Career coach on how keeping an active mind contributes to a rewarding life

A few weeks before graduating from the University of Minnesota and on the last day of my internship at the Minnesota Star Tribune, I sat down with George Dow, 70, who is taking classes and lecturing through the U’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). As a soon-to-be graduate, I wondered how someone returning to school later in life viewed education.

Sitting in Dow’s Minneapolis living room surrounded by photographs and art by Dow and his wife, Bonita Hill, he told me about his retirement portfolio. Much like an investment portfolio, it involves diversification. The five pillars of his portfolio are working, learning and self-improvement, giving, health (physical, mental, spiritual, financial and relationship), and personal pursuits and leisure.

To build some of these pillars, Dow is a student and lecturer with OLLI, which is geared toward people over age 50. He takes classes mainly with other OLLI students but sometimes sits in on classes with graduate and undergraduate students.

I talked with Dow about OLLI and his approach to retirement. This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What is the greatest impact learning as an older adult has had on you?

A: The most important thing I’ve learned is that I’m so glad I paid attention when somebody told me how good OLLI was, because the first stage of aging is denial, right? I played hockey up until not too long ago, and the average age was probably 35, so I’m used to hanging out with younger people.

When I was 64, I was tempted not to sign up because I looked at the website and I saw old people, and I thought, “Wait a second, that ain’t me.”

You look in the mirror and say, “Who the hell is that? Where did I go? Where am I?” You have to open your mind up to the reality. But also know that these people are amazing. These people, the instructors, the fellow students, they’re just really cool people because they’re all committed to learning.

Q: How have you changed?

A: You begin to get a sense of your mortality when you’re 70, and you realize you have a lot less time in front of you than behind you, so you got to make the most of it.

That life portfolio model, each of those categories requires my intentionality and focus. I’ve changed to know that health is the gatekeeper of life when we’re in that second half of life. The biggest thing I realized is that health — physical, mental, spiritual, financial and relationship — determines longevity.

Relationships are the most important thing as we age, as work achievement starts to go away. So the connections that happen — avoiding isolation, connecting with others, especially family and close friends in our community or peers — really matter a lot.

Q: How have you seen education change?

A: At the U of M, there are some massive classes where you’ll get 90 minutes of lecture. The old model was more the sage on the stage, to use a worn-out phrase, and now it’s more the combination of a sage and a guide. The sage means, in contemporary education, you’re lecturing for a shorter period time, maybe 20 minutes to half an hour, but then you need to break into discussion, maybe small group discussion, larger group discussion, maybe a video or maybe a guest speaker or let a student take over.

Q: What is the state of education today?

A: Well, you learn how to think, you learn how to write, you learn how to speak. Those are the three things I think really matter in education: critical thinking, communication (spoken and written communication) and how to interact with your peers, superiors and professors. Most of the world is about interconnections. I’m a career coach, have been for 35 years, and what I’ve learned is that people need to be accountable for results, and they need the skills on how to get results in their work when they do move beyond education.

Q: Are you optimistic for the next generation?

A: I was most blown away by the honors class that I attended. When it’s not an honors class, sometimes the instructors I’ve seen have had to do more prodding and pulling out of the kids. I do worry about technology and how students are so glued to their cellphones and their computers; that’s a big difference now than when I was in school. We didn’t have anything, so I worry sometimes about so much focus on the computer and the cellphone as opposed to connecting with each other face to face and connecting with instructors.

I’m worried also about artificial intelligence and how it could make it easy to let the AI do term papers and think for you. So, I’m a little concerned about the temptation to just let technology take over the mind and the spirit and the writing. I think kids are still kids, but there’s some loss of naturalness and connection when it’s so electronic and AI oriented these days.

Q: What’s the biggest impact you’ve made through OLLI?

A: Whenever I bring people together and they can find common joy, but also common empathy for the hard things in life, then I feel like I’ve made a difference. [Thinking that] “I guess I’m not alone. I guess I have a common experience,” that’s what connects people to one another. There’s an epidemic of loneliness in this society right now, and education connects people powerfully.