts, lived in Pittsburgh, and lived in Ohio. Now I live in Nashville and Baltimore. So change has been sort of a norm. So I’m like a Gen Z, no, I think I had this comment. I think I’m actually a millennial. You know, I think in the way Millennials describe themselves in many ways. I Okay. I think I’m the same way. I mean, I like change. I don’t agree with what I don’t agree with, and I’m not going to accept it, you know, all that kind of thing. So yeah, I think that, yeah. I mean, if it to me, it’s all about being prepared for whatever that new moment’s going to be. But if you’re not a person that likes to be scared sometimes, like, I don’t like scary movies, but I do like part of my life being a little unclear and a little scary. I like to be uncomfortable. I like to, you know, have conversations with people that I don’t know that well, so that they can teach me something and I can maybe be wrong about something. There’s nothing better than being informed in an alternative way from someone that I, you know, I don’t know well, So that part’s really good. Yeah,

Michael Hughes 23:49
I think that’s where we where I’m also seeing value here, Joe, because you know your methodology, you take somebody out of an expected environment, put them into an environment that can cue, I don’t know, a different part of the brain, sight, sound, whatever inspiration, have conversations with people about them primarily, and just have that discovery. This is what we call, you know, this is what I would embrace under what we call human centered design. You know this, and that’s what we aspire to do. United Church home is just viewing this co-creation with the people we aim to serve. And very often we’re talking about older adults. These are people that may not have thought that they would have that agency, or that the world doesn’t think that we should be involving, you know, older people in these discussions. We want to turn that on his head. We are introducing a really interesting tactic to maybe get at those insights. So where does dialog miles go from here?

Joe Morgan 24:39
So it ‘sa big opportunity for me. So 100 miles of dialog started, which ultimately became dialog miles. It was really about saying thank you to a lot of really important people in my life. And I’ll step back for one quick second, there’s a woman that worked for me for years, and we met in the. New York City, right after the pandemic, we had this conversation, and it was then that I thought, Man, I really ought to go do this with a ton of people that I have helped for my life. And so I did. And so at the end of that, I just felt like this has become a lifestyle for me now. So I want to help others, because I don’t know your closest friends, and you don’t know my closest friends, and that’s okay, but I would love to go for a walk with you. You know, we could have a different conversation. I’m not recording it. So there are people that do that. I’m not recording it because it’s what we want to take away from it. It is what we share, not some recording. So it’s different from this experience, right? So dialog Miles is going to be a lifestyle for me. I’m going to continue to go forward. I’m dreaming about some things right now that I’m not sure about. Chloe Adams, who works with me on a daily basis, as you’ve I’ve introduced you to her before too. She’s helping me think about it because she’s younger than me. She’s in her 20s, and so she’s thinking about human connection in a slightly different way than I am. And there’s some opportunities with technology, potentially, there’s some opportunities with, you know, just not the randomness, but to scale this in a way that becomes a little bit more predictable. But there will be something, and you’ll hear about it in the not too distant future, where I can find ways to help other people do what I’m doing in their own way, because I know I’m a unique person, and I’m a you know, I have my own approach to things, but I do think even if, instead of hundreds of people like me, I talk to, even if you had the hope of talking to a few people on the horizon, It could bring joy and it could bring just an emotion to you in a very positive way, that it would allow you to feel good about the next step you steps you take in your life. And as long as I continue to do my advisory work, I’ve also incorporated that in this, into the ideation process, within the strategy work that I do because I’ve observed this. I don’t have statistics to support it just yet, but I’ve observed that when you send people out of the room in a pair with someone that typically don’t talk about, talk to, excuse me, they may talk about them. They don’t talk to, they come back with far better insight than if you just say, hey, chat, because people immediately pick up their phone, go to the bathroom, have a coffee, and they’re not really into it, but when they’re out on the street or in nature, they come back with far better insights. So we’re doing that too.

Michael Hughes 27:30
I love that. I love that. Well, Joe, I It’s been terrific to have you on the podcast. You know, just really breaking down this really cool project of yours. It seems to have just a ton of potential. And we always ask our guests three questions about their own experience with Asian. Okay, to ask these questions of you. Well first, but could tell our audience where they can find you. Okay,

Joe Morgan 27:50
so Joe dot Morgan at safe inspired you.com. Is my email. The website is the same safeinspiredu.com and LinkedIn is another good place to see me, and I hope that one of those three places will be an invitation for me to take a walk with you. That would be awesome. Absolutely

Michael Hughes 28:10
my life. I would love to do that, especially because you said you’re in Baltimore. I’m down here in Silver Spring Maryland, so I’m

Joe Morgan 28:16
not too far away from each other. There’s lots of great trails in Maryland, for sure, right?

