LinkedIn Voices: Chip Conley

LinkedIn Voices: Chip Conley

Chip Conley is redefining what it means to age, lead, and live with purpose. From pioneering the boutique hospitality movement to mentoring at Airbnb and founding the world’s first “midlife wisdom school,” his work bridges business innovation with personal transformation.

Where others see midlife as decline, Chip sees it as a chrysalis; a period of metamorphosis, not retreat.

Who Is Chip Conley?

Chip Conley is an American entrepreneur, hospitality visionary, best-selling author, and speaker whose career has continually challenged traditional definitions of success and aging.

He founded Joie de Vivre Hospitality at age 26, transforming a single run-down motel in San Francisco into the second-largest boutique hotel brand in the U.S., with over 50 properties. His approach merged psychology and business, inspired by Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of need, to turn hospitality into an experience of meaning, not just comfort.

In 2013, Chip joined Airbnb as Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy. There, he became known as the “Modern Elder”, mentoring the Millennial founders and guiding the company through its hypergrowth phase. He helped shape Airbnb’s host culture, global expansion, and human-centered brand identity.

That experience inspired his next act: The Modern Elder Academy (MEA), the world’s first “midlife wisdom school,” dedicated to helping people navigate life transitions with clarity, curiosity, and purpose.

From Hospitality to Humanity

After selling Joie de Vivre and experiencing both entrepreneurial triumph and personal crisis; including a near-death experience; Chip shifted his focus from managing hotels to elevating human potential.

At Airbnb, he saw firsthand how wisdom and youthful innovation could co-exist. The idea of the modern elder, “someone as curious as they are wise” became a philosophy, not just a title.

This philosophy now powers MEA, with campuses in Baja California Sur, Mexico, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Thousands of professionals from 45+ countries have attended programs on midlife renewal, emotional intelligence, and purposeful aging.

“Midlife isn’t a crisis; it’s a chrysalis; a stage of transformation that prepares you for your next growth.”

Mission: Making Midlife Modern

Chip’s mission is to rebrand aging as growth, not decline. Through MEA, his books, and global keynotes, he’s creating a movement that reframes midlife as a time of reinvention, creativity, and contribution.

MEA’s vision:

• Normalize transition: Helping individuals navigate career pivots, identity shifts, and life’s “second act.”

• Foster community: Offering immersive programs that combine neuroscience, psychology, and spiritual reflection.

• Scale wisdom: Expanding midlife education into digital learning and corporate leadership programs.

  
  

His leadership philosophy emphasizes emotional intelligence, curiosity, and intergenerational collaboration, crucial tools for the future of work.

Themes & Message Pillars

1. Wisdom at Work

Chip believes experience is an undervalued asset in the modern workplace. His book Wisdom@Work redefines mentorship as a two-way exchange where age diversity drives innovation.

2. Midlife as a Chrysalis

He challenges the “midlife crisis” narrative, presenting it instead as a metamorphic stage of personal and professional rebirth.

3. Emotional Equations

Drawing from his book Emotional Equations, Chip teaches that understanding one’s emotions is a form of intelligence, a business advantage and a personal compass.

4. Hospitality as Humanity

From hotels to classrooms, Chip’s philosophy centers on the human experience. Success, he argues, comes from creating belonging and meaning, not just transactions.

5. Living with Purpose

Whether facing cancer, change, or reinvention, Chip models resilience with radical honesty. His reflections remind audiences that the most meaningful growth often comes from uncertainty.

Some of His Talks

CULTIVATE YOUR SECOND WAVE: 5 Questions You MUST ASK After 40 | Chip Conley

Chip Conley on Finding Contentment and The Value Of Reflection

Becoming a Modern Elder | Chip Conley | TEDxMarin

LinkedIn Content Strategy: Wisdom in Action

Chip Conley on LinkedIn

Chip Conley’s presence on LinkedIn embodies reflective leadership and intergenerational learning. His posts blend philosophy, research, and storytelling, transforming personal experience into universal insight.

Strategy Highlights:

• Narrative-Driven Wisdom: Every post reads like a journal entry filled with psychological insight and poetic reflection.

• Research & Resonance: He references credible studies (e.g., cognitive performance peaks at 60) to challenge societal assumptions.

• Emotional Transparency: Shares personal experiences with near-death, aging, and illness to normalize vulnerability in leadership.

• Engagement Through Depth: Encourages discussion through profound yet accessible questions (“What are you ready to unlearn?”).

  
  

Tone & Style:

• Empathetic, philosophical, and deeply human.

