Episode 13: Someday Is A Lie: adventures Expire
In this episode of Midlife Circus, Brent and Rob unpack why adventures and experiences don’t last forever—and why waiting for the “right time” is often the biggest risk of all. From scratched bucket-list dreams and changing travel styles to family windows that close faster than we expect, they explore how health, relationships, and energy shape what’s still possible—and what’s already expired. This isn’t about drastic change or reckless decisions—it’s about awareness, choice, and action. Because the most expensive decision in midlife isn’t what you do—it’s what you keep postponing.
Links, resources, books mentioned:
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity - Peter Attia
(This post includes affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a small commission if you purchase through these links—at no extra cost to you.)
Topics we are covering in this episode:
Adventures can expire due to health, relationships, or interests.
Seizing opportunities is crucial as life changes.
Family dynamics affect the timing of adventures.
Experiences with children have a finite window.
Health impacts the ability to pursue adventures as we age.
Writing down goals can help prioritize adventures.
Sharing your goals with others can lead to support and accountability.
It's important to embrace adventures before they expire.
Transcript:
Transcript Disclaimer - May contain the occasional confusing, inaccurate, or unintentionally funny transcription moment. It’s all part of the show.
Lena: Ever notice how someday feels responsible until it quietly turns into regret? Today on Midlife Circus, Brent and Rob explore why adventures don't last forever and why waiting for the perfect time is often the biggest risk of all. From scratched bucket lists and shrinking family windows to health, aging, and changing priorities, they unpack how experiences quietly expire. It's not about doing everything. It's about doing what matters while you still can.
Before we begin, remember to follow Midlife Circus on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen, and join us in the Midlife Circus community on Substack. Let's dive into someday is a lie. Adventures expire.
Brent: Rob, what is one crazy bucket item that you had on your list for quite a while and you finally scratched it because the window for that bucket list item is now closed.
Rob: I think, you know, part of the story, Brent, for a long time, riding a bull was on my life list, on the bucket list items of things that I wanted to check off. And it was like a legit go bull riding. And it may have been on there for, I don't know, ten or fifteen years. I think I put it on there when I was in my twenties in college, full of vigor, wanting to go out and prove myself, and I was an adrenaline junkie. I'm still a little bit of that, but that's gone kind of down in the last handful of years.
I'm less apt to go jump and do stupid stuff. And I removed bull riding probably about seven or eight years ago now. And, the funny part of the story is so it was on the list for a long time, and then I actually was offered the chance. I don't think I've told you this. I've actually I was actually offered the chance to ride a bull.
Brent: And I didn't know that.
Rob: Yeah. Yeah. Someone that worked that I worked with actually said, hey. What? Bull riding is on your list?
Oh, I no. We got we got a farm. We can go out. I I could take you out to the farm right now. They raise cattle for bull riding.
In fact, we can go we can go tomorrow. Do you get well, I'll loan you clothes, I'll loan you boots, whatever you need, we're going to go. And my reaction was, no. No. I'm not going to go ride a bull at a farm.
I want to do it in a rodeo. I want to do it, like, with a big crowd around me. I want to make a big deal about this. So I told him, no. I wouldn't do it unless it was part of a real rodeo.
And about two weeks later, I crossed it off the list realizing that if I did it, I was going to hurt myself. And I just I just decided that it wasn't for me anymore. Once I was given the opportunity, I truly chickened out. I've seen enough bull riding on TV and pro rodeo stuff to realize that I would probably be seriously hurt for a long time if I actually did that activity.
Brent: You said chicken out. I don't think that's chickening out. It seems like what was Maybe going on
Rob: it's maybe I got wise. Right. Right. In my middle age, I got wise to what would be a smart thing to do.
Brent: Well, the thing is what was going through your mind when you put it on the list? That's what I want to know. Like, why how did it arrive on your list in the first place? Was it did you watch a movie? Did you see somebody, hear somebody about it?
What was it that inspired you to put that on your list in the first place? That's my curiosity. Were you drinking a lot of beers and saying, I went to the rodeo. It was a ton of fun. How did that arrive?
Rob: So this went on to the list of my twenties. And at that time, there was probably a couple of beers involved. And I'm like, I could do that. That looks like a piece of cake. I could do it.
Yeah. It might get bucked off. I may not last eight seconds, but I probably won't get hurt. That's when it went on the list. And, yeah, I would get hurt.
Brent: I find that when I watch that, I feel like every bone in my body would break. Yes. That's my fear of bull riding. And going to the rodeo, I'm always like, are you kidding me? Like, those things are massive, but also just the force and all of it with it.
