This podcast is for men in their 40s, who are breadwinners, and having family to support and elders to care for.

I want to break the social norm of what society sees or needs from a man in his 40s, and I want men to be able to identify themselves as unique individuals with heart and that duty of care. 

In Lost at 40, the conversations will focus on the topics of:

✅ HEALTH 

✅ CAREGIVING/PARENTING 

✅ CAREER 

✅ RETIREMENT 

And will revolve around the pillars of: LEADERSHIP + RESILIENCE + SUSTAINABILITY. 

You can contact me at alexloh@aviaryandco.com and find more information about me --> https://linktr.ee/alexlohsengyue

Alex ran a recent poll on social media asking his followers which of the following topics would they be most interested in hearing more about - Health, Parenting/Caregiving, Career and Retirement.

The poll results were alarming! A very low percentage of people who responded indicated Health as a topic they were interested in. The question then would be... is it because everyone feels that they already know enough about Health, or is Health just something not of importance because we take it for granted?

Listen as Alex Loh and Tony Leong share their concerns and worries as active men in their 40s, from physical to emotional to psychological health. What have they been dealing with, and how have they coped and come out stronger and more resilient.

This is Season 1, Episode 2/6 with my Kopi Kaki Tony Leong. The man that I had those initial conversations of struggles and aspirations and THE man who encouraged me to start Lost at 40.

This LIVE chat was never intended to be a podcast for mass circulation on multiple platforms, so I have to apologise for the birds chirping and hooting in the background. Hopefully you like that natural background music. I promise that Season 2 will be more professionally recorded!

When this was recorded in September 2020, I was still running my Red Light Therapy Wellness Centre to help people with pain management and optimisation, so I talk about about cellular health. However, since December 2020, I’ve left that business as a business partner and started my consultancy Aviary & Co..

Nevertheless, I hope you will enjoy yourselves as we talk about HEALTH, what it means to us and what strategies we adopt for that healthy longevity.

More about me --> https://linktr.ee/alexlohsengyue

Your career defines your identity, value and self-worth. But it does not define you as a person. Your purpose defines you as a person.

It is perfectly possible and normal to be happy and fulfilled having a non-linear career. The important thing is to understand what you enjoy doing, what you are good at doing, and finding that alignment to the job and career that fits in with your purpose.

Listen as Alex Loh and Tony Leong share their respective non-linear careers and how they discovered their purpose and areas of enjoyment to be in the careers they have had a chance to contribute to.

This is Season 1, Episode 3/6 with my Kopi Kaki Tony Leong. The man that I had those initial conversations of struggles and aspirations and THE man who encouraged me to start Lost at 40.

This LIVE chat was never intended to be a podcast for mass circulation on multiple platforms, so I have to apologise for the birds chirping in the background as this was recorded in the balcony. I promise that Season 2 will be more professionally recorded!

I hope you will enjoy yourselves as we talk about Career, what it means to us and how this has changed at our different life stages. We share our non-linear career after leaving our respective Ministries, myself in the service at the Ministry of Education and for Tony in the force at the Ministry of Defence – Navy. And how happiness and enjoying what we do in our jobs, guides our everyday decisions.

More about me --> https://linktr.ee/alexlohsengyue

I hope you will enjoy yourselves as we talk about parenting and caregiving, the concerns we have as father, son and husband, and being sandwiched between caring for our own offspring and also our elders. We talk about how nurture in the environment helps to set values for our children, what it means living in an extended family nucleus, and the importance of communicating our thoughts and feelings when it comes to dealing with our respective parents, so that we can move forward together as a family unit.

Timestamp:

• 0.00 Introduction
• 0.20 Definition of Caregiving
• 1.45 Alex introduces his family set-up of both young and old to care for
• 2.30 Tony introduces his family set-up of both young and old to care for
• 3.39 Good for grand children to interact with grand parents
• 5.00 Main concerns and worries of caregiving (less financial)
• 6.00 Engaging in prehab to help with knee pain and mobility
• 7.39 Falling is a key worry that Alex has for his parents
• 8.45 Tony addresses caregiver stress
• 9.20 Tony’s parents help out with caregiving of his children
• 10.15 Regular check-ins with parents is important
• 10.50 In the work that Tony does, financial stress on caregivers is normally the main issue that is being faced
• 12.00 Extended family nucleus is a great support system
• 12.25 Leadership is walking the talk as a good role model for children to see how we interact with our own parents
• 13.29 Is it more stressful to live with an extended family?
• 15.25 Respect for the parents we live with
• 16.30 How do we prepare and nurture our own children to be respectful and tolerant of living in an extended family nucleus when it is their turn to start a family
• 18.03 Communication with your spouse is the start of harmony
• 18.50 Only after the birth of Alex’s daughter did, he start thinking and moving forward as a family unit
• 21.21 Inter-relational dynamics is more helpful than it is stressful
• 21.55 Resilience is about managing healthy relationships within the household
• 23.50 Resilience is about living harmoniously together
• 25.05 Are we preventing our parents from providing what they see as caregiving for them to us (even as adults)?
• 26.35 Speaking about sustainability in a situation where an elder has to be sent to a nursing home
• 27.00 How do we deal with guilt on not able to provide for our parents?
• 29.00 Up to a point where basic medical needs cannot be handled by a helper
• 29.30 What is the best care we can provide to maintain the quality of life? These conversations must happen way ahead of time
• 31.45 Top concern for parenting would be discipline and identifying teachable moments for values education and academic education
• 32.50 Is it the responsibility of the parent to ensure that the child gets a head start in a good primary school?
• 34.00 Anxiety of parents have towards child’s interactions in school are picked up by the child and can affect how the child views certain experiences and activities
• 37.00 What do we focus on as parents?
• 38.00 Values-based approach towards education and not task or success driven
• 39.00 Different stages of adulthood influence the way we parent and this also changes from the first child to the next
• 41.15 Involve your first-born in helping you parent your next-born to bond and train your children
• 44.00 Dynamic changes as you have more children and parenting will need to change with different nurturing techniques
• 48.45 You cannot turn back time so we try to make the best of our time

This episode is on retirement. We talk about what retirement means to us; how far we are from it; legacy leaving for our loved ones; and because one’s identity is so intertwined with one’s career, we also address the issue of losing one’s identity when one retires.

There is some discussion on some data of suicide rates of men in Singapore, before we move into a summary of how our pillars of Leadership, Resilience and Sustainability apply to this episode’s topic on retirement.

Timestamp:

• 0.00 Introduction
• 0.40 Retirement is the topic of discussion
• 1.00 What is retirement?
• 2.00 If identity is our career, then does it mean that retirement means people lose their identity?
• 3.14 Financially must be sufficient
• 3.40 How do I see myself living my life in my retirement? What do I see myself doing at retirement? When do I see myself retiring?
• 4.20 Tony gives his answer to the above questions
• 4.45 Family life stages require us to do different things at different life stages
• 5.00 How planning ahead works
• 7.10 When is the last stage of our lifecycle before retirement?
• 8.15 Family with empty nest syndrome
• 9.15 How do you want to plan for your retirement?
• 10.00 If your purpose is constant and not tied to your identity and career, then retirement will still keep you on track towards your end days
• 10.30 Important to communicate and walk the retirement journey with your spouse
• 11.50 Physical and cognitive abilities and agility and understanding where you are
• 12.30 Exercise, sleep and nutrition to keep healthy because your body needs to be physically able to continue functioning
• 13.40 What is the legacy you want to build and leave in your retirement days
• 14.40 Tony’s shares his legacy – legacy of understanding and contribution
• 18.24 To work towards having a good quality of life during retirement
• 19.46 Life is fragile and uncertain, so we need to make full use of on a daily basis
• 22.00 To prepare ourselves for life’s uncertainty
• 22.40 How do you lead a more sustainable life to be able to enjoy your retirement?
• 23.10 What is the sort of support we people can get to start to be resilient?
• 24.00 Having deep conversations and not just fleeting discussions on a to-do-list
• 28.40 Suicide rate is actually higher for men than for women
• 29.40 Societal norms of what and how men are supposed to deal with their emotions
• 32.45 Not everyone that attempts suicide are depressive and have some form of mental health issues
• 34.10 The more we talk about it, the less taboo the issue will be
• 35.00 To raise suicide thoughts to consciousness and awareness so intervention can take place
• 36.00 Talk about issues and problems that we face
• 37.30 Health is the cornerstone for everything else to happen
• 38.00 Summary of Lost at 40 Season 1