Reflection

During COVID, while a lot of people working from home were gaining weight, I adopted a couple of simple rules. One was my “one plate per meal rule”—no seconds and, usually, no dessert. The other was walking 10,000 steps a day. Neither was particularly complicated, but both changed my behavior in ways that have lasted.

The behavior modification continues with my walking and small plates.  More than a year ago, I stopped ordering my usual Jack Daniel’s or other bourbon drinks with dinner, substituting a single beer or no alcohol at all. Carol and I also became tired of ordering two restaurant meals, taking home far too much food, and eventually throwing most of it away. So, we changed how we order. Today, we might split a meal and add a salad, or order two or three appetizers instead. We have virtually ended wasted food and, incidentally, reduced what it costs us to dine out.

Neither of us takes a GLP-1. We made these changes for practical reasons. This story is not about us, but our experience may offer a small preview of something much larger.

What happens when tens of millions more people gain greater control over their appetites?

Constraint Versus Desire

Most diets depend upon constraint.

“I’d like another piece, but I shouldn’t have it.”

GLP-1 drugs introduce something potentially different. Many users describe a reduction in “food noise.” Instead of continually exercising willpower against the desire for another helping, they may simply not want it as much. A 2026 survey of adults using injectable semaglutide for weight management found substantial reductions in reported food-noise scores after treatment, although the researchers emphasized that prospective research is still needed. (INFORM survey, 2026.)

“I’d like another piece, but I shouldn’t,” becomes “I don’t particularly want another piece.”

That is a profound distinction, and its implications extend well beyond the bathroom scale. Imagine tens of millions of Americans eventually using increasingly effective, less expensive, and easier-to-take GLP-1 medications. They eat less. Portions get smaller. They snack less often. Some may drink less alcohol. Grocery baskets change, restaurant orders change, and household spending patterns begin to change with them.

But the money not spent on a second entrée, dessert, or cocktail does not vanish. Neither does the human capacity for desire. Once new eating habits become normal rather than something requiring constant discipline, people have both money and attention available for other things.

Reduced desire for one thing may create room for desiring something else. The important economic question may not be what disappears, but what replaces it.

GLP-1 then becomes an economic story rather than simply a pharmaceutical or healthcare story.

We Don’t Stop Wanting Things

Human desire is not, in my experience, fixed. Quite the opposite. As our needs are satisfied, we often develop new desires, and businesses are extraordinarily effective at helping us discover them.

Consider the proliferation of BOGO promotions—buy one, get one free. Retailers are not simply lowering the price of groceries. They are encouraging us to take home more. Consumers often buy something they would not otherwise have bought because the second one is “free.” By the next visit, the product is likely not BOGO anymore. But many consumers try it, some like it, and new purchasing habits are born. Once the habit is established, the next purchase may occur at the regular price.

BOGO is a small example of something businesses do remarkably well. Restaurants encourage an appetizer or dessert. For years, McDonald’s employees famously asked, “Want fries with that?” Retailers suggest another item at checkout. Hotels offer another night or an upgraded room. Streaming services encourage another subscription. Businesses continually give customers one more opportunity to add something to the order.

For decades, businesses and technology have steadily reduced the friction between wanting something and buying it. Credit cards removed the need for cash. Amazon removed the trip to the store. Smartphones put the store in our pockets. Algorithms learned what might tempt us next.

AI will take that process further. Now introduce something else into the equation: pharmacology that gives millions more consumers greater control over one of our most fundamental appetites. The result, I suspect, will not be a consumer economy in permanent retreat.

It will be a consumer economy that changes direction.

Follow the Spending

I do not view GLP-1s as a bearish economic story. Some businesses will undoubtedly face challenges as consumer behavior changes. Others will find new opportunities. Restaurants built around enormous portions may have to adjust. Snack-food manufacturers may sell fewer calories. Alcohol consumption could decline. Grocery baskets will change. Businesses that have prospered by encouraging consumers to eat or drink a little more will have to figure out what their customers now value.

But businesses adapt, and consumers do too. Restaurants can offer smaller portions and better food. Food companies can reformulate products. Consumers who spend less on calories may spend more on higher-quality food. Someone who loses fifty pounds needs new clothes. Someone who feels better may travel more, play golf again, join a gym, or spend money on experiences that previously seemed difficult or unappealing.

This is why focusing exclusively on industries threatened by GLP-1 adoption misses half the story. Every dollar not spent on excess food remains available to be saved, invested, or spent somewhere else. The more interesting question is not which companies lose when consumers eat less, but which businesses benefit when consumers make different choices.

That question becomes even more interesting when considering GLP-1s alongside AI. GLP-1s may alter some forms of human desire and behavior at precisely the same time AI gives businesses unprecedented ability to identify changing preferences and to develop, price, and market products around them. There will be rough edges—quite a few—but consumers and businesses have an impressive history of adaptation.

The Second Derivative

The first-order effect of GLP-1s is obvious: people lose weight and, in many cases, become healthier. The second-order effects are more interesting. People behave differently because they eat differently. They make different decisions because they feel differently. Businesses respond to those decisions, capital follows the businesses, new products emerge, and old business models adjust or disappear.

For most of modern economic history, businesses could treat human appetite, for food, for example, as something relatively constant, at least in the short run. They competed aggressively to capture bigger shares of it and became remarkably good at stimulating it. GLP-1s challenge that assumption in a way that diets, exercise programs, and public-health campaigns generally have not.

Appetite itself may now be becoming a variable.