So, well, I'm glad because you and I are partners on Midlife Circus that you've taken that off your list because I don't know how you would recover if you did have a bad accident with that. That might be a tricky one.
Rob: I'll just stick to the mechanical bull riding. That's that seems a lot easier with a nice padding it around the landing area. I'll just stick to that.
Brent: Seems age appropriate. Right?
Rob: Yeah. What about you? What do you end up removing from the list because is the window closed?
Brent: I don't know for me if it's always been a window, it's just certain things that I've done over time. And then I realized like, I don't want to do it the same way. So really simple example for me is I did a backpacking trip throughout Europe in my early twenties after college. And I had a blast. It was three months.
It was just carefree living, living off just pennies a day, sleeping in random places, you know, as it relates to like a train station or lots of trains or hostels that are, not overly desirable today. So some of those things get scratched on the list because I don't want to do it that way anymore. I don't
Rob: know, You don't want to sleep on the floor at a train station?
Brent: No, no. I mean, I think back then I could probably sleep anywhere. Now it's like, I got to have my comforts. I want to maximize my sleep, but there's other reasons. Well, this brings us to the purpose of this episode and what we're going to talk about is there's a timeline associated with adventures and experiences.
And some of them expire. And sometimes they expire because it's related to a clock, like a biological clock. Sometimes it's related to relationships that you may have wanted to do something with somebody and that relationship may no longer exist or it's changed or evolved. It may be related to you're just not interested anymore. But it all starts out with that big theme.
Also, some people get in this track, you know, in the thought process of, I'll do that someday. And our question is, why not do it today? So that's what we're going to talk about today. We believe that adventures do have a window and we understand and we believe that sometimes you got to choose your adventure now because it could disappear. To get into this conversation, I want to go back to our twenties and thirties.
We've talked about it a little bit, but when you put some of those things on your list, are there other things that almost feel impossible now physically, mentally, or you're just not interested? I'm just curious on how you approach it because your life has been defined by adventures. So I'm just curious how you and your world navigate that.
Rob: Bull riding went on in my twenties. I'm pretty certain around that. It was in my twenties when I added the bull riding. It went off a handful of years later. Much like you, though, you talked about the experience and some of the things you did in your twenties that you wouldn't want to do today.
And a couple examples I have there, my wife and I used to travel with our truck, and we had a topper on the truck. And we threw some mattress pads in the back of the truck, and we travel around to sleep in the back of the truck around all type parts of Colorado, West Coast, Utah, all over the place. Travel and just climb in the back of the pickup truck and sleep in the back of the truck, including ski resorts. We used to actually the wintertime, I built a platform in the bed of the truck to raise the bed up a little bit. We had a mattress, a pad in there, and the topper had no insulation.
We'd sleep in parking lots of ski resorts. And the coldest night, I think, got to, like, minus 10. We're sleeping in sleeping bags, and on top, we have a down comforter. The down comforter, you got to move it in the morning. It's all frosty with the condensation from our breath.
And I just think back to that that we did that for a long time. We probably did our twenties, all of our thirties at least. We were sleeping in the back of this pickup truck or multiple pickup trucks that we owned at different times. And much like you talking about going to Europe, there's no way I want to travel in the wintertime sleeping in the back of a truck. That was a period of time that it worked.
It seemed really cool. Open the tailgate, barbecue on the back of the tailgate in a in a in a ski resort. But now that seems just like way too much work, too cold. Every morning, we were waking up shivering, and we just thought we were hardcore because we did stuff like that. But there's no way I would want to go do that today.
I much prefer the luxury of a heated RV to sleep in in a ski resort versus a or a hotel to sleep at a ski resort versus the back of a pickup truck.
Brent: When you said that it just prompted or just kind of sparked a memory. I used to have this Volkswagen Jetta, four door red Jetta. And this is in my early twenties and a buddy and I in Colorado, we used to go fishing all over the state. And we used to laugh. He had the pickup truck, I had the Jetta.
And sometimes we would just arrive it too late. We didn't want to set up tents, things like that. So I would just fold the seat down and sleep in the back of the Jetta. And it was from the trunk forward. Well, I'm over six feet tall, but it worked.
It worked at the time. We laughed because we called it the box. So he's like, sleeping in the box? I'm like, heck, yeah, I'm sleeping in the box. And it was with all my gear and it worked.
