Mind the Age Gap | Retirement Age, Identity and the Psychology of Ageing

What does retirement age really mean in modern life?

In this episode of Mind the Gap, Michael Comyn explores the idea of the “age gap” — the gap between chronological age and how we actually experience ourselves.

The reflection begins with a moment in a bank: an older couple being gently coached through online banking. They were not confused. They looked displaced. That observation opens a wider discussion about ageing, identity, and the subtle ways institutions categorise people after 65.

Retirement age began as a 19th-century pension policy in Germany. Over time, it evolved into a powerful cultural label. Today, that label influences marketing, workplace perceptions, digital design, and even the tone of television advertising.

In this episode, Michael explores:

• The history of retirement age and its origins in public policy

• The psychology of subjective age and why most adults over 60 feel younger than their years

• The impact of marketing stereotypes, including the Werther’s Original “grandfather” campaign

• Why certain UK television channels seem dominated by funeral and cremation advertising

• The cultural reality that people now in their seventies once danced to The Rolling Stones

• Why ageing is not the issue, dismissal is

This episode blends psychology, leadership insight, cultural observation, and personal reflection to ask a simple question:

Is the real gap between 50 and 65 — or between vitality and resignation?

If you’ve ever felt younger than your demographic category, or sensed the system quietly repositioning you, this conversation will resonate.

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This week, during a leadership course, a participant shared a line from her father that stopped the room:

“Whatever the mistake, it’s the lie afterwards that hurts more.”

In this episode of Mind the Gap, Michael explores why that simple sentence holds up across high-trust professions and high-pressure environments.

From medical errors in hospital settings to cockpit decision-making in aviation, from financial oversight to corporate governance, the issue is rarely the original human error. The more serious damage often comes from concealment.

This episode examines:

• The difference between human error and reckless behaviour

• What Just Culture really means in healthcare and aviation

• Why psychological safety determines whether truth surfaces early

• How fear of punishment drives cover-ups

• Why timely honesty strengthens trust rather than weakens it

Drawing on insights from leadership coaching, aviation training and emotional intelligence, Michael reflects on why cultures collapse not because people are imperfect, but because people feel unsafe admitting imperfection.

If you lead a team, work in a regulated profession, or simply care about integrity in relationships, this episode asks a direct question:

Do people around you believe they can survive being wrong?

About Mind the Gap

Mind the Gap is a leadership and emotional intelligence podcast hosted by Michael Comyn, broadcaster, author and executive coach. Each episode explores the space between intention and impact, and the small decisions that shape trust, culture and character.

Michael’s books Mind the Gap, The Next Station Is… and Between the Lines are available on Amazon.

Follow the podcast for weekly reflections on leadership, communication and the psychology behind how we show up.

Here’s the thing. Most of us spend our lives editing ourselves in real time. Softening opinions. Swallowing reactions. Running everything through an internal risk assessment before it ever reaches our mouth.

And then, occasionally, we meet someone who doesn’t do that.

This episode was sparked by conversations with people on the autism spectrum, and by watching The Assembly. What struck me wasn’t shock value or bluntness for its own sake. It was the relief. The calm. The honesty of hearing what someone actually thinks, without the usual social varnish.

So this isn’t an argument for saying everything that pops into your head. That’s not wisdom, that’s impulse. What this really explores is something subtler.

Which filters serve kindness?

Which filters serve fear?

Which filters are about protecting a persona?

And which filters help us stay aligned with who we actually are?

We talk about non-standard communication, what it teaches us about clarity and presence, and why “social polish” can sometimes drift into quiet self-betrayal. We also look at the cost of constant self-monitoring, the exhaustion of performing, and the freedom that comes from choosing fewer, better filters rather than none at all.

This is a reflective episode. No Stoic lectures. No tidy conclusions. Just an invitation to notice where you’re editing yourself unnecessarily, and what might happen if you eased off, just a little.

How do people really heal? Not through dramatic breakthroughs, but through small, ordinary moments.

In this episode, Michael Comyn reflects on personal recovery from a recent experience of gossip and intrusion, and explores how humans heal through connection, routine, purpose, and everyday emotional intelligence.

A gentle, optimistic reflection on resilience, wellbeing, and the quiet work of becoming a little quicker to mend.

In this episode of Mind the Gap, Michael Comyn returns to Stoic philosophy to address how Stoicism is being simplified and misused in some online spaces, particularly where grievance, emotional shutdown, and contempt are mistaken for strength.

Drawing on the original teachings of Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca, and Musonius Rufus, Michael reclaims Stoicism as a philosophy of self-governance, responsibility, and shared humanity, not dominance or detachment.

This episode is a clarification, a return to source, and a challenge to examine whether the philosophy we claim to follow is shaping character or simply justifying anger.

Michael’s books Mind the Gap, The Next Station Is…, and Between the Lines are available on Amazon.

Follow the podcast, leave a rating, and share the episode if it resonates.

Why do so many people feel exhausted even when nothing obvious is wrong?

In this opening episode of Season 4 of Mind the Gap, Michael Comyn explores what it means to live in permanent alert mode, a state of constant urgency driven by 24-hour news cycles, notifications, and global uncertainty.

This episode looks at how the human nervous system reacts to modern life, why being informed is not the same as being emotionally overloaded, and how chronic low-grade stress quietly shapes our thinking, relationships, and leadership.

Drawing on emotional intelligence, psychology, and neuroscience, Michael reflects on why we feel wired but tired, why reactivity has become the norm, and how to pause between stimulus and response in a world that never switches off.

The episode references insights from Daniel Goleman on emotional reactivity, Viktor Frankl on choice and response, and Robert Kegan on our ability to live with uncertainty.

If you feel tense, overwhelmed, or permanently on edge, this episode offers reassurance, perspective, and practical ways to regain calm without disengaging from the world.

In this episode

• Why constant urgency exhausts the nervous system
• How news and notifications trigger stress responses
• The difference between being informed and being emotionally inflamed
• Why reactivity feels normal but costs us clarity
• A simple emotional intelligence pause practice
• Why calm is a form of discernment, not indifference

Mind the Gap is a podcast by Michael Comyn exploring emotional intelligence, psychology, and modern life with clarity, warmth, and practical insight.

New episodes are released regularly.

Season Four moves beyond reaction and into reflection. It explores what sits beneath our emotions, how we make sense of experience, and why understanding our inner world matters in everyday life and leadership.

No quick fixes.

No noise.

Just thoughtful conversations grounded in emotional intelligence and lived experience.

Mind the Gap. Season Four begins soon.

In this special December episode of Mind the Gap, Michael reflects on the emotional landscape of the holiday season. For many, December is joyful and full of celebration. For others, it carries sadness, memory, and the quiet ache of missing someone who was here last year but is not here this year. Both experiences deserve space.

Through the simple ritual of putting up and taking down decorations, Michael explores the silence that appears in early January, a silence that offers honesty, clarity, and a gentle emotional reset for the year ahead. Drawing on insights from emotional intelligence and Stoic reflection, this episode invites listeners to notice what the year has taught them and to choose what they will carry into 2026.

As Mind the Gap reaches seventy episodes, this reflection brings the current season to a close. The podcast returns in early 2026 with a refreshed Season Four, focusing on everyday psychology, emotional intelligence, and the meaning found in the small, unnoticed moments of daily life.

Books by Michael Comyn:

Mind the Gap, The Next Station Is, and Between the Lines, available on Amazon.ie.

The Mind the Gap audiobook is available on Audible.

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