We do not yet know how large that variable will become, how many behaviors it will affect, or where the dollars released by those changes will ultimately go. But with many more millions of people potentially gaining a degree of control over appetite that previously required considerable discipline, the effects are unlikely to stop at the dinner table.

GLP-1s won’t just change waistlines.  They’ll change markets.

Until next time, be well, and age gratefully.

Chris

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Sources:

INFORM Survey, “Retrospective Assessment of Food Noise Changes After Initiation of Injectable Semaglutide for Weight Management in the USA,” 2026. PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42217114/

My sister has lost about 45 pounds taking one of the new GLP-1 drugs. More importantly, she is improving her health significantly. I know several other people taking them as well.

I began to look, and if the statistics I found are anywhere close to right, I know quite a few more people who simply have not mentioned they are taking them. And so do you.

That got my attention.

I started looking into GLP-1 drugs and quickly realized that something much bigger is happening here than I had appreciated. I suspect many of you already know more about them than I did. But for the rest of us, this seems like a trend worth investigating.

What is GLP-1?

GLP-1 stands for glucagon-like peptide-1, a hormone our bodies naturally produce after we eat. Among other things, it helps regulate blood sugar, slows digestion, and sends signals to the brain that we have had enough to eat. GLP-1 and GIP, or glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, are both incretin hormones released after meals and involved in glucose control and satiety. (PubMed).

The drugs we often hear about, including Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound, amplify these biological signals. Semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, is a GLP-1 receptor agonist. Tirzepatide, sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound, goes a step further by acting on both GLP-1 and GIP. (PubMed). Now that I am paying attention, I noticed an advertisement for Zepbound on television last evening.

That is a lot of vocabulary, and I had to look up everything to paint this picture. I am still assimilating it.

GLP-1 is recognized as a satiety signal that slows gastric emptying and helps reduce food intake.The result for many people using GLP-1 drugs is dramatically reduced hunger and food intake. (PubMed).

But how well do they really work?

This is where I began to understand why these drugs are different from the endless parade of diets and weight-loss programs we have all seen over the years.

In a major clinical trial, people taking semaglutide lost an average of about 15% of their body weight over 68 weeks. In another large trial, people receiving the highest dose of tirzepatide lost an average of about 20.9% of their body weight over 72 weeks. (PubMed; SURMOUNT-1).

For perspective, for a person weighing 250 pounds, a 15% loss is about 38 pounds, and a 20.9% loss is more than 52 pounds.

These statistics are averages, not promises, and individual results may and will vary considerably. But we are talking about weight loss on a scale that simply was not typical of earlier medications.

These results strike me as fundamentally different from Atkins, Weight Watchers, and the many other approaches we have watched come and go. Those programs primarily ask us to change what and how much we eat and perhaps exercise along the way.

GLP-1 medications work differently by altering some of the biological signals affecting hunger and satiety.

GLP-1 drugs do not eliminate the importance of good nutrition and exercise. But they accomplish something that diet and exercise alone have not for many people: they change some of the biological signals that influence hunger and how much we eat. The NIDDK also emphasizes that weight-management medicines should support healthy eating and physical activity, not replace them. (NIDDK).

In other words, rather than simply asking people to resist hunger and eat less, these drugs make them feel less hungry and satisfied with less food. That has certainly been my sister’s experience. This may help explain why the weight loss seen in clinical trials has been so much greater than with earlier medications and typical lifestyle interventions. (NIDDK).

We are talking about more than just looking thinner and being healthier.

The most important thing I learned is that the medical story has moved well beyond weight loss.

The FDA has approved Wegovy to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death, heart attacks, and strokes in certain people who have cardiovascular disease and are overweight or obese. The FDA also approved Zepbound for moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity, and Wegovy for MASH, a serious form of fatty liver disease. (U.S. Food and Drug Administration; FDA; FDA).

So these are increasingly becoming drugs for diseases associated with obesity, not simply drugs for losing weight.

How many people are taking them?

This may have surprised me most.

A Gallup survey conducted this year found that 11% of American adults say they are currently taking GLP-1 medications for weight loss, up from only 3% in 2024. About 15% say they have used them at some point. (Gallup.com).

Another survey, conducted by KFF, looked more broadly at GLP-1 use for weight loss, diabetes, and other conditions and found that 12% of American adults were currently taking one of the drugs. This study also examined GLP-1 use by age, sex, race, affordability, and even political affiliation. We may take a closer look at the KFF study later. (KFF).

Whether 11% or 12% of adults are taking GLP-1 medications, that adds up to roughly 30 million adult Americans. And millions more have tried them in the past.

Now consider the potential population for usage. The latest CDC data based on measured heights and weights show that about 40% of U.S. adults have obesity, and about 30% of adults are classified as overweight. The point is that the potential scale of future usage is enormous. (CDC; NIDDK).

Where is the catch? There are several.

The most common side effects are gastrointestinal, including nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and constipation. There are also less common but more serious risks, including gallbladder problems and pancreatitis, and the drugs are not right for everyone. (U.S. Food and Drug Administration). You should have seen the potential side effects shown in the Zepbound advertisement I mentioned!

Cost and insurance coverage remain significant issues. In KFF’s 2025 survey, about half of users said the drugs were difficult to afford. (KFF). The older friends I know without insurance other than Medicare have been paying about $300 per month for their weekly injections. Under a new Medicare Bridge Plan, which is set to last until December 2027 and was opened this month, some will be able to obtain their drugs for $50 per month. My sister entered this plan this month.