• Weaves storytelling with research-based insights.

• Balances vulnerability with intellectual rigor.

  
  

Selected LinkedIn Posts

www.linkedin.com

“If My Life is Full, Why Do I Feel Empty?” It’s one of the great paradoxes of midlife: my closet is so full it could qualify as a fire hazard, my fridge looks like it’s auditioning for a cooking… | Chip Conley | 23 comments

“If My Life is Full, Why Do I Feel Empty?” It’s one of the great paradoxes of midlife: my closet is so full it could qualify as a fire hazard, my fridge looks like it’s auditioning for a cooking show, my calendar is packed tighter than a Tokyo subway at rush hour… and yet, inside, there’s this yawning space that feels strangely hollow. Full, but empty. How does that happen? Here’s the thing: fullness and fulfillment are not the same species. One is about quantity—how many meetings, how many shoes, how many followers. The other is about quality—how much joy, how much meaning, how much depth. You can have a suitcase crammed so tight you have to sit on it to zip it shut, but when you finally get where you’re going, you realize you packed nothing you actually want to wear. That’s the trap of modern life. We’re taught to accumulate—accolades, obligations, gadgets, people on LinkedIn—but sometimes all we’re really gathering is clutter. And clutter, whether in your house or in your psyche, doesn’t feed the soul. It just fills space. Here’s the playful twist: emptiness isn’t failure. It’s an invitation. It’s the room in the suitcase you wish you’d left for the things that matter. The hollow feeling is not a sign you’re broken; it’s a nudge from the universe asking: Hey, what if you swapped some of the stuff you don’t care about for the stuff you secretly crave? Philosophers and mystics have whispered this forever. The Stoics knew a crowded life isn’t necessarily a good one. Buddhists remind us that emptiness is actually fertile ground. Even poets suggest that the pauses between the notes are what make the music. So if your life is brimming but your heart feels barren, don’t panic. Don’t add more. Instead, subtract.  Make space. Let some air in. Then, plant something playful in that soil—curiosity, awe, delight, maybe even a little mischief. Because life’s banquet table doesn’t need more dishes. It needs more flavor. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your fullness is let yourself feel a little empty. That’s where the real feast begins. | 23 comments on LinkedIn

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The Bangkok 'death cafe' that changed my life | Chip Conley | 24 comments

The Day I Died, and What Stayed With Me On August 19, 2008, I died. Not for long — just long enough to understand that life is a temporary address.  I went flatline 9 times over 90 minutes due to an allergic reaction to an antibiotic.  One moment I was tethered to a body, the next I was somewhere else entirely. No tunnel, no booming voice, no judgment. Just light. Stillness. Love so vast it made language useless. I was in a high-ceilinged living room in the mountains. Everything was sensuous. Light cascading colors on the wall, harp music playing. Small, chirping birds surrounded me as I flew with them. I understood “bird talk” as they kept saying “Slow down…you’ll only experience beauty and awe when you slow down.” Ironically, I was wearing slippers, one that said “Slow” and the other one “Down” that came from my Hotel Vitale in San Francisco. The birds encouraged me to fly out the window. Each time I tried to follow them, I was back in the ambulance or the ER. I was back in the body. Back in the noise. Back in the to-do lists and bills and petty human dramas that suddenly felt like the faint echo of a dream. People love the first part of a near-death story — the celestial calm, the reunion with something sacred. Fewer people talk about the after part, the messy return. The hardest thing about dying, I learned, is living afterward. Something inside you break or maybe it opens. You can’t unsee what you’ve seen. You’ve glimpsed the infinite, and now you have to make breakfast. For months, I felt out of sync with the world. Conversations seemed shallow. Time felt elastic. I would look at the sky and think: We’re all just passing through. Friends noticed I was calmer but also a little distant, as if part of me hadn’t fully come back. They weren’t wrong. I also realized it was time to totally alter my life in so many ways including selling the company I’d founded 24 years earlier. That experience became the quiet foundation of everything that followed. It stripped me of ambition’s sharp edges. Scientists like Dr. Bruce Greyson have spent decades studying near-death experiences. They find consistent patterns: peace, timelessness, encounters with light. But no study can measure what happens to your soul when you realize that death isn’t the opposite of life — it’s the frame around it. The upside of dying once is that it makes every day afterward feel like a bonus track. The downside is that you can’t ever go back to sleep. Midlife, in its own way, is a rehearsal for that truth. The old identities die off. The body humbles you. The soul starts whispering louder. You realize there are only so many sunsets left to watch, so many I-love-yous left to say. I didn’t come back from death with a prophecy. Just a promise: to live like I mean it. To love like I’ll lose it. To remember, in the small, luminous moments, that I’ve already been home — and that I’ll find my way there again. Here’s a BBC story about Death Cafes you might find interesting. | 24 comments on LinkedIn