Michael Hughes 28:20
And just for the listeners, again, that’s safely inspired you.com. Joe.org, and@safeinspiredview.com All right, so Joe, question number one, when you think about how you’ve aged, what do you think has changed about you or grown with you that you really like about

Joe Morgan 28:33
yourself? You know, the thing that’s really important is I have a best friend who I’ve been married to for 41 years. So I walk into the answer to the question with something that not everyone has. So I have liked that I’ve been able to adapt as a husband and a friend. I like that about me. I’m not perfect, but I really try hard to adapt. I also think that I’ve been true to my values throughout the process, which is really good, and your values evolve in terms of their definition, of course, but I’ve been really true to that. And my family matters so much. I have a grandson now, and I’m going to do some things as a grandfather that I didn’t do as well as a dad, and so I’m really aware of those things, and I’m really trying hard to be really effective there. And I’d say finally, you know, as a friend, I’m, you know, really trying to be present more than maybe at times I had in the past, because some of my friends or we talk about business, and now we call each other and we don’t talk about business because business isn’t centered on it. And I’m still on a faith journey. I continue to believe deeply in my faith. You can see that behind me, but it’s evolving for me too, because of the life that I live and the people that I’m around and the circumstances of the world we live in. Yeah.

Michael Hughes 29:59
So question number two, though, is surprised you the most about you as you’ve aged,

Joe Morgan 30:05
I think I’m getting younger. I really do. I think in a weird kind of way, I may not look that way. In fact, my friends, when they see this, they’ll say, you don’t look younger. I can’t believe you said that, Joe, but inside of me, I do feel that I’m getting younger and I’m not done. I have so many things that I want to do, and I keep planning for things, and I I really hate the word retirement in the way that it conjured emotions to me, like I felt it was when I retired, I would be moving to this place where it’s just hanging out, you know, watching, hoping my money stays enough to let me live the rest of my life. But actually, I’m a lifelong learner. I just love being around young people and people that are different from me. And I could tell you so many stories of things that have occurred through dialog miles, that have changed my perspective. And I think that’s the part that really has been confirmed for me.

Michael Hughes 31:06
It’s awesome. Yeah. And then for our last question, is there someone that’s been in your life, or someone that you’ve known that has set a good example for you in aging, someone where you look at them and I want to be like that person when I grow up, you know, somebody that’s inspired you to age with abundance? Yeah?

Joe Morgan 31:20
So, I think there’s two parts to the abundance answer. My grandmother lived to be 100. She was in the bedroom next to me my whole life. She was my safe place. She was the person that held my hands, looked me in the eye and told me about unconditional love. But I had unconditional love with an expectation. So it wasn’t just love, and I could do anything I wanted. I actually had to be a good person too. And so she gave that to me. My grandmother was alone. She was the last remaining person in her generation, and she lived in a room by herself. I grew up Irish, Catholic. She used to go to confession every Saturday, and I used to wonder, like, What could she possibly have been doing? And it was, I think it was a social thing. She wanted to go talk to the priest because it was a safe place. So you might say, why would you answer it that way? She was honest and transparent about how she felt about her life. It didn’t always turn out exactly as she hoped it would in the end, but she was honest and transparent about it. So that’s how you live with abundance, I think, if you’re always honest and transparent. Because we often think about that as being physical vibrancy. I can ride my bike, I can walk, I can, you know, whatever those things are. So there’s that. On the other hand, it’s my friends that I’m close to. I can’t pick out just one. It’s Chloe, who’s, you know, 28 years old, who has a bi directional mentorship where she teaches me and I teach her. It’s Kevin Young, who hurt his knee, and we’re going to walk 100 miles together as part of the dialogue. Miles. We’re going to go from, you know, part of Massachusetts, all the way to Portland, Maine. Every one of those individual stories have formed the patchwork quilt of my life. And so picking only one piece would be really hard. You know, I have a daughter who is amazing. She’s taught me so much in the last little bit of my life to make me a better dad and a better friend and a better part of her life. I’m so blessed that I have that opportunity. And then there’s my son and my grandson and my daughter in law. So there’s not one person I think I’m pulling out little pieces from all those experiences to form my path, and my path is dialog nuts.

Michael Hughes 33:35
I love that. I just love that. And I love how you describe it as a patchwork quilt. And, you know, I just love the place you’re at right now where you can express gratitude, you can understand the value of honesty, understand the value of transparency. And it’s just been such a privilege to talk with you on the show today. Joe, thank you.

Joe Morgan 33:52
Thank you. Mike, no, it’s great. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I hope that we’re going to do that walk too. I’ll see you inside.

Michael Hughes 34:00
Yeah, but you know, I have got, I’ve got to thank somebody else on this podcast, and also listeners. Of course, to our listeners, thank you very much for listening to this episode of The Art of aging, which is probably the abundant agent podcast series from the United Church homes. And we want to hear from you who’s had the most influence on your life and inspired you to age with abundance. How do you bring out these insights with your customers that you’ve never thought possible? What’s your technique for that? What do you think of the idea of, you know, a dialog miles, where you’re just really bringing people out of a usual environment into an unusual environment and getting those insights we want to hear from you. So please send us your ideas@abundantagingpodcast.com you can also check out this and other shows on our YouTube channel under United Church homes. And one more reminder, check out our Ruth cross Parker center for abundant aging, including our annual October symposium at United Churchhomes.org/parker-center. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time.