The Trump administration is working to make these drugs more accessible and less expensive for many Americans, and recently announced the Bridge Plan and the results of other efforts in this vein.

There is also the question of what happens when people stop using the drugs.

In one follow-up study of semaglutide users, participants regained about two-thirds of the weight they had lost within a year after stopping use of the drug. That suggests that for many people, GLP-1 treatment may be less like going on a diet and more like taking medication for high blood pressure or high cholesterol. In other words, it is not a one-time thing for a period, but a long-term treatment for a chronic condition. (PubMed).

GLP-1 drugs have been used in diabetes treatment for years, so they are not new. However, we lack decades of experience with this many people using the newer drugs at the current scale for weight management. There is still much to learn. (PubMed).

I do not come away from my brief investigation into GLP-1 drugs and their use thinking they are miracle drugs without drawbacks. They have real side effects, costs, uncertainties, and medical considerations that need to be addressed with physicians.

But I do come away thinking the GLP-1 phenomenon is quite different from any other weight-loss fad I have ever seen.

Something significant is happening.

Millions of Americans are already taking these medications. They are producing levels of weight loss that would have seemed extraordinary from a drug just a few years ago. Their known medical benefits are expanding. And the population that could potentially benefit from them is enormous.

Which leaves me with another set of questions.

What happens if these drugs continue to improve? What happens if they become easier and less expensive to take? What happens if tens of millions more people use them — and eat less, weigh less, and become healthier?

What is already changing? And what else might change in the coming years?

These are questions I want to think about.

Before closing, let’s return to the beginning of this post for a bit about one person’s experience so far.

My sister tells me she has felt hungry all her life. Now, for the first time, she feels like she has control over her eating rather than food having control over her. She is grateful for the weight she has lost, but even more grateful for what it is already doing for her health and how she feels.

There is still a great deal we do not know about GLP-1 drugs. But for her, at least, they have already provided another reason to age gratefully.

Until next time, be well, and age gratefully,

Chris

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Introduction

In Sunday School this past Sunday, our teacher’s lesson was titled “Jesus Teaches Us Not to Worry.” It was based on Matthew 6:25-34. The lesson carried special meaning because our teacher had recently been hospitalized with a very serious medical condition and he legitimately had lots to worry about. During his recovery, he felt convicted to teach on worry, and these verses became the foundation of his lesson.

There is something different about hearing a lesson on worry from someone who has had every reason to worry. His words were not theoretical. They came from experience, and that gave them weight.

As he taught, I was reminded of two observations by Mark Twain. One was, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” The other was, ‘Worry is like paying interest on a debt you don’t owe.” Twain had a remarkable way of using humor to expose profound truth.

Jesus’ teaching, however, goes even deeper than Twain’s wit.

Faith and Action

Sometimes when people say, “Don’t worry,” what they really seem to mean is, “Don’t do anything. Just sit back and hope everything works out.” I do not believe that was what Jesus intended.

In Matthew 6:26 He tells us:

Look at the birds. They do not plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And are you not far more valuable to him than they are?

The heavenly Father does, indeed, provide seeds and flowers and insects and other food that are available to birds.  But they get up every morning and spend most of their days foraging for food.  It does not fall into their proverbial laps.

Family Wisdom

As I listened, I also thought about my mother. When I worried about something – or sometimes when she found me sitting around doing nothing – she had a line she liked to use. “Chrissie boy,’ she would say (and she was the only one who could call me that), “Don’t just sit there like a bump on a log. Do something! Dig a hole. Cover it up. But do something, even if it is wrong!”

It makes me smile every time I think about it. She was not encouraging bad judgment. She was teaching me that action is usually better than standing still. You learn something by taking the first step. Sitting and worrying seldom teaches us anything except how to worry more.

My father had a similar philosophy, though he said it differently. Whenever I seemed to be wishing things were different, he would say, “Son, wish in one hand and put a baseball in the other (and he actually said it a bit more graphically) – and see which hand you have the most in.” His point was plain enough. Wishing does not change reality. Neither does worrying.

I have come to believe that wishing and worrying are close cousins. Worry is often wishing that reality were different. We wish our health were better, our finances were stronger, our businesses were growing faster, our children made different decisions, or the economy was more predictable. Those wishes are understandable, but they do not move us any closer to a solution. Action does.

The Next Season

As we move into what I often call the “next season” of life, our worries do not necessarily disappear. In some ways, they simply change. Earlier in life we worried about building a career, raising children, paying the mortgage, or growing a business. Later we may worry about retirement, succession planning, our health, a spouse’s health, whether we have saved enough, whether our children or grandchildren will be okay, or what legacy we will leave behind.

Those are legitimate concerns. But worrying about them does not improve them.

Planning might. Having an honest conversation might. Making the phone call you have been putting off might. Scheduling the doctor’s appointment might. Meeting with your financial advisor might. Beginning a succession plan might.

Each of these is an action. Each moves us a little farther down the road than worry ever could.

I have also noticed that worry and procrastination often travel together. We postpone doing something because we are uncertain, uncomfortable, or afraid of making the wrong decision. Then, because we have postponed it, we worry even more. It becomes a merry-go-round that never seems to stop.

The way off that ride is usually the same first step my mother encouraged me to take years ago: do something. Not necessarily everything. Just something.

Conclusion

As I listened in Sunday School, it occurred to me that Jesus was not giving us permission to be passive. He was inviting us to stop carrying burdens that accomplish nothing and instead do the work that lies before us today.