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When Time Becomes Precious—and Precarious I have cancer inside me. MD Anderson says it’s in remission. UCSF says it’s not. That’s confusing, especially when my most recent blood test showed a… | Chip Conley | 39 comments

When Time Becomes Precious—and Precarious I have cancer inside me. MD Anderson says it’s in remission. UCSF says it’s not. That’s confusing, especially when my most recent blood test showed a doubling of my PSA score. Furthermore, a year ago, UCSF said there was a 22% chance I’d live another 10 years and the next day they corrected that to an 80% chance of living at least another decade. Having stage-3 cancer requires both faith and ferociousness to handle the wide variety of news we receive. But, I will say I value each day more than ever in my life. The Wall Street Journal recently published a moving article, A New Reality for Terminal Cancer: Longer Lives, With Chronic Uncertainty (https://on.wsj.com/4mKXjj5). It follows the story of Gwen Orilio, who was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer at 31. A decade later, she’s still alive—not because she was cured, but because science has managed to stay “one step ahead” of her disease with a succession of treatments. Gwen’s story is both hopeful and sobering. What struck me most was this paradox: medical advancements are turning terminal cancers into something resembling chronic conditions. People are living longer, sometimes for years, even decades. But those years often carry a heavy shadow—endless scans, side effects, financial strain, and what doctors have dubbed “scanxiety”: the dread of waiting to hear whether the latest treatment is still working. Here’s the truth we’d rather not face: uncertainty has always been part of the human condition. Cancer just strips away the illusions that most of us cling to—that we’ll have more time, that tomorrow is guaranteed, that we can plan our way out of life’s precarity. And yet, Gwen’s response is deeply instructive. She didn’t wait to start living fully until the clouds cleared. She began a retirement account at 41, after a decade of limbo. She spends money on making memories with her daughter, even when it stretches the budget. She dares to imagine a future, but she doesn’t delay joy. Her story is a mirror for all of us. None of us knows how many chapters we have left. The question is: are we writing them with meaning, connection, and presence—or waiting until some mythical “later” arrives? Maybe the lesson isn’t just about surviving cancer. It’s about living wisely in uncertainty. Because, in the end, that’s the only kind of life we ever have. I’m so proud that MEA will be offering our first cancer-oriented workshop April 5-9, From Survive to Thrive: Cancer as a Catalyst for Deeper Meaning & Purpose, in Santa Fe with Dr. Caryn Lerman (Director of the USC Cancer Center, psychologist, and MEA alum) joining me: https://bit.ly/4mKXk6D | 39 comments on LinkedIn

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Celebrate Chip Conley's 65th at The Phoenix - Where It All Began! | Chip Conley | 41 comments

Farewell to The Phoenix: A Halloween Birthday & A Rebirth This Halloween, I’ll celebrate not only another turn around the sun (my 65th), but also the retiring of an old friend: The Phoenix Hotel. For 39 years, this former “no-tell motel” on the edge of San Francisco’s Tenderloin has been my great teacher in resilience, adaptability, and the alchemy of reinvention. I was 26 when I bought the 44-room poolside property for $800,000, renovated it for $200,000, and had $100,000 in the bank to cover our first year losses. Everyone said it was a fool’s errand. The neighborhood was rough, the property was rundown, and my résumé didn’t exactly scream “future hotelier.” But sometimes success wears the mask of folly. And with grit, grace, and a little naïveté, The Phoenix rose from its ashes again and again. And, it was the first of 52 hotels I created with Joie de Vivre. Over the years, the hotel taught me a lesson that’s tattooed into my entrepreneurial DNA: Resilience—the white-knuckled grip that buys you time when the storm hits. Adaptability—the willingness to iterate, to pivot, to shape-shift into what the future needs. Resilience buys you time. Adaptability buys you a future. And oh, the stories that filled those decades! I once lent my cufflinks to John F. Kennedy Jr. when he was best man at a poolside wedding. I babysat Sinead O’Connor’s baby during her first U.S. tour. Every New Year’s Eve, Anthony Kiedis, Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, and Courtney Love would rent the place out for their wild, messy, magical celebrations. Linda Ronstadt made The Phoenix her home base while rehearsing for a mariachi tour, filling the courtyard with music that felt both ancient and brand-new. Those moments weren’t just celebrity anecdotes—they were proof of what happens when a place becomes more than walls and beds. The Phoenix became a community, a stage, a sanctuary, a playground for dreamers and misfits. So as the curtain closes on this chapter—lease ending, birthday approaching, ghosts of the past roaming through—I can only bow in gratitude. The Phoenix taught me that endings are rarely just endings. They’re compost for the next beginning. Halloween is about masks and transformations, after all. What better night to toast a hotel that kept reinventing itself, and to honor the resilience and adaptability that live on in all of us? Here’s to the ashes. Here’s to the rebirths. And here’s to whatever rises next. Here’s info (https://bit.ly/3VwAK6M) on my birthday party that night. Hope you can come celebrate.  | 41 comments on LinkedIn

