Retiring? Don’t drift into the lazy river. Design Your New (active and interesting) Life. Learn More

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In days gone by, people used to think they were done – and headed off to retirement. Not any more. Now, the questions to ask yourself are what’s my potential for the likely decades that lie ahead? And how can I live well – and wisely? Ben Lytle, former CEO of Anthem, and author of The Potentialist: The Pursuit of Wisdom, believes that wisdom and potential are our ideal adaptive responses for the interesting times we’re living in today. He also believes that wisdom and untapped potential reside in everyone, waiting to be released.

Ben Lytle joins us from Scottsdale, Arizona.

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Bio

Ben Lytle is a self-made serial entrepreneur and CEO known for being ahead of the curve. He is the author of “The Potentialist: Your Future in the New Reality of the Next Thirty Years,” a guidebook for success during the fast-changing, turbulent, and opportunity-rich times ahead. His new book in the series is The Potentialist: The Pursuit of Wisdom.

Ben is best known as the founding CEO of Anthem, Inc. (NYSE), one of the leading US health plans with a market capitalization placing it in the top tier of the Fortune 500; and Acordia, Inc. (NYSE), which became the world’s sixth-largest insurance broker. He cofounded three companies with his entrepreneurial son, Hugh, and invests in technologies that address New Reality challenges, such as increasing productivity to offset declining populations, caring for the elderly, and preserving human legacies.

Ben has extensive public policy experience at the state and federal levels and has held board leadership roles in a wide range of industries. His contributions have been recognized by numerous awards and in books and periodicals. He has been a speaker and university guest lecturer on health, healthcare policy, entrepreneurship, and human potential throughout his career.

Beyond his career, Ben’s passions include his family of three adult children and eight adult grandchildren, along with lifelong avocations for physical fitness, travel, reading, human potential, the future, and education.

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For More on Ben Lytle

The Potentialist: The Pursuit of Wisdom

Website – potentialistfuture.com

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Mentioned in This Podcast Episode

The Many Ways WSJ Readers Use AI in Their Everyday Lives

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You – Teresa Amabile

The Art of the Interesting – Lorraine Besser, PhD

Turning the Page in Retirement – Stephen Riggio

Your Next Act – Robert B. Tucker

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Wise Quotes

On Refining, Not Retiring

“…this started about 20 years ago. I had recently stepped down. I’ve never really retired. I have refined and I’ll explain that. But I had stepped down from Anthem and I was asked to write an article about what it was like to be running this gigantic enterprise and then suddenly go be doing startups and all other kinds of things, wilderness hiking and all kinds of things. And I wrote the title of the article, and ended up being in search of a phase name because I felt that at that time I didn’t have the word yet. But I said, you know, I don’t see anybody retired in the industrial age concept. The concept was you work, you retire and then you die about three or four years later, but you have a few years there. Well, it’s not that way anymore. First of all, we live a lot longer. And so we’re essentially increasingly changing careers or changing our direction in life in in midlife, almost midlife or at the two-thirds point. You’re not down within the 10 yard line. And so it’s really changed. And so it does need a new definition. And so it hit me a few years ago about when I was writing the first book, the word refinement and to me, Joe, refinement means this is the age of discovery.”

On Experimenting

“Earlier in life we expect we can just do it because we want to do it. Find out what lights you up. Find that creative core. And then you have to be patient when you have to experiment. I experimented with a whole bunch of things before I found what I was going to do in this next part of my life. And it’s okay, but I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that. You know what? Okay, I like this. Take risks. One of the most beautiful things about this stage in life is I hope all your listeners hear, I know I am, I don’t care what anybody thinks.”

On Wisdom

“Wisdom to me is a very clear process. First of all, you can just clear off the table what it is not. It is not age. We speak of people wise beyond their years. We say out of the mouths of babes. So even children can express wisdom and that’s science. It’s also not knowledge. Like age, knowledge helps because you do get some barnacles just by living. You learn a little bit. That doesn’t make you wise. And we all know some older people who are definitely not wise. But it’s not knowledge directly either. Some people who are very simple people have a way of seeing life as it really is and living life as it really is. And they may be very uneducated, but they’re wise. And I know some of them very well. And they’re actually fascinating people. It’s not IQ. It’s not traditional measures of success, money, fame, power, social status. We can find fools in all of those. But what it is, it is what I love. The classical definition for wisdom is so beautiful. It’s poetic. It’s the art of living well. Is that fabulous? It’s the art of living well.”

On Living Well and Wisely

“Well, then that begs the question, how do you live well? You make wise decisions throughout your life, wiser than most other people, wiser than you would have ever made had you not pursued being wise. Okay, that’s good. Well, then how do you make wise decisions? It’s got two parts to it. One, if you develop the capacity for wisdom, that’s the preparation for wisdom. That’s where you can actually learn this stuff. So you develop this capacity for wisdom your entire life and you get wiser and wiser as you’re accumulating. And that’s where knowledge can play a part. But then in the moment of decision, you have to be free of those things that will cause you to act unwisely. And that formula right there is what causes even wise people like Gandhi to have made bad decisions at times, unwise decisions – not bad, unwise. Because our church here, they were incredibly wise people, but in the moment of decision, something got them and they got or distracted them and they didn’t act wisely. So what is the capacity for wisdom then that we’re developing? That’s perspective, learning to get above the day to day, the bird’s eye view, see the forest instead of the trees, look back in time to how I got here, look at today clearly, see reality clearly, and look forward. That’s perspective. That’s really important. I would say that’s the biggest missing element in most people when they act unwisely. The second is seeing reality. You think, Wow, I see reality. What are you talking about? Well, hang on a minute. Our good old ego, our not so good old ego, the negative part of the ego has around 20 plus distortions that it gives us to look at life through. So see the lens you’re looking at. Address those, either by your experiences or somebody helping you, or you can actually go out and read about them.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom ...

The Pursuit of Wisdom – Ben Lytle