But now you evolve from it and you start to say, do I want to do that again? So those are the things that start to change possibly as age. But what about for you? Are there certain things that you've done that you're really glad that you did them and you didn't wait because the window may have closed?
Rob: There's things I'm doing now that I'm glad I'm doing now that I know when I'm in my seventies and eighties. Hopefully, I look back and say, wow. I can't believe I did that much like I talked about sleeping in the back of a pickup truck. I think there's as you mentioned, Brent, there's a season for all of this. So there's definitely things I'm doing now.
I'm going to go back a little ways, things that I did before that I'm glad I'm not doing today. Maybe that's the thing that you're also asking there too. I mean, there's, like, the going and pulling the all nighter in Las Vegas and dance clubs and things like that. That way I did my twenties and thirties. That season has passed right now.
I think about you know, we've talked about this way too often. We've already talked about this this episode is I just want to go back to the hotel room and sleep. If I'm paying that much for a nice hotel bed, I want to stay in it and sleep in it. Taking a red eye flight to New York City, I'm much more happy just to pay the money to fly when it's convenient for me. But back then, it was the thing that you did just because it was a way to afford a trip.
So I think of the things that I did in my twenties and thirties that that seasonal window closed because you're willing to do those things in your in your twenties and thirties. I think I'm doing things right now that I definitely will hopefully look back in my seventies and eighties and said, there's no way I want to do that anymore. I'm hoping there's a couple I still do, but I'm I know for a fact there's going to be a bunch of that. I can't believe you did that. So, like, I think running ultramarathons.
I don't know that I'm going to be doing that into my seventies and eighties. I know there's people that do it. I don't know if I'm built for that. So I'm really happy I'm doing those now that I'm actually checking the box on that experience in my life. I think one of the other things that that my wife and I did is we took a motorcycle trip through Cambodia.
We did that I think about ten years ago and as we're traveling through Cambodia on motorcycles with nothing but you know clothes in our backpack just bare minimum clothes and sleeping on the floor in in people's houses and villages along the way. That was a trip for that season and time. I'm really happy I did it when I when I could, when I physically wanted to do it. And I still do motorcycle trips. There's quite a bit different, but that was a really roughing it type of trip for us that we enjoyed.
I'm glad we did it. I'm not ready to do a trip like that again right now. Maybe in the future I will. That's that window is as partially closed, but it may have adjusted a little bit in its approach.
Brent: I think that this leads into one of the things that I think about quite a bit is how windows close for various reasons and why there's certain things to do now and not wait. So an example that I have is a few years ago when both my kids were in the house, they're both high school, late middle school age. And we did a couple years back to back where we went to the adventure parks in Orlando. It was much more of the Universal Studios, the big roller coasters, and we mixed in a lot of different things. But we had so much fun and we would get the three day adventure pass and we would just go from dawn to dusk.
It was just so much fun. And where I go with that is that window somewhat closed because now it's a schedule conflict. You got one in college. The other one's just about to go to college. And are they overly interested in that?
I think they would still do it, but it wouldn't be the same. So the window tightened on that one. And that's something that I'm very excited that I took advantage of at the time because everybody was excited to do it. So I think about adventures, experiences. And what I want to talk about now is we've got parents or kids and friends, and there's a window of time to do things.
And now let's talk about you recently did a trip to visit your parents, but it was a broader family group. What was that like? Why did you choose to do that at that point in time? I'm not saying you don't want to go see your family, but you were really excited to go visit everybody. And was it a window related?
Was it like, wow, everybody's going to be in the same place at the same time? I better do this. Like, what was it that made you say yes? Because sometimes it just doesn't work out, but you somehow made this one work out. And I remember you got back and you're like, that was a ton of fun.
Rob: My family all got together a week before Thanksgiving at my parents' house. When I say my family, it wasn't my siblings. It was actually all of my aunts and uncles, which I haven't seen in a long time, actually, since my grandparents' funeral. And the reason why I decided to go is I know that window's going to end at some point. I even said that to my mom.
As our parents age, especially in our generation, our parents are getting up there a little bit, and there's only going to be so many times that I'm going to be able to spend time with them before they pass away. And it it's sad, but it's the truth. And we're not going to spend our time on this, you know, this buzz kill or talking about death, this whole this whole podcast, but it was a it was a moment when I said all of my aunts and uncles on both sides of my parents' family are still alive. They're all going to be in the same place at the same time. I'm going to figure out a way to get there.