The birds in His illustration do not spend the day sitting on a branch worrying about where the next worm will come from. Our Heavenly Father provides for them, but they still leave the nest every morning. They search. They work. They trust.

There is a lesson in this for all of us. Whether you are twenty-five and beginning your career or seventy-five and thinking about what comes next, worry is never a very good strategy.

We cannot eliminate every concern. Nor should we. Some concerns remind us of our responsibilities. But we can decide whether today’s concern becomes today’s action or tomorrow’s worry.

I have a feeling both my parents would approve of that conclusion. And I suspect my Sunday School teacher would too.

Don’t worry.  Do Something!

And, as always, be well, and age gratefully,

Chris

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More than forty years ago, my friend and mentor, Wally Loewenbaum, gave me a piece of advice that has stayed with me ever since.  I’ve written about this before, but this post offers a new perspective.

If you have momentum, do everything in your power to maintain it. If you do not have it, do everything in your power to regain it.

At the time, he was talking about building a business. It was practical advice from someone who understood that success rarely comes from a single breakthrough. It comes from keeping things moving. One customer leads to another. One referral creates the next opportunity. Confidence grows with success, and success breeds more confidence. Momentum compounds.

I took Wally’s advice to heart.

Over the years, I worked to build momentum in what eventually became Mercer Capital. Along the way, I developed a career that allowed me to become known nationally in the field of business valuation. Looking back, I can see that very little of that happened because of isolated moments of brilliance. It happened because of steady forward movement over many years.

Momentum built the business. Momentum built the career.

For a long time, I thought that was the lesson.

Now I think Wally was teaching me something much larger.

The reason the lesson has become more important is that momentum and inertia are always competing for control of our lives. The contrast is useful because it helps make the idea visible. Side by side, the difference becomes hard to miss.

Aging Changes the Meaning of Momentum

It took me a few years in semi-retirement to realize that Wally’s advice still applied. Only the object of the momentum had changed.

When we are young, momentum helps us build a business and a career. When we are older, momentum helps us build a life. The goal is no longer simply climbing another ladder. The goal is continuing to move—purposefully, steadily, and with intention.

That shift matters. After a certain point, the question is no longer only, “What am I trying to build?” It becomes, “Who am I becoming?”

George Burns Had It Right

George Burns, who lived to be one hundred years old, once quipped, “I don’t believe in dying. It’s been done. I’m working on a new exit. Besides, I can’t die now. I’m booked.”

Like many great comedians, Burns wrapped profound wisdom in humor. Those two words—“I’m booked”—capture something important. Forward commitments create forward motion.

Keep Booking the Future

When we have something to anticipate, somewhere to go, someone to serve, or something to finish, tomorrow begins pulling us toward it. That is why one of the best ways to fight inertia is to keep booking the future.

Plan the trip. Commit to writing the next article. Say yes to teaching the class. Volunteer for the church project. Schedule dinner with friends. Mentor someone younger. Visit the grandchildren. Start reading the book you have been meaning to read. Plant next year’s garden.

None of these activities is remarkable by itself. Together, they create a life that keeps moving.

Motivation Comes and Goes. Momentum Carries You.

People often wait for motivation before they begin. Momentum works differently. Motivation comes and goes. Momentum carries us on the days when motivation is nowhere to be found.

That is true in business. It is just as true in life.

Three Seasons

Looking back, I can see three seasons of momentum in my own life. First came building a career. Then, alongside that career, came building Mercer Capital. Today I find myself in a third season—building a life of value.

Now, I am being intentional about building momentum for what I call the “after sixty-five” years—a season of transition into new priorities and opportunities.

Americans are crossing that sixty-five year threshold into the next season at the rate of about ten thousand per day, and will continue to do so for many years.  Whether you crossed that threshold years ago or are only approaching it, momentum still matters.

A Life of Value

What is a life of value?  I can only speak for myself.

A life where writing still matters. Where learning still matters. Where family matters even more. Where faith deepens. Where mentoring becomes a privilege. Where friendships are cultivated instead of assumed. Where there is always another project, another trip, another conversation, another opportunity to encourage someone else.

The older I get, the less interested I am in speed. I am interested in movement. Slow, steady, purposeful movement.

I suspect Wally would smile at that.

He thought he was teaching me how to build a successful business. In hindsight, he was also teaching me how to keep living.

His advice has never been more relevant. If you have momentum, protect it. If you have lost it, do not wait for inspiration to magically appear. Take one small step. Then another. Momentum has a remarkable way of finding those who are willing to move.

Because growing older is inevitable.  Growing stagnant is optional.

Today, I am grateful to have momentum.  And, like Wally advised, I intend to do everything I can to maintain it.

How about you?

Until next time, be well, and age gratefully.

Chris

This week, approximately 75,000 Americans will celebrate their 65th birthdays.  Another 75,000 will do so next week. And the week after that. And the week after that…

What does this mean?  More than 10,000 people turn 65 each day, over 300,000 each month, and roughly four million each year. The last members of the Baby Boomer generation will turn 65 in 2029. Then Generation X will begin crossing the same threshold in 2030.

The names of the generations will change, but the flow of people entering this new season of life will continue at about the same rate for years to come.

The Meaning of 65

For many years, age 65 was viewed as the normal retirement age. It remains the age when most Americans become eligible for Medicare, but it no longer necessarily signals the end of a career. Some people retire at 65. Some continue working because they need to. Others continue because they want to. Others continue because they don’t know what else to do.  Still others leave one kind of work only to begin another.

