In this episode, Chip Conley sits down with Christine Sperber, co-founder of MEA and master experience designer, to explore how awe, ritual, and community can bring us back to life in midlife.
Drawing from ski town culture, life in Baja, and years of building transformational experiences, Christine offers a hopeful reframe of aging as something to design, not fix.
In this conversation, Chip and Christine explore:
- Why purpose matters more than productivity in midlife
- How simple rituals create meaning, resilience, and belonging
- What nature, movement, and community teach us about vitality
- Why transitions like perimenopause and loss call for compassion, not hustle
If midlife feels like a pause, a question mark, or an invitation to something more, this episode will leave you feeling seen, grounded, and hopeful.Listen now and rediscover what it means to feel fully alive in midlife.
Timestamps:
03:22 Christine Sperber’s background
06:55 Leaving Colorado for Baja
08:49 First experience of Baja and Pescadero
10:59 Freedom and living in rhythm with nature
15:15 Experience design and creating meaningful gatherings
17:48 Baking bread as ritual and collective practice
22:14 Origin story of MEA
24:02 Early doubts and building a local economy
26:07 Lessons from the first MEA beta cohorts
30:38 Ski towns, purpose, and longevity research
33:46 Aging, vitality, and midlife perspective
40:49 Introversion, ritual, and reclaiming time
46:19 Third vault conversations and authentic community
48:26 Moral beauty as a pathway to awe
54:11 Transformation through deep connection
56:19 Designing belonging and social bonds
57:28 Wisdom bumper sticker
Learn more about MEA at https://www.meawisdom.com/