And adjust some of our personal travel around. I want to be present to spend the time because there's a finite window that I'll be able to spend that time with them. I'm really hopeful that we're going to do it again soon because it was a lot of fun interacting with my aunts and uncles that I haven't seen in a long time, the personal connections that we had, the stories that we went back and reminisced about, the new stories that are happening because I got to see, two of my cousins that I haven't seen in a long time either, were also there. And actually, as I think back, I had four cousins in the room, which I hadn't seen all four of them in a really, really long time. And it was a chance for me to take advantage of the fact that people were going to be in the same place all at the same time, and I wanted to spend time with that group of people because I don't know when I'll get that chance again personally, when I'll be available, when I don't have something else big scheduled that I can't say no to, or that they're not going to all be able to be present.
But before we jump forward, Brent, I think I think we do need to take a step back and spend a little bit of time talking about the reasons why stuff expires. Right? I mean, I I brought up health and death. Right? Those are two big things.
Like, our personal health might prevent us from doing something or our we have a family member that might die, but I think I think there's you brought up kids, and I and I do want to highlight that one a little bit. There's only a finite window where kids want to go to Disney World. That's the place they want to go. But I know that Disney World window does have a finite window because of the children's interest in something. What are some of the things in your mind that cause adventures to expire or events to expire in your mind?
Brent: Well, speaking of kids, that is one that is super relevant to me right now because I look at one in college and one about to go to college. So I know the time with them becomes less and less. And I heard this statistic a long time ago that 97% of the time with your children is before the age of 18, remaining 3% is the rest of your lives together. Wow. Because they come and they go.
Now it might change if your child decides to come back and live in the house or you live in a community right next to them. But a lot of families, they live separately. Kids might live in a different city, a different state, or even a different country. But I go back to the way that when we were raising our kids is you've got those athletic events and your parents were very engaged with your athletic events, so were mine. So were Carolyn and I with our kids.
So when they're really little, I coached every single sport that they did because it was an opportunity to say yes to it. Because I knew that window was tight. Meaning I can only coach up until they went to middle school. And then typically you've got your middle school coaches for all the different sports and then high school. So I did that.
And then it starts to kind of morph into the different types of trips that you can take with your children. So yes, there is the Disney world when they're younger. And then we kind of migrated into the adventure theme parks because they got a little bit older and that's what they were interested in. Now, some of our trips, as an example, we've talked about Costa Rica. Selfishly, that was a way just to have time with the four of us, my wife and my two kids together in the same spot for a week.
We just had a lot of laughs and so forth. So now it's how do you plan those adventures or experiences with your kids as they get older and they become adults? Because we know the next stage possibly could be a relationship that they're in. And then that relationship might pull them to different places during the holidays. And all of these things are a first for us.
So those experiences do expire. And I have to say it's been hard to navigate because there's a lot of guilt for me as a parent that comes into that because I just want to do more. That's not necessarily always fair on them. And I'm not saying that the trips, but I'm learning just as an example, the college age kids when they come home. Yeah.
They want to kind of hang out with mom and dad and their siblings, but what do they really want to do? Hang out with
Rob: their my friends. Yeah.
Brent: Yep. And I'm just learning to accept that. And guess what? I did it, Rob. You did it.
Friends were a lot more important. So I'm learning that, and it's just a different experience for me. But I do like planning the cool adventures. And so now I'm able to try to explore places in the world that they may want to go to that I'm curious about. And so it's been challenging, but I have had a lot of guilt in the last couple of years because I just want to do more.
Cause I know that window I wish that person would never share that statistic with me a long time ago. The 97% statistic. Cause that's like a buzzkill.
Rob: Yeah. But you're focused on, at least you're paying attention to it. You're trying to grasp any of it that you can. And I know one thing you and I have talked about on one of our episodes was your youngest son, their cross country career. He's retired his cross country career.
Right? There's a finite window, and you were very adamant about going and watching him race. I think about some of the friends that have kids that are college athletes right now. And Tara and I are really hopeful that we're going to be able to go watch your son do cross country races out on the West Coast. We have a friend whose daughter is really highly competitive swimmer.
We want to go watch her swim because that's a finite window. Hopefully, it lasts for the four years she's in college, but you never know. We have friends that, you know, full ride scholarships that two years in have a retirement injury, and they're not able to keep competing at the college level. And so, again, taking advantage of all those things right in the moment when you can is really important because you're going to look back and regret the fact, I wish I had gone to that event or gone to that race. I can think of a couple other instances though that causes that would cause a event or an adventure to expire.