There is no bell that rings on our 65th birthdays telling us what to do next. We do receive quite a bit of Medicare mail, however.

Less a finish line than a marker, our 65^th birthdays tell us that we have entered a different season, whether we are quite ready for it or not.

From Building Value to Living It

For most of our adult lives, the emphasis is on building.

We build careers and businesses. We build families, friendships, reputations, and financial security. We buy homes, educate children, save for retirement, and try to prepare for a future that always seems comfortably distant – until it isn’t.

By 65, most of us have accumulated more than financial assets. We have experience, judgment, relationships, memories, abilities, and stories. We have learned some things the easy way and quite a few more the hard way.

The key question we ask ourselves begins to change.

Instead of asking only, “What am I still trying to build?” we begin asking, “How should I live with what I have built?”  That may be the right question, but it is not always an easy one to answer.

This key question is not really a financial question. A well-constructed retirement portfolio can help finance the years ahead. But it cannot tell us what to do during those years.

The transition from building value to living it requires a broader understanding of stewardship – and recognition that our identities are changing.

We must become better stewards of our physical health if we want to remain active and independent. Strength, balance, mobility, and endurance take on increasing importance.  Abilities that once seemed ordinary, like walking up a flight of stairs, or getting out of a chair, or carrying groceries, begin to look like assets worth preserving.

We must also care for our mental and spiritual lives. Aging gratefully requires curiosity, reflection, faith, and a willingness to keep learning. Growing older does not automatically make us wiser. It merely gives us more time to work on it.

Our financial stewardship changes as well. Accumulation remains important, but so do thoughtful spending, generosity, preparation, and the question of how much is enough.  We might also need to consider managing our wants.

Relationships deserve more attention, not less. Spouses, partners, families, friends, former colleagues, and younger people who might benefit from our encouragement all represent forms of value that cannot be shown on a personal balance sheet.

Purpose and work may also need to be redefined. Retirement does not have to mean the absence of productive activity. It may mean doing less of what we were previously required to do and more of what we are uniquely able or even want to do. Teaching, mentoring, serving, creating, helping, and simply being available can all become meaningful forms of work.

And then there is legacy. Financial assets matter, but they are only part of what we leave behind. Character, example, faith, gratitude, stories, and the way we treat others may prove to be our most valuable inheritances.

Aging Gratefully

None of this means that aging is easy.

Health changes. Abilities narrow. We can also do what we reasonably can to reduce the risks that might diminish our independence or shorten our active lives.

People we love are lost. Plans are sometimes interrupted by realities we neither expected nor invited.

Aging gratefully does not require us to deny those losses or pretend that every day is wonderful. Gratitude keeps the losses from becoming the whole story. It helps us recognize what remains and reminds us to use it while we can.

Next week, another 75,000 Americans will turn 65. They will not all retire, and they will certainly not follow the same path. But each will have entered a new season in which living the value already built becomes increasingly important.

I am already well into that new season and still learning what it asks of me.

The central question is no longer simply how much value we have built. It is how intentionally we will live it, share it, and ultimately pass it along.

Until next time, be well, and age gratefully,

Chris

P.S. The table below puts the demographic transition into perspective. A few observations and questions follow.

Several observations stand out:

• The Baby Boomer and Generation X cohorts each contain approximately 65 million Americans.
• The oldest Boomers turn 80 in 2026 and will turn 88 in 2034.
• The oldest Gen Xers turn 61 in 2026 and will turn 69 in 2034
• Approximately 20 million Gen Xers will reach age 65 between 2030 and 2034.
• Altogether, more than 36 million Americans will reach age 65 between 2026 and 2034.

Questions for Reflection

• Where do you fit in this continuing demographic transition?
• As you look toward the next five to ten years, what changes should you be preparing for now?
• What have you spent your life building – and how do you want to live, share, and preserve it?
• What would aging gratefully look like in your particular season of life?

Last week I paid for two hotel rooms on the same night.  One was in Raleigh.  The other was in Greenville, North Carolina.  Carol and I slept in only one of them.

It wasn’t because of an airline cancellation, bad weather, or a mistake by either hotel.  It happened because I wasn’t fully aware of who I was actually booking the rooms with.

Carol and I had just spent several enjoyable days in North Carolina visiting good friends and attending a family wedding.

I booked our Thursday night hotel in Raleigh directly with the Marriott. Everything went exactly as expected.

For the next three nights, we planned to stay at the Hampton Inn in Greenville. I searched online, found what I believed was the hotel’s reservation information, and made the booking. Or so I thought.

Then, our plans changed. We decided to spend Friday night in Raleigh and drive to Greenville on Saturday morning. I assumed one phone call would take care of everything.  Instead, the Hampton Inn explained that they couldn’t change my reservation.  I hadn’t booked the room with them.  I had booked through a third-party reservation service.

The cancellation policy of the reservation company said changing the reservation would cost one night’s room and tax. Since we still needed the room for the remaining two nights, I checked in remotely at the Hampton Inn in Greenville while Carol and I spent Friday night in Raleigh.

That’s how I ended up paying for two hotel rooms on the same night.  Fortunately, I could afford the extra expense.  Not everyone could.

After returning home, I became curious about what had happened.

The confirmation from the reservation company showed the $128 nightly room rate, but it also listed “Tax Recovery & Fees” of $93.30 per night, or $279.90 for the three-night stay.  It is less than transparent.