Why Chip Conley Matters?

Chip Conley represents a new generation of leaders who merge business acumen with soulful intelligence. His life’s work demonstrates that success is not measured by accumulation, but by contribution, and that reinvention is always possible, at any age.

He is helping millions rewrite the narrative of midlife, proving that wisdom, curiosity, and purpose can coexist, and thrive.

“We’re not aging. We’re ripening, becoming more complex, more flavorful, more ourselves.” - Chip Conley

Profile Summary

Info	Detail
Name	Chip Conley
Title	Founder & Executive Chairman at Modern Elder Academy (MEA)
Focus	Leadership, Midlife Transformation, Emotional Intelligence, Hospitality, Purposeful Living
Experience	Founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality; Head of Global Hospitality & Strategy at Airbnb; Founder of MEA
Education	Stanford University Graduate School of Business
Location	Austin, Texas, USA
Books	Wisdom@Work, Learning to Love Midlife, Emotional Equations, Peak, The Rebel Rules
Media & Talks	3x TED Speaker; Featured on GMA, The Today Show, BBC, WSJ
Platform Reach	LinkedIn Top Voice; 250K+ followers; Global MEA community in 45+ countries
Notable Achievements	Founded world’s first midlife wisdom school; Scaled Joie de Vivre to 52 hotels; Mentored Airbnb founders
Website	www.chipconley.com
MEA Website	www.modernelderacademy.com

Chip Conley LinkedIn Profile:

www.linkedin.com

Chip Conley - Founder and Executive Chairman at MEA, NYT Best-Selling Author, Speaker | LinkedIn

Founder and Executive Chairman at MEA, NYT Best-Selling Author, Speaker · Chip Conley is a renowned entrepreneur, best-selling author, and dynamic speaker celebrated for his innovative approach to leadership and hospitality. As the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, Chip transformed a single boutique hotel into the second-largest boutique hotel brand in the United States. In 2013, Chip joined Airbnb as Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy and the in-house mentor to the three Millennial founders (he became known as the “modern elder” of the company, “someone as curious as they are wise”). Leveraging his extensive experience, he played a crucial role in guiding Airbnb through its rapid growth phase, mentoring the executive team, and shaping the company’s culture and host and customer experience. Inspired by his own midlife journey, experience at Airbnb, and extensive research and collaboration with thought leaders in the area of aging, Chip co-founded the Modern Elder Academy (MEA) in January 2018. Located in Baja California, Mexico, MEA is the world’s first midlife wisdom school, offering transformative programs to help individuals navigate midlife transitions and cultivate a renewed sense of purpose. Building on the success of the Baja campus, MEA expanded in May 2024 to a second campus located on a 2,600-acre regenerative horse ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Chip is a prolific author, with several influential books to his name, including Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder and his latest bestseller, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age. His writings explore the intersections of psychology, business, and leadership, providing profound insights into creating meaningful and sustainable success. His latest book quickly rose to the #1 spot in Happiness/Self-Help on Amazon following its release and led to appearances on "Good Morning, America" and "The Today Show." Chip is a sought-after keynote speaker, captivating audiences with his compelling stories and actionable wisdom. His 2023 TED talk on the "midlife chrysalis" further solidified his position as a thought leader in reframing the concept of aging. With a unique ability to blend intellectual rigor with heartfelt empathy, Chip Conley continues to inspire individuals and organizations to achieve their highest potential. He has made a lasting impact on the fields of hospitality, business, and personal development. His legacy is one of innovation, compassion, and a relentless pursuit of wisdom and growth. · Experience: Modern Elder Academy · Location: Austin · 500+ connections on LinkedIn. View Chip Conley’s profile on LinkedIn, a professional community of 1 billion members.