Some of them have to do with location. Like, your move you move, like, there's some activities you can do in a community, but you go ahead you move before you get a chance to do it. I think of, like, going and seeing a concert at Red Rocks, which I've done. I know a lot of people that lived in Denver. They said they always wanted to go see a concert at Red Rocks, which is so cool.
Such it's one of the neatest venues I've ever been to for a live concert, but they said they always wanted to go there, then they move away, and they never had a chance to go. Now they're talking about how do I fly back to Denver to go to a concert, which just increases the logistics of it. So location, we talked about people and other people's health causing that, and I think we'll get into some of trips I've done with my family. I think there's even, like, external factors that get into play that you can't even control. My wife and I had a trip planned to go to Ukraine years ago.
We actually got all but booked the trip. Had everything planned out around this trip. We wanted to go see Chernobyl because they were we they just opened up and started letting tourists go into Chernobyl for a very limited period of time. We thought that would be really neat to go and see. And right up before we decided to leave, I started watching the news and reading the news that the Russian troops were now amassing on the border and decided that this may not be the place we want to go now because we didn't know what was going to happen.
Let's just play it safe. And it was a couple years before the invasion happened, but it was one of those things where that was out of our control, yet that window, I hope opens back up again at some point. But as of right now, it's closed for the foreseeable future. And so that's why I look back with regret. It's like we could have done it.
I wish you didn't maybe a couple years earlier. I don't want to get through my entire life with all my adventures looking back and saying, wish I would have. So trying to get all those done now is really important.
Brent: I was at an investor conference back in the fall of last year. And the CEO of this investment firm got up and he was talking about this exact topic. And I've also heard him on his podcast talk about it as well. He just says, go do it. He says, go do it.
If you've got that trip you've been holding off for a long time, go do it. If you've got that thing that you want to buy and it's within reach, go buy it. And what was relevant at the time, and this is the sad part of it for him is one of his coworkers passed away out of the blue and it was somebody he'd worked with for years. And so it was just so top of mind for him in one day out the next. And it was really sad.
And he just said, if you're holding onto something that you're going to do it someday, why not today? And that's what I think about. I have this good friend that he has a cabin in Alaska and the fly fishing there is insanely good. And he invites a buddy of mine and I for several years in advance. And we finally said, we got to go because we know we will not make the cut eventually.
And we went and we had so much fun and we're like, why did we wait? There was no real reason for waiting. We just would say no. Like, oh, you know, we're fair. We're trying to figure out our next year's schedule.
And he schedules things so far in advance because he wants to invite friends and family to visit with him. He only lives there seasonally. And we finally said yes, and it was spectacular. Those are those windows, you can only say no so much and recognize that it will change, people will move on. And so that's something that I always think about.
One thing that I'm curious for you is you've started to do motorcycle trips with your brother, which is really cool. And now you talk about it like you're going to keep doing this. What was the inspiration for you and him to start to take that from, yeah, let's try to do it. But now it sounds like you guys plan to do something on an annual basis. What was the shift or the change to now we are going to do this and now it is a part of your routine?
Rob: Things always happen over beers, I think.
Brent: I love that.
Rob: The good thing that happened was my brother and I just got some solo one on one time, and that's really what I get excited about on the motorcycle trip is I get to help my brother experience something where he doesn't have any other obligations except for himself. And it came from he and I were out just having beers and we were talking about stuff and life in general. I got to see a different side of my brother that I haven't seen in a long time and realized that there's an opportunity that he has to go do these things. I want to try and promote him as much as possible to be able to go do these things. So start with a request.
Hey. Do you think you might be able to do, like, a one week motorcycle trip? And he pretty quickly was able to say yes on that. And if it doesn't be if it's not motorcycle trips on an ongoing basis, I do want I do want to do an extended trip with my brother, you know, five days a week with my brother doing something, whether it be fly fishing or hiking or something of that nature. Well, we're out just the two of us doing something because we're healthy.
We're able to do those things now. We want to do those things now. Let's take advantage of it while we can, because we know later on those things can always change.
Brent: I find that, and I've mentioned this on previous episodes around the health of relationships and how that evolves over time. And I'm seeing the same thing. Like an example with my brother is we do a trip on an annual basis around my mom's birthday. She passed away several years ago. So it's part ways to celebrate our mom, but it's also a really cool way for he and I to connect.
And I'm finding those one on one experiences are amazing. And what I find is when we mix all of our families together, he's got two kids, I've got two kids, my sister's got her and her husband. It's a combined family, so I have six kids. When you bring everybody together, it's a lot. So you don't get that one on one special time.