Hotel taxes in Greenville are approximately 13 percent of the room rate. On a $128 room, that’s only less than $17 per night. The receipt doesn’t explain how much of the $93.30 taxes represented and how much the fees represented. It simply combines them into a single line item.  See the “Tax Recovery & Fees” above of  $279.90.

For three nights that is $93.30 per night.  Compare that with the “Nightly Rate” of $128.00 per night (the posted rate at the hotel those nights).  Simple math suggests that “fees” were about $77 per night on a posted rate of $128 per night.  So the “fees” were about 60% of the nightly rate.

I still don’t know how those charges were determined.  You be the judge of their reasonableness.

Then, I searched again. On my desktop computer, finding the Hampton Inn’s official website wasn’t difficult. On my iPhone, however, sponsored listings dominated the search results, making it much harder to distinguish the hotel’s website from third-party booking services. Looking back, I suspect that’s how I ended up booking through an intermediary rather than directly with the hotel.

A few months ago I wrote a series of posts about situational awareness. I was thinking about driving, walking, pickleball, and the challenges that become increasingly important as we grow older.  I wasn’t thinking about hotel reservations.  Maybe I should have been.

The internet has made booking a hotel easier than ever.  It has also made it easier than ever to believe you’re dealing directly with someone when you’re not.

There are search engines, sponsored listings, comparison sites, affiliate marketers, booking services, and AI-generated summaries. They can all be useful. But they also create layers of friction between us and the businesses we think we’re contacting.  That means awareness matters before we ever click a link.

Looking back, the lesson wasn’t really about hotels.  It was about awareness.

In a world filled with sponsored links, intermediaries, and websites that look similar to the real thing, paying attention has become a life skill.

Last week, my lapse in awareness cost me the price of an extra night’s hotel room.

Next time, it might save me one.

So, until next time, be situationally aware, and age gratefully,

Chris

Mercer Capital was born in June of 1982. At that time, I made what I now think of as my first good business decision. I decided to put the business first. Let’s call it my “business first” decision.

My goal was simple. I wanted to treat Mercer Capital as a business rather than as a vehicle to support my personal lifestyle. That meant spending first on what the business needed, and accepting whatever remained as my personal income or return on the business.

From the beginning, I wanted to build a company that created value for clients, employees, and owners. Looking back, that decision shaped much of the next four decades. It encouraged long-term thinking, disciplined reinvestment, and a focus on building an enduring enterprise rather than maximizing current income and distributions for owners in the short run.

For many years, I assumed that way of thinking would always serve me well. It did. But it has taken me more than forty years to realize that every important decision has its season. The decision to put the business first was exactly the right one in 1982. It is no longer the decision I need to make.

The transition began during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mercer Capital was approached by a large financial institution interested in acquiring the firm. While those discussions ultimately did not lead to a sale, they accelerated conversations about my ownership transition through our ESOP.  Management succession had occurred years earlier when Matt Crow became President in 2009. What remained was completing my ownership transition.

As part of that process, I moved from being an employee to serving as a contractor. I expected that change would naturally lead to slowing down. It didn’t. I often described myself as “semi-retired,” but I wasn’t acting like it.

Old habits are remarkably persistent. Everyone at Mercer Capital encouraged me to slow down, but changing decades of routines proved much harder than I ever thought.

By early 2024, I found myself writing less about business valuation and more about walking, health, motivation, and aging. In hindsight, that shift reflected where my heart and mind were already moving.

The real turning point came in early 2025. I decided to separate my monthly living expenses from any personal income generated at Mercer Capital. My financial adviser began depositing a monthly amount from my investment portfolio into my operating account, while any income from Mercer Capital flowed directly back into my portfolio.

Looking back, that wasn’t primarily a financial decision. It was a psychological one. It finally broke my mental dependence on Mercer Capital as the source of my monthly cash flow. Once that happened, I found it much easier to think differently about how I wanted to spend my time.

Only then did I begin to recognize what my second important decision really was. If the first decision had been “business first,” this one was “living value first.” Instead of asking what the business needed from me, I began asking how I could best use the freedom the business had given me.

The journey from “business first” to “living value first” has been much deeper than simply slowing down or retiring. It has been a transition of identity.

For more than forty years, my identity was wrapped up in building Mercer Capital into a national business valuation firm. The psychological shift wasn’t just about income—it was about recognizing that my purpose needed to expand beyond Mercer Capital.

This may be the most important idea in this essay. For many aging professionals and business owners, the transition from building value to living value is ultimately a transition of identity.

I’ve often told younger colleagues that one of the keys to financial independence is to spend less than you earn and productively invest the difference. I’m grateful I followed that advice over many years. It created the freedom to make this second decision.

Today I believe I have finally (well, almost finally) settled into semi-retirement. I continue to work with a handful of long-standing clients and enjoy projects that are especially interesting or challenging. Most new opportunities are better served by the outstanding professionals at Mercer Capital. I still enjoy speaking and writing about valuation when interesting opportunities arise, but I no longer feel compelled to do so.

In April 2026, I rebranded ChrisMercer.net from a business valuation blog into “From Building Value to Living It – Aging Gratefully.” Looking back, the new title was less a rebranding than an acknowledgment of where my life was already headed.

This week Carol and I will fly to Raleigh to spend time with my best childhood friend and his wife. We’ll then drive to Greenville for a nephew’s wedding, visit family, and spend time wandering around eastern North Carolina.

