Flipping the Funnel

A New Approach to What Awaits

Looking back on life’s first half can appear as a massive funnel. We begin our journey as a blank slate, soaking in a veritable plethora of new sensations, experiences, insights and more. The funnel’s wide opening provides a vast scoop for gathering the new, the surprising, and the never considered. Over time, as these make their way down the funnel of our developing ideas, plans, and views, our perceived need to continue collecting additional insights simultaneously narrows.

On one hand, this narrowed focus can be extraordinarily valuable, allowing us to focus our vision and direct our path forward - whether that’s building a career, raising a family, or mastering a craft. The funnel provides quicker decisions, enhanced toolboxes and a clarity of direction.

Until it doesn’t.

As we move through life’s second half, the funnel can narrow to the point of creating blinders. We already “know” the answer. We are certain about the most effective steps to success. We no longer feel a need or desire to seek out new information (or so we’ve convinced ourselves). We’re locked in - professionally or personally - or both.

New information is seen as an unnecessary distraction within our successfully busy daily grind. But what if we considered flipping the funnel?

Oliver Wendell Holmes reminded us “A mind stretched by new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” As a physician, poet, professor and dean of Harvard Medical School, his life provided a real-world flipping of the funnel.

What if, instead of evolving into the all-knowing “get off my lawn” guy, we did the same, viewing our growth through life as an ever expanding palete of curious exploration? Rather than assuming we already have all the answers, what if instead we tuned into the realization the world is ever changing? What if we opened our eyes to the truth that yesterday’s answers are yesterday’s answers. And what if we recognized that intentionally expanding - not shrinking - our funnel is the key to ongoing meaning, purpose and impact?

Are we simply “getting” older as we move through life’s second half? Or are we intentionally “growing” older? What appears to be a simple distinction between two 7-letter words is nothing of the sort - and the difference quietly shapes how we show up in the world.

As I slide into my 60s this year, I can be pretty set in my ways. However, I’m also trying out new run training strategies, exploring a range of music I’ve ignored over the years, experimenting with different daily rhythms, and expanding my reading list. Yes - I certainly like my routines! But by flipping the funnel, the discoveries may just blossom into fields of opportunity, new friends, and expanded insights.

A favorite quote from Matt Fitzgerald states “In every race, something within each athlete poses a simple question: ‘How bad do you want it?’ To realize your potential as an athlete, you must respond with some version of this answer: More. And then you have to prove it.”

We face a related question far beyond sport with each day’s rising of the sun: ‘Are we content to settle for our established status quo?’ To realize our potential growth and contribution through life’s second half, we must respond with some version of this answer: No!

And then we have to prove it.

Flipping the funnel sets that proof in motion and makes it clear: we are not… done… yet!