It is cool to see everybody together. So there's a time and place for that. But I'm also really enjoying the experiences with people on one on one cause you can just have real conversations and laugh and you're just exploring the world together, whatever you're choosing to do. And that's one of the messages that I think is really important about what we're trying to convey today is these experiences, they may disappear for a number of different reasons. I mean, I've lost both of my parents.
My dad was twenty plus years ago. My mom was ten plus years ago. So I don't get to have those experiences with my mom and dad, but I can still have experiences with my brother and sister, which is amazing because we can relive the past and we can laugh about the past and how I'm looking for sympathy here, Rob, how they tortured me as the youngest child growing up.
Rob: I met your brother and from his perspective, you deserved every bit of it.
Brent: Totally. Yeah. Sisters said the same thing. I mean, yeah, there's a number of reasons. I had a lot of energy as a kid.
So that's one of those things that caught up to me.
Rob: And we've talked about parents quite a bit, and hopefully a lot of listeners still have parents around and can go do things with their parents. There's a couple of things that I'm very happy that I was able to do with both my parents and then my wife's parents. So we were able to go to Machu Picchu and hike around Machu Picchu with my wife's parents. So we're really happy we did that when they were healthy and able to go do those things. And then we helped my dad check off a bucket list item.
This might be just ten years ago. He said it'd been a bucket list item of his for a long time was to do a century bicycle ride. And you know this about me. If someone says it's one of their goals for a long time, I'm going to do everything I can to try and help them accomplish it. So just be careful what you say around me because I'll help push to make sure it happens.
And we did a 100 mile century ride around Lake Tahoe. And I don't think he could do it today. Hopefully, he gets in shape where he could do stuff like that again. But it was it was that window of time where I saw something that we want to take advantage of this now while we can because who knows what's going to happen down the road. And I do think it's important that we address something, Brent, that our listeners might be thinking when we talk about trips and doing things and, you know, going to far off, fishing trips or me talking about Machu Picchu.
And I know there's going to be a reaction around money and how people might talk about money with us. Oh, must be nice. It must be good to be able to afford that. And I'll tell you, given my background in financial services, I think a lot of this still comes down to choice that a lot of people make. And I know we're going to record an episode in the future kind of around this topic, but you could take a trip today and postpone your retirement by a year.
And that might be the right thing to do for you because you want to go have that experience right now while you're healthy and willing to work six months or a year longer so you can afford to do it today. So saving a little less money right now and putting money aside instead of a retirement account, setting aside for a trip and experience you want to have today while you still can do it so you don't look back and regret it. And so it comes back to choices and being conscious of the choice. If you want to go have an experience, it might involve making some personal choices and some sacrifice to be able to go do that because it is more important to you.
Brent: And also, there's a flip side to that, Rob, where not all your trips need to be this far off destination that's overly expensive. So I get inspired when people are more spontaneous about their activities and ventures because they're just living their life. And it doesn't mean you have to plan eight months out to do something special. I do believe in the whole expiration of adventures because of all the reasons we've listed. I have an uncle and aunt that are in their eighties and I just saw them recently when one of my kids was racing a race in Arizona for cross country.
What was interesting about the conversation with my uncle, he's 84, and he was the poster child for being fit growing up. He did all the events. He's the one who got our family into triathlons when I was in my teens. He's the one who had us swimming long distances when we would visit his lake house in the summer. He was so fit and he just took care of his health in that way.
But what he shared with me is we're going to this race and we went to the same race together last year and he had two walking sticks and he's like, yeah, I've just needed, you know, now this is a little slower. No problem. The last race that we did, which was just a few months ago, he asked if I could drop him off right near the start line, which was no problem. And he just said to me, just nine months ago, I could walk a mile and took me about eighteen, nineteen minutes. Now it's over thirty minutes.
And he goes, I just know I'm on the decline. And he goes, the challenge now is that actually just hurts. And so I can no longer do that. But what we did is we accommodated that and he loved the race. Like he was on fire.
He was so happy to be there, but that's part of an expiration. Like his physical capabilities was limited, We still got him to the end state. We still got him to the main event and he loved it, but the logistics around it evolved. And so he knew his window was shrinking and we just made it work. But that's part of life.
As you get older, certain things are no longer available to you, both physically and mentally. It's just hard to do. And that to me was an eye opener because I was with him one year ago And he was just talking about how the decline is. It wasn't a choice that he's made to say, I'm no longer going to walk every day or lift weights. Was just, I no longer can do some of these things because my body is saying no.