Not long ago, I might have talked myself out of making that trip because there was work to do – or even if things weren’t so pressing.

Today it feels like exactly the right thing to do. Forty years ago, I probably wouldn’t have recognized that as progress. Today I do.

Perhaps that’s what living value first really means – not necessarily completely stopping the work of creating value, but making sure we also take the time to live it.   And we can do this whether retired or not.

Until next time, be well, and age gratefully,

Chris

A few weeks ago my Garmin watch quietly informed me that I wasn’t really 78. At least not in one important respect.

The watch displayed my “Fitness Age,” and I was intrigued. Until then, I hadn’t even known the concept existed, much less that my Garmin was calculating it.

Chronological age addresses the question: “How old are you?”  One thing about chronological age – it is fixed at any point in time and we cannot change it!

Increasingly, scientists, medical professionals, and technology companies are now asking a different question: “How old is your body?”

Background

I’ve been using wearable fitness devices since buying one of the original Fitbit clip-on trackers shortly after it was introduced in late 2009. Over the years I’ve watched these devices evolve from simple step counters into sophisticated health monitors measuring heart rate, sleep, blood oxygen, stress, recovery, and much more.

Today, a few major concepts addressing aspects of aging are available from the major wearable device manufacturers.  They are concluding that “age” is a more meaningful way to communicate health than raw physiological measurements.

The trend is unmistakable: wearables are moving from measuring what you did today to estimating how well your body is aging (or living).

Current products and concepts (as inclusive as I know) are shown in the figure below for perspective and not discussion.  Garmin is first because that is my watch.  The rest are in alphabetical order.

Below the table, I’ll discuss Garmin’s age measure concept and how it relates to me (and you).

Fitness Age

Garmin describes Fitness Age as an estimate of how your cardiorespiratory fitness compares with that of other adults. The concept is based primarily on your estimated VO₂ max – the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during exercise – which is widely recognized as one of the best measures of aerobic fitness and an important predictor of long-term health (see the table above).

Garmin’s calculation also considers factors such as your age, sex, resting heart rate, body composition (or BMI if body fat percentage isn’t available), and your recent activity levels. The result is a number expressed in years – and it relates to you (or me).

Unlike your chronological age, your Fitness Age can move in either direction. As your aerobic fitness improves, your resting heart rate declines, your body composition improves, and you maintain an active lifestyle, your metric may decrease. Conversely, inactivity, declining fitness, or weight gain can cause it to rise.

Of course, Garmin’s measure is only an estimate. It isn’t a medical diagnosis, nor is it intended to predict how long you will live. Rather, it is a practical way to summarize several important measures of health in a single number that most of us can understand.

We may have little intuition about whether a VO₂ max of 38 or 42 is “good.” But we immediately understand the idea of having the fitness of someone younger—or older—than our chronological age.

That simple translation is what captured my attention. For years I’ve tracked my daily steps, walking distance, resting heart rate, sleep, weight, and more. Fitness Age doesn’t replace any of those measures.

Instead, it pulls several of them together into a single, easy-to-understand indicator of how well my body (or yours) is aging.

My Fitness Age

When I first noticed Fitness Age on my watch, it informed me that my metric had been lowered from 68 to 67.5.

That got my attention because my chronological age is 78.

I wasn’t looking for another number to track. I was intrigued because this one attempted to summarize several aspects of health into a single measure I could actually understand and relate to intuitively.

Based on the fitness measures Garmin uses, my cardiovascular fitness resembles that of the average healthy 67½-year-old rather than the average 78-year-old man.

Before I put too much of a new spring in my step, I looked at what Fitness Age does not mean.  Since we are on it, I’ll personalize the response.

It does not mean:

• My entire body is biologically 67½ years old.
• I have added 10½ years to my life expectancy.
• I have the athletic ability of every 67-year-old.
• I am protected from age-related disease or injury.

Garmin is estimating one important dimension of health: cardiorespiratory fitness. They are not measuring memory, bone density, joint health, vision, hearing, muscle strength (except indirectly), or many other aspects of aging.

The fact that Garmin lowered my metric suggests that it is a range concept.  One’s Fitness Age can be lowered or it can be increased.

I do not know the algorithm Garmin uses to calculate the metric, but they leave clues with their “recommendations” when providing my (or your) Fitness Age.

Per my Garmin Connect app, my metric is 67.5 years.  The chart shows my chronological age on the right as 78, which it is.  It also provides a Target age of 61 years on the left.  How would that be possible?  Garmin provides me with four “Recommendations” to help lower my Fitness Age:

1. Increase Vigorous Minutes. 6w average 42.6 min per week. Higher Priority

2. Increase Vigorous Days. 6w average 0.5 days per week.

3. Reduce Body Fat.  Weekly avg 28.7%

4. Resting Heart Rate.  Maintain 59bpm (beats per minute). On Target

When I saw these recommendations, I remembered that my recent activity has been unusual. During a trip to Peru with my son in May, we spent much of our time at elevations between 4,500 and 7,000 feet, walking only when necessary. I also picked up a lower GI illness that slowed me down for several weeks afterward. My vigorous activity—and pickleball—had dropped considerably.

So I understood recommendation #1 of Increasing Vigorous Minutes.  If I accomplish it reasonably during the coming days and weeks, I’ll also be focusing on recommendation #2, that of Increasing Vigorous Days.

To reduce Body Fat, or lower my Body Mass Index, I’ll need to lose some weight – or increase muscle mass.  We will see.

