Catering to Your Midlife Crisis Is a Growing Business
Budding industry helps adults who seek fulfilling second acts
Budding industry helps adults who seek fulfilling second acts
Americans want their midlife crisis to be more productive. This presents, for a growing number of companies, coaches and consultants, a multimillion-dollar opportunity.
Some programs are online and charge a couple hundred dollars. Others take place in exotic spots and feature luxury accommodations, yoga and surfing classes for thousands of dollars. Discounts are sometimes available.
Fuelling the businesses are longer lifespans, leading more people to search for meaningful pursuits in their 40s, 50s and 60s. Some psychologists call this period a second adulthood when identity-shaping roles, from executive to full-time parent to caregiver, can fall away, causing some to re-evaluate.
“Transition is a skill we need to master in an era of increased longevity and change,” said Chip Conley, co-founder of Modern Elder Academy, or MEA, which offers online and in-person workshops.
Some studies show life satisfaction reaches a low point around the mid-40s, perhaps because of stress linked to the demands of work and family. That juggle, coupled with little time for self-reflection, leaves many people unsure how to approach their next chapter.
Instructors in midlife programs explore topics including psychological development in midlife and ageism, which can cause people to believe they are “irrelevant, over the hill, and that their best years are behind them,” said Conley.
He created MEA after working at Airbnb, where the home-sharing company’s young founders dubbed him a modern elder at age 52. The workshops aim to help participants learn to better navigate stressful transitions, including layoffs, divorce and the death of loved ones.
Like the months long academic programs several universities have launched for adults nearing the end of careers, most midlife courses bring together groups of eight to 50 people.
“These programs give people the space and structure to consider not just what, but who they want to be at this stage,” said Barbara Waxman, a gerontologist who teaches at MEA.
Nadia Al Yafai, 46, said she discovered the Midlife ReThink, a $385 online program, after being laid off recently from a senior position at a U.K. insurer.
The Midlife ReThink proved transformational, she said, adding that meeting others who felt similarly unanchored comforted her.
Started in 2020 by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, a coach and consultant who specialises in gender and generational balance in the workforce, the program consists of three 90-minute online sessions for about 25 participants.
“A lot of people suffer through transitions on their own, as if this is some terrible thing they are going through,” said Wittenberg-Cox. “Community is the key to helping people realize it’s normal and fairly predictable at this age and stage to get restless” and crave change, she said.
Al Yafai said an exercise that asked her to define what she wants from the next seven years led her to start a consulting business.
“I went from feeling a bit lost at not being part of my old world anymore to realising there’s this new world of people doing really interesting things,” she said.
Reboot Partners, which provides workshops and coaching on career and other transitions, has organised two weekend-long retreats this year, in Santa Fe, N.M., and Sag Harbor, N.Y., for $1,895. Participants visualize their perfect life and discuss fears and motivations around change, said co-founder Jaye Smith.
On an oceanfront campus in Mexico’s Baja California Sur, MEA teaches courses on re-creating careers, embracing midlife and optimising longevity. It also offers weeks long online programs on transitions, purpose and reframing retirement for $395 to $1,250. It plans to open a campus in Santa Fe, N.M., next year.
Lisa Fitzpatrick said MEA, which she first attended in 2019, helped her face down barriers to success.
Dr. Fitzpatrick, 55, was launching Grapevine Health, which publishes online health information for low-income communities. She relished the opportunity to interact with Conley, a veteran entrepreneur.
The Washington, D.C., resident said an exercise to identify self-limiting beliefs helped her conquer a fear of being too old to start a business. She returned to Baja five times to attend workshops on entrepreneurship and healthcare.
For that first visit, she received a scholarship for a seven-day stay that now costs $4,000 to $5,500.
One exercise Fitzpatrick particularly enjoys involves stacking rocks on the beach. “It sounds kind of woo-woo,” she said. But the task of balancing a big rock on a small one helped her overcome mental barriers to what she could achieve. “MEA helps people in midlife realise we still have value,” she said.
Some programs explore next acts or spirituality.
Dallas-based Halftime Institute’s offerings include a two-day, $2,500 couples retreat and a $25,000 yearlong program. The latter features in-person and online sessions, as well as one-on-one coaching on relationships, health, faith and finding one’s calling.
“Not everyone who goes through it is Christian but that’s the perspective we come from,” said Co-Chief Executive Jim Stollberg. “We talk about a calling, rather than a purpose.”