And it's just physically not possible. But I wouldn't say his happiness factor has gone down. He's just adjusted everything in his life.
Rob: Well, Peter Attia talks about that last decade of life being the lost decade of life because you're not able to do nearly as much as you were before. So we have this finite window between our age today and 75 when we can physically go and do a lot of these things.
Brent: And that's the challenge that I find when somebody says, I will do that in retirement. Right. I'll do that big trip when I'm retired, when I have more time. And my challenge is, well, will that big trip be available? And will you be capable of doing it?
When we spend so much time holding off on things in life, I think it's a mistake. I just see it too much. I see too many people trying to postpone the things that they want to do because they believe the future state is just going to give them the ability to do that. That may be the case. I'm not saying that you want to go do that month long trip and you can't just take a month off of work.
That's probably not practical. But what I'm saying is if it's that week long trip, that's your dream trip, then what are we waiting for? If it's, as you described, Rob, if it's a money thing, then maybe it is that postponing your retirement or postponing your next great act to a later stage because you can afford it in your current state and your current income. But there's a challenge associated with the expiration of experiences and adventures. And I think about it more to one of the most inspiring things we're in the heart of ski season in Colorado.
And one of the things that inspires me every single year is I fortunately get to ride the chairlift with somebody that's in their 80s. And there was a woman last year, she was so proud. She's like, I'm 86. She doesn't wear a helmet. She's like, I don't need to wear a helmet anymore.
She's like and I'm like, you don't? She's, I've been skiing for over fifty years and all has been good. And if something happens, something happens. But she was moving that mountain so well, and she was so excited and she skis a lot. And she doesn't even live in the mountain community.
She lives in the front range of Colorado. So she makes her way up. She's got a group of friends, and she is in her mid to late eighties still skiing, and it happens every year. And what's cool about it is they're so inspiring. Like, you're going to do this too.
Right? And I'm like, I am going to do this. That is my goal is to do what you're doing through the next thirty years. Like, why not? It's just so fun when you get that.
And I remember even last summer when I did the Xterra triathlon, and I'm doing this nasty hill climb on the bike. Dude in front of me, crushing it. And notice what I said in front of me.
Rob: In front of you. Yeah.
Brent: We had twenty five years. I think he was 78. We had twenty five years in between us, and he was a workhorse crushing it. That is humbling, but that is so rewarding when you take it in context to say he's just living his dream.
Rob: He did things in his fifties and sixties physically that allowed him or her when she was skiing to be able to keep doing that into their seventies and eighties. You can't just pick up the sport in your sixties, seventies, eighties necessarily. It has a brand new sport. And if you let yourself, you know, go get out of shape or physically not be able to do certain things, those opportunities of things you used to do and the sports and activities you used to do might disappear because you didn't take care of your physical health when you actually had a chance to. And so making sure that's one of the things I'm very conscious of.
And, you know, I've talked about a lot is making sure I can you know, during my fifties and sixties, can I actually get into as great a health as I possibly can? Not for my fifties and sixties, but I'm thinking about that more for my seventies and eighties. So I could be that guy or that lady skiing on the mountain or going for a bike ride or going for a run.
Brent: There was a moment in time, two years ago, Rob, you and I were skiing with our families, and I can't remember where we were at. We might've been in Crested Butte or something like that. And you totally send it off this cliff. And you wrecked pretty hard.
Rob: Yeah.
Brent: And I believe your back was sore for quite a while. It was. Coming out of that. And I believe there was a moment in time when you said, I think I'm done doing those. Is that true?
Rob: That is true. Yes. And there were kids around, so I was showing off for the young kids about how big I could still go. And I did send it off of a cliff that I will tell you, Brent, that is the last one I went off of. It's the last cliff I've hucked in my skiing career that I'm not going to be going off big cliffs anymore.
Brent: I was a witness to that and all of us down below were like, oh, that hurt. And you came when you came down, you weren't necessarily skiing upright. You were like kind of bent to the side like, Oh, that was a funky one. Yeah. But that is an example where you might subtract a few things in your life to give you the longevity for more things.
And that's something I consciously think about. I want to play this game as long as I can possibly play this game in a healthy manner. You brought up Peter Attia and he focuses a lot on longevity. And I heard him recently talk about the seventy five year cliff, like at 75, your body just starts to change quite a bit. So if you're trying to think that you're going to do all these things and you want to go shoot that amazing round of golf at 80, or you want to go travel the world at 80, is that really practical?
