Ken Dychtwald’s unlikely journey, from a lower-middle-class Jewish kid in New Jersey to a student of human potential at the Esalen Institute, to an expert in the field of healthy aging, is chronicled in his new memoir. For more information about Dychtwald and his work, visit agewave.com.
The first thing you notice when opening Ken Dychtwald’s new memoir, Radical Curiosity: My Life on the Age Wave, is a sprawling collage of photos in the first pages. Interspersed with wedding and family snapshots is an image of Dychtwald on the cover of Inc. Magazine and – wait for it – photos of him with Presidents Carter, Reagan and Clinton.
Within the memoir are lively anecdotes featuring an array of diverse luminaries including Harrison Ford, Lee Iacocca, Betty Friedan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is a man who clearly runs in impressive circles.
It’s a vast understatement to say Dychtwald’s life has taken a nontraditional trajectory – from a lower-middle-class Jewish kid in New Jersey to a hippie “seeker” in Big Sur, to a high-flying Bay Area entrepreneur who raised $100 million in venture funding. Then, in the advent of the internet, those businesses crashed and burned, leaving Dychtwald depressed and suicidal.
In his own hero’s journey, he arose from those ashes and is now a wildly successful, world-renowned expert on the subject of healthy aging, a term he coined. At the age of 73, Dychtwald is a prime example of his life’s work – a prolific author, in-demand keynote speaker and consultant to some of the world’s most prominent companies.
Read on to learn more about the extraordinary, curiosity-driven life of Ken Dychtwald.
When did you move to Orinda and why did you choose to live here?
My wife and I were living in the Berkeley Hills with our two-year-old daughter, Casey, and we wondered if there was a place where we could have a backyard and a terrific public school system. Orinda was just over the hill and we got a beautiful home with two and a half acres.
Why did you choose Radical Curiosity as the title for your memoir?
My publisher said, “You’ve been driven by curiosity your whole life. You ask questions. You seek people out. You try to continue to learn more about yourself and the world. Why don’t we call the book Curiosity? It’s almost like a radical curiosity.” So I thought, you know, I like that – radical curiosity.
Explore, learn, teach, repeat is a theme in your book. How has that manifested in your life?
One of the things I learned as a psychologist is some people learn things and hoard them as treasures. I felt that if you learn something, you should try to make sense of it and then share it with others. That’s what’s driven me to write books and give speeches to over two million people. The idea of learning, digesting, breathing and repeating has been a mantra to me. Not, let’s see how much I can gather for me and my wife and kids, but what role can I play in contributing.
You are very vulnerable in your memoir, specifically about the implosion of your business and your depression that followed. How did you decide to tell this story?
When I gave the first draft of my memoir to my son, he thought it was too positive. He said, “I know you went through some hard times. Don’t leave them out. Otherwise it’s not a memoir, it’s a promotional brochure.”
I wound up rewriting the book based on his edits, and let the truth come out about my business failure and that I was very depressed and not sure if there was a future life for me. It was good for my kids to hear about my rough times. It took some pressure off them and gave them the freedom to not feel that everything they did had to turn out right.
Orinda is a community of extraordinarily successful people and sometimes kids look at their parents and see their beautiful home and great car and think things have always worked out for them. But letting our kids know our falls, as well as the times we’re soaring, gives them a more comfortable set of hopes and dreams and motivations for the future.
You’ve worked closely with presidents, business leaders and lots of influential people. Who was the most impressive?
The most extraordinary human being I’ve ever met was Nelson Mandela, who I met in Davos at the World Economic Forum when he was about 80. I was in the presence of a man who spent 27 years in jail because of the color of his skin, many of those years in solitary confinement, who rose up to be the president of his nation.
He was tall, handsome, very modest and made of steel. Many of our leaders now are braggarts and knuckleheads and liars. To have the experience of being in the presence of Nelson Mandela was profoundly important.
But if I really had to pick one extraordinary person who’s had the most influence on my life it would be my wife, Maddy. We just celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary. Every year we get remarried in a different place with a different religious ceremony.
She’s powerful. She’s beautiful. She’s supported me through the hard times and I’ve tried to be there for her as well. We’ve stuck it out, and we’ve grown deeper in our understanding of who we are as individuals and who we are as a team.
What’s the most significant aging trend that you have seen in your research?
I think we’re entering a new age of aging. Harrison Ford at 81 coming back as Indiana Jones. Martha Stewart at 81 being on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Oprah’s 69 and nobody’s telling her to pack it up and go sit in a rocking chair.
What we’re seeing is 60- and 70- and 80-year-olds are blazing new paths – going back to school, starting a new career or falling in love again.
I can remember when, if you were 50 or you retired, you were over the hill. Now that hill has been broken down and people are freer to move in the world in all sorts of new and different ways.
What are the opportunities of a longer life and what are the challenges? It’s been my life’s mission to be a guide, a navigator, a spokesperson and a provocateur around these issues.
As we age, you talk about the need to focus on moving from success to significance. What does that mean? What is your legacy?
It’s about a life that isn’t just for fun or just for your own self-indulgence, but where you do significant things for your community.
As for my legacy, I’m a Jewish person and there’s a Yiddish word that my grandparents would use – a mensch. I’d like to feel like I was a mensch in this life – meaning that I was a devoted and caring husband, a loving father, brother, son and employer. And it wasn’t just about making money, but I was about trying to reshape the path to the future.
All proceeds from Ken Dychtwald’s memoir, Radical Curiosity: My Life on the Age Wave, will be donated to the Esalen Institute, a non-profit retreat center and intentional community in Big Sur, California.