For $2,500, Union Theological Seminary in New York offers a four-month Encore Transition program, with virtual sessions on topics such as spirituality in midlife and finding work with social purpose.
Consultant Carolyn Buck Luce leads a group of women through a weeks long online program called the Decade Game that costs $2,250. It challenges participants to set goals to guide their next decade in areas including education and purpose.
“It’s about being able to declare the purpose you were called to,” said Luce.
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When will Berkshire Hathaway stop selling Bank of America stock?
Berkshire began liquidating its big stake in the banking company in mid-July—and has already unloaded about 15% of its interest. The selling has been fairly aggressive and has totaled about $6 billion. (Berkshire still holds 883 million shares, an 11.3% interest worth $35 billion based on its most recent filing on Aug. 30.)
The selling has prompted speculation about when CEO Warren Buffett, who oversees Berkshire’s $300 billion equity portfolio, will stop. The sales have depressed Bank of America stock, which has underperformed peers since Berkshire began its sell program. The stock closed down 0.9% Thursday at $40.14.
It’s possible that Berkshire will stop selling when the stake drops to 700 million shares. Taxes and history would be the reasons why.
Berkshire accumulated its Bank of America stake in two stages—and at vastly different prices. Berkshire’s initial stake came in 2017 , when it swapped $5 billion of Bank of America preferred stock for 700 million shares of common stock via warrants it received as part of the original preferred investment in 2011.
Berkshire got a sweet deal in that 2011 transaction. At the time, Bank of America was looking for a Buffett imprimatur—and the bank’s stock price was weak and under $10 a share.
Berkshire paid about $7 a share for that initial stake of 700 million common shares. The rest of the Berkshire stake, more than 300 million shares, was mostly purchased in 2018 at around $30 a share.
With Bank of America stock currently trading around $40, Berkshire faces a high tax burden from selling shares from the original stake of 700 million shares, given the low cost basis, and a much lighter tax hit from unloading the rest. Berkshire is subject to corporate taxes—an estimated 25% including local taxes—on gains on any sales of stock. The tax bite is stark.
Berkshire might own $2 to $3 a share in taxes on sales of high-cost stock and $8 a share on low-cost stock purchased for $7 a share.
New York tax expert Robert Willens says corporations, like individuals, can specify the particular lots when they sell stock with multiple cost levels.
“If stock is held in the custody of a broker, an adequate identification is made if the taxpayer specifies to the broker having custody of the stock the particular stock to be sold and, within a reasonable time thereafter, confirmation of such specification is set forth in a written document from the broker,” Willens told Barron’s in an email.
He assumes that Berkshire will identify the high-cost Bank of America stock for the recent sales to minimize its tax liability.
If sellers don’t specify, they generally are subject to “first in, first out,” or FIFO, accounting, meaning that the stock bought first would be subject to any tax on gains.
Buffett tends to be tax-averse—and that may prompt him to keep the original stake of 700 million shares. He could also mull any loyalty he may feel toward Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan , whom Buffett has praised in the past.
Another reason for Berkshire to hold Bank of America is that it’s the company’s only big equity holding among traditional banks after selling shares of U.S. Bancorp , Bank of New York Mellon , JPMorgan Chase , and Wells Fargo in recent years.
Buffett, however, often eliminates stock holdings after he begins selling them down, as he did with the other bank stocks. Berkshire does retain a smaller stake of about $3 billion in Citigroup.
There could be a new filing on sales of Bank of America stock by Berkshire on Thursday evening. It has been three business days since the last one.
Berkshire must file within two business days of any sales of Bank of America stock since it owns more than 10%. The conglomerate will need to get its stake under about 777 million shares, about 100 million below the current level, before it can avoid the two-day filing rule.
It should be said that taxes haven’t deterred Buffett from selling over half of Berkshire’s stake in Apple this year—an estimated $85 billion or more of stock. Barron’s has estimated that Berkshire may owe $15 billion on the bulk of the sales that occurred in the second quarter.
Berkshire now holds 400 million shares of Apple and Barron’s has argued that Buffett may be finished reducing the Apple stake at that round number, which is the same number of shares that Berkshire has held in Coca-Cola for more than two decades.
Buffett may like round numbers—and 700 million could be just the right figure for Bank of America.
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Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.