Finally, it says to maintain my Resting Heart Rate.  If I do #1 and #2, that is likely.

Final Thoughts

Reviewing my Fitness Age information led me to think about aging more generally.

Chronological age is something we receive or achieve as we live each day and year.  It is fixed at any point in time and cannot be changed.

Fitness Age, on the other hand, is something we can influence.

Our measures can improve—or worsen—depending on the choices we make over time. That makes it different from our birth certificates. It reflects the cumulative effect of thousands of ordinary decisions over time: whether we walk today, whether we play pickleball, whether we do strength and balance exercises, whether we maintain a healthy weight, and more.

We cannot determine how long we will live.  But, we can influence how well we live and the odds of avoiding the bad things that can happen to any of us – or the odds of surviving if they happen to us.

Chronological age tells us how long we’ve been alive. Fitness Age asks how well we’re living.

None of us can change our chronological age. Every birthday moves us forward another year. But Fitness Age reminds us that many of the choices we make every day still matter. We may not control how many years we are given, but we can influence how well we live those years. To me, that’s a hopeful message—and one worth paying attention to.

Until the next post, be well, and age gratefully,

Chris

Years ago, I learned it was bad for sleep to have a clock visible in the bedroom at night.

Last month, I wrote about taking the idea one step further — not just removing the bedroom clock but also resisting the temptation to check your watch during the night. Looking at the time invites your brain to calculate how much sleep you’ve lost or how little time remains before the alarm.

By last night, I hadn’t checked my watch during the night for more than three months.

Last evening, my Garmin watch froze and I couldn’t restore the clock face. I restarted it several times, but the problem remained. I went to bed assuming the display would still be blank.

I awoke for the first time and, without thinking, I flicked my wrist and turned the watch on. 4:11am.

Darn! Only 2 hours and 49 minutes until the alarm.

I fidgeted and worried about the time for the rest of the night.

Just one look took me right back to a place I don’t want to be in the middle of the night.

If you’ve broken the habit of checking the time at night, keep it that way. And if you’re tempted, don’t look.

I’m grateful it was only one glance. I don’t plan to repeat that experiment anytime soon.

Coming Up

I had planned to write about Garmin’s concept of Fitness Age this week, but I wanted to share last night’s experience first.

Next week we will examine and compare Garmin’s “fitness age” with chronological age and see, to the extent we can through Garmin’s opacity, what it might mean for aging professionals.

In the meantime, be well, and age gratefully,

Chris

A recent read, Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman, reminded me of something I have believed for years: movement and exercise are not the same thing. Both are important, but they are often conflated.

Exercise is something we schedule and do. Exercise is almost always a form of movement.

Movement, on the other hand, is something we live.  Not all movement is exercise, but virtually all movement is good for us.

Many of us think about health in terms of workouts. Did I get to the gym today? Did I walk three miles? Did I close my rings? Those are not bad questions, but they can cause us to overlook a more important one: How much did I move throughout the day?

That question has influenced my habits for years. I am always looking for opportunities to incorporate movement into ordinary life rather than relying exclusively on formal exercise. Sometimes that means walking in my Memphis neighborhood or on the nearby University of Memphis campus. In Florida, I enjoy walking around Sea Bird Island or along the beach, or at the track near our condominium.  When the weather cooperates, these walks hardly feel like exercise at all.

Other opportunities appear in less obvious places. I’ve walked laps around the large lobby of my office building. I’ve walked airports while waiting for flights instead of sitting at the gate. I’ve walked around other office buildings, to nearby restaurants, and through shopping malls when traveling. If it’s pouring rain, I may walk the five floors of my parking garage or use a treadmill. When options are limited, I’ve even resorted to running in place in a hotel room.

One of my favorite examples is parking far from the entrance of a restaurant, big-box store, or wherever I happen to be going. The extra steps seem insignificant at the time, but they accumulate surprisingly quickly. The same is true of taking the stairs, standing instead of sitting, or choosing to walk when a short drive would be easier.

Pickleball is another source of movement for me. After a couple of hours on the court, I normally accumulate more than 4,000 steps without ever thinking about exercise. I am simply engaged in a sport I enjoy.

One of my best examples of movement occurred during a recent visit to New York to see my son and daughter-in-law. I averaged about eight miles of walking per day, not because I had set a fitness goal, but because walking was the natural way to move around the city. Movement was built into the experience itself. My son and daughter-in-law consider a twenty-minute walk “just a short walk.”  Those “short walks” add up to a lot of movement.

The focus on movement is what resonated with me in Bowman’s book. The goal is not necessarily to exercise more. It is to create a life that contains more movement. Our bodies respond to what we do all day long, not just during a scheduled workout.

Exercise is obviously important. I have no quarrel with structured workouts. And I often focus on walking briskly to get all systems brewing. I am also adding a bit more strength training to develop muscles that otherwise would disappear.

Exercise is important.  But health may depend as much on the hundreds of small movement decisions we make each day as it does on any single trip to the gym.

So, when I think about movement now, I find myself returning to a simple question: not “Did I exercise today?” but “How much did I move today?”

Our answers may tell us more than we think.  Think about the question as it pertains to you.

Last December, I gave up my Fitbit and purchased a Garmin Vivoactive 6 smart watch.  Last week, my watch showed me something I had not previously seen.  Garmin has a concept called “Fitness Age.”  Next week, I’ll talk about Garmin’s Fitness Age concept and what it might mean for aging professionals.

In the meantime, be well, and age gratefully,

Chris