Helping Men Build an Action Plan for a Better Midlife, Starting with Fun
Mauro Grigollo / Stocksy
Super Age Games Founding Athlete Greg Scheinman has a message for his fellow man: Midlife is the middle. Not the end.
Greg Scheinman sat in his car, paralyzed.
Looking up at the office tower where he worked as a partner at an insurance and risk management firm, he couldn’t bring himself to un-click his seatbelt and head to his desk.
“It was my 10-year anniversary with the firm. I’m in a suit that doesn’t feel like me. An office on the 25th floor overlooking downtown Houston, with a multi-million dollar book of business, wife, kids, million dollar house, private schools. And I’m miserable,” he says. “It was that City Slickers moment: This is the best I’m ever going to feel, the best I’m ever going to look, the best I’m ever going to do… and it ain’t that great.”
The then-47-year-old didn’t go to the 25th floor. Instead, he took the day off, and turned his life on: Scheinman sat in a nearby coffee shop, scribbling ideas on scraps of paper. Those scrawled thoughts would become The Midlife Male, a book, podcast, and newsletter with more than 55,000 readers aimed at embracing this stage of life. But first, his coffee shop napkin notes became a life-revitalizing game plan.
“Mediocrity happens by default. Maximization happens by design,” he says. “I really leaned into this commitment of, ‘what does it look like to live happier and healthier and wealthier and have more fun and be stronger than at any other time of my life?”
Six years later, Scheinman thinks he’s found it — especially the part about fun. His new plan: To put that maximization to the test, and have fun doing it as a Founding Athlete at November’s Super Age Games.
How Greg Scheinman Redefined Middle Age and Thrived
Scheinman’s revelation at 47 wasn’t a coincidence: It happened at the same age his father died.
“So I never understood midlife, or even the midlife crisis. I always saw anything past 47 as bonus time,” he says. Sitting in that coffee shop was a tipping point: the moment he decided not to squander any bonus time he had. “I was just throwing up all over the page. And I wrote down, ‘family, fitness, finance, food, fashion, fun.’ These became my six ‘F’s. These are the areas I wanted to get better at.”
But he didn’t quit his job to do so, knowing that doing so would be “galactically irresponsible.” Instead, he did something many guys don’t do: Rather than suffering in silence, he talked about it. Scheinman took his coffee shop ideas home, and had an honest conversation with his wife about his feelings.
Together, they made a three-year plan based on an important realization: His work and his company were not responsible for Scheinman’s misery. Those factors weren’t responsible for his happiness, either. He was.
“I could do my job differently. I did. I changed up the kinds of clients I wanted to work with. I changed how I dressed for work every day. I stopped being the first one in and the last one to leave,” he says. And he made positive changes in his personal life. “I went to the gym. I coached my kids’ teams. I stopped meeting the other partners in the conference room at the end of the day for drinks I didn’t have.”
As he worked to make improvements in his own life, he talked to other guys about what he was doing. He sought out the insights of doctors, trainers, CEOs, and legendary athletes like Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman to find out how they were thriving with age. Scheinman himself revamped his body, revealing a set of six-pack abs and tackling challenges like Hyrox and Everesting, and developed a deeper relationship with his two college-aged sons, who sometimes train right alongside him.
“Guys get gridlocked into thinking that midlife is conformity, complacency, and redundancy, that’s it’s a slowdown period of life and ‘I missed my window’… I don’t understand when we started believing that the middle is the end. It’s called the middle for a reason,” he says. “Midlife is the time in your life to take everything you’ve learned and continue to learn, and apply it for the greater good.”
Two Key Strategies Greg Says Apply to Every Midlife Guy
1. Develop a midlife action plan. You’ve got a plan for your work, your finances, and if you’ve got a will, one for your death. Scheinman recommends applying that same rigor to your ideal life by designing your ideal days, and finding a way to string a bunch of them together.
“Men would never accept underperforming quarter after quarter in their businesses. So why would you accept that in your life?” he says. “Start saying no to the things you don’t want to do. Start saying yes and going after the things you actually want to do. Put them on your calendar. Don’t let your calendar control you.”
2. Include planned fun in that strategy. Scheinman thinks many middle-aged men overlook not just the importance of fun, but the fact that it doesn’t always happen on its own. So he makes sure to plan something fun for each and every day.
“That might be a walk with my wife and dogs. It might be pickleball with friends. It might be a movie. It might be a massage,” he says. “One thing I want to be consistent with is, ‘if it’s not fun, I’m done.’”
Testing His Midlife Plan at the Super Age Games
One of those fun plans, Scheinman says, is his trip to the Super Age Games. There, he’ll participate in a series of trials that test eight trainable [lon-jev-i-tee]nounLiving a long life; influenced by genetics, environment, and lifestyle.Learn More markers: things like V02 max, endurance under load, [grip strength]nounA key marker of strength and predictor of longevity.Learn More, relational intelligence, and more.
“Here are eight basic things that, as you’re aging, you should know. And if you don’t know them, then how can you improve?” he says. “But the notion of gamifying it is a lot more fun than feeling like, ‘I’m going to go to a lab,’ or ‘I’m going to hire somebody or multiple people to test these eight things.’”
His hope is that the changes he’s made in his life to prioritize fitness — three weekly [strength tray-ning]nounResistance-based exercise to build muscle and support healthy aging.Learn More sessions plus hikes, bikes, and boxing, and more — have prepared him. But he doesn’t plan to train specifically for the event. He wants to use it as a benchmark for the progress of his plan.
“Good for Super Age for running this thing and setting it up. I’m going to be the beneficiary, and try to make as many of my friends excited about this as possible, and go see what we can put up. And I’m sure I’ll be inspired by a lot of people there,” he says. “This is something I’ll do this year, know where I stand, and look to get better at those things. And hopefully, I’ll come back next year.”
It’s all part of Scheinman’s midlife plan to keep getting better.
“That’s the thing about understanding how much time we still have left ahead of us. Keep going. Keep working,” he says. “The longer you stay in the game, the better you’re going to get.”
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