It may be. I hope it is, but it may not be. But the thing is, is when you're in this stage of life in your midlife, and you can start to really understand the choices that you're making that are, are these going to help prolong these adventures for me? Or are they going to take away from these adventures? That's one thing.
But then to me, it just comes down to the who. Who are you going to do it with? And my expectations are changing as I've alluded to with my children are the things that I'll be doing with them in the future because their time availability is going to adapt and change. What else do you think about as we wrap up this conversation today? What can you share with people?
Because I've always alluded this, you're an amazing adventurer and it's just not the trips you go on. You push your body to do really tough challenges. Some of them are tough, some of them are just super fun. What could you share with people to give them something to think about when they're stuck in this, I'll do it someday.
Rob: Write it down. Just getting it down on paper. We have our life list on the iPad, so we always have it available on our phone or wherever we're at. We can always just pull that up and share it with other people. So if there's something that's like, oh, I've always wanted to do that.
Put it down on the list. You know, I've said this before. You don't have to do that this year. You don't have to do it this month. You don't have to do it in the next five years.
But just writing it down gives you something to go back to and reference. So writing it down is the first step. And then start sharing some of those things with other people, letting them know what is on your list, what things you might want to accomplish. You might be surprised. Somebody that you know actually can help you do that or they might hold you accountable to doing that one big trip or that one big adventure that you want to go and do or they become enablers for you.
I know something, Brent, you did that was really impactful for me personally is I mentioned to you my dad had never caught a fish on a fly rod before. And I see you smiling. Was really cool. My dad was out visiting. He'd been fly fishing, I don't know, twenty, thirty years.
Not a lot of fishing, but he had been a fly fisherman for twenty or thirty years, but still had never caught a fish, which isn't necessarily a bad thing about fly fishing. Anybody that fly fishes know, it's not about catching. It's about being out in nature and just enjoying the moment. And I mentioned that to you and you said, oh, wait. Let's go tomorrow.
Let's just go up to the ponds, up the up the road, up the ways to the ponds. We got all our own gear. We'll just loan dad gear, and we'll go out and we'll throw out a way to catch him a fish. And within about twenty minutes out there, he caught a fish. And so it didn't cost any money at all to go give my dad an adventure, and it was life changing moment for him almost.
How elated he was that he caught a fish, and we took tons of pictures. He subsequently caught a bunch of fish after that. Now he's fine catching fish on a fly rod. But letting other people know what's going on in your life and sharing those things, being a little bit vulnerable if it's something that truly scares you a little bit and telling people that, you might find people come out of the woodwork to help make it happen for you. So now is the time to put the list together.
There's only a finite number of days you have left to do these things. There is going to be an expiration date. So I say put the list together, bucket list, life list is what we call it, and then start telling other people about it. And then on an annual basis, I know we mentioned this in a podcast already, I start looking at what are the things we might be able to go and do this year. And it evolves throughout the year, but what might we be able to check off this year?
What choices do we need to make this year that will allow us to do that next year? So first off, just writing it down, capturing those ideas so you don't look back thirty years from now and say, oh, man. I wish I would have done this back when I could have.
Brent: I remember the day your dad caught that fish so vividly, and it is no different at the age that he was at versus a seven year old. Like the amount of excitement that he had, that we all had to just experience it. And it wasn't hard for you and I to do. It's just up the road. We go there all the time, but it was just like, let's just go do this.
Let's help solve something for him. And we had so much fun that day. And I really appreciate how you've described Write It Down because I've learned from you, not only do I want to do it, but when am I going to do it? And go do it. So that brings us to the end of this conversation.
Our goal today was to really talk about experiences, adventures, and challenge you. Adventures have windows, whether it's with loved ones, whether it's your own physical, mental capabilities, how they'll evolve over time, or frankly, your interest level. It may change. So if you have the opportunity, take advantage of what you can. So remember, I
Rob: just froze. You're still talking.
Brent: I know. Is that a moment right there? Did I just freeze?
Rob: So that's a senior moment right
Brent: there. That was a senior moment. You are the director of your next great act.
Lena: That's it for this episode of Midlife Circus. Visit midlifecircus.fm for show notes, transcripts, and all the latest happenings. And be sure to join us in the Midlife Circus community on Substack. Follow Midlife Circus on Apple podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss your next great act. Quick reminder, the opinions and stories shared here are personal reflections, not professional advice.
This show is for entertainment and inspiration only. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you under the big top next time. Midlife Circus is a Burning Matches Media production.