If you’re planning for retirement, longevity is on your mind. From a financial perspective, you’re looking to ensure that your money will last. No one precisely knows their life expectancy, but research is indicating that some choices we make can influence our longevity – and the quality of life in those years. Heathy eating and exercising are two obvious examples. And a new study highlights another dimension associated with longer longevity – your psychological well-being. The study found people with high levels of psychological well-being lived between 5 and 8 years longer. Our guest shares with us the findings of that study and practical steps you can take to increase your psychological well-being.

Dr, Jennifer Boylan joins us from Colorado.

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Bio

Jennifer Morozink Boylan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research focuses on health disparities, psychological factors that influence physical health, and biological mechanisms that link the social environment to disease processes. As a health psychologist, her research addresses the ways in which psychological factors engender resilience and protect against health risks associated with disadvantaged social status. This work utilizes multiple methodologies, including national longitudinal survey data, biological assessments of cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors, and laboratory assessments of emotion regulation and physiological reactivity and recovery to stress. Jennifer earned her Ph.D. and M.S. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biological Psychology, and a B.A. in Psychology at Illinois Wesleyan University.

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For More on Dr. Jennifer Boylan

Four Keys to Well-Being That May Help You Live Longer

Psychological well-being, education, and mortality.

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Breaking the Age Code – Dr. Becca Levy

Retire Happy – Dr. Catherine Sanderson

Successful Aging – Daniel Levitin

The Mind-Body Connection and The Rabbit Effect – Kelli Harding

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Wise Quotes

On Well-Being & Longevity 

“In our study, we compared these effects of psychological well-being with two other factors. One was education. The survival benefits of psychological well-being were comparable differences in life expectancy, between someone who had a college degree compared to someone who had less than a high school education. Now the survival benefits of high psychological well-being were not quite as big as the differences in life expectancy between someone who has never smoked versus a current smoker. That difference is about 10 years, but our study was one of the first to report these associations between psychological well-being and life expectancy, which I think is really helpful for conveying just how important psychological well-being can be for how long we live.”

On How to Increase Your Psychological Well-Being

“There are a lot of ways, backed by scientific research, to increase your psychological well-being. These can include things like connecting with other people and then nurturing high quality social relationships, writing about your goals in life, being authentic with your core values, volunteering and engaging with your community. You want to seek out positive experiences, even small ones in daily life and try to savor those. And over time, all of those experiences can increase your psychological well-being. I think it’s also important to note that some activities that increase our psychological well-being might not always feel good or enjoyable in the short term. It takes a lot of work and effort to strive to achieve your goals, to make the most of your talents and to work to make the world a better place. But those activities also increase your psychological well-being and can be good for your physical health and how long you live. You can increase your psychological being at all stages of life and all stages of circumstance. I think this is something each of us individually has the power to d0 – seriously prioritize things that you enjoy and that make you feel fulfilled in life. You want to feel like you’re making the most of your personal talents and your personal capabilities, whatever those are. So cultivating psychological being is really helpful as we navigate life’s challenges and it may also promote your health and longevity.”

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About Your Retirement Wisdom

Take charge of your future.

Schedule a call to find how how the Designing Your Life process (developed by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans at Stanford) can help you unlock a new direction – on your own terms.

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What’s the bigger picture context for your retirement? Demographics and scientific advancements in longevity are changing the way we live. Demographic futurist Bradley Schurman, author of The Super Age, joins us to talk about what these megatrends mean for your retirement.

We discuss:

• His  journey in writing The Super Age book
• The two megatrends creating The Super Age– the science of longevity and demographics and how they’re changing the world we live in.
• How to “Make Home and Community Gray Again.”
• The major upsides of the Super Age.
• The biggest challenges that will need be solved by governments – and by individuals.
• The cost of doing nothing.
• The lessons we can learn from Japan.
• How “retirement” will look in the future.
• Two different paths  for people who want to work longer .
• Why the scientific advances aren’t enough.
• The challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community with retirement – and how might things evolve in the Super Age.
• How the policies, programs and practices of companies will need to evolve to attract, develop, and retain a more age diverse workforce.
• The key messages he’d like readers to take away from The Super Age.

Bradley joins us from Washington, D.C.

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Bio

Bradley Schurman is a demographic futurist and opinion maker on all things dealing with the business of longevity. You might know him as the founder of The Super Age – a global collective of change-makers that offers information and professional business consulting services geared to help organizations respond to demographic change, as well as harness the opportunities of an increasingly older and generationally diverse population, or for the groundbreaking AARP Aging Readiness and Competitiveness Report. Bradley is a social connector that has built his reputation by helping leading organizations understand our increasingly older and generational diverse world. He explains how shifting demographics and the collision of the megatrends of decreased birthrates and increased longevity are remaking social and economic norms in the United States and around the world.

Prior to launching The Super Age, Schurman was Co-Founder and Managing Partner of EconomyFour, where he led business development in Asia and Europe. He also served AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) – the world’s largest organization dedicated to improving the lives of older people – where he was Director of Global Partnerships and Engagements. Schurman got his start at LeadingAge (formerly the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging) – the non-profit trade association representing non-profit providers of long-term care, housing, and support services.

Schurman was instrumental in securing the topics of aging and longevity as focus areas at both the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and World Economic Forum (WEF). He was also responsible for visioning and executing the Aging Readiness and Competitiveness Report – a groundbreaking collaborative research project between AARP and Foreign Policy Group.

Schurman has been featured on NBC’s TODAY Show and CHEDDER, and has been quoted in the New York Times, HuffingtonPost, and USA Today, as well as in local and national media outlets around the world. He speaks regularly at thought leader forums and corporate retreats, and has advised national leaders and corporate executives on their longevity strategies.

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For More on Bradley Schurman

The Super Age: Decoding Our Demographic Destiny

The Super Age (company website)

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

The Second Curve of Life – Arthur C. Brooks

The Age Tech Revolution – Keren Etkin

Are You Ready for The New Long Life? – Andrew Scott

Who Will Take Care of You When You Are Older? – Joy Loverde

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Wise Quotes

On Choosing Your Own Adventure in Retirement

“[Retirement] won’t look like it does today. It’s already changing. People do seem to want to work longer. But retirement is retirement. It just won’t look like your mom and dad’s – or your grandparents. I think it’s very likely that things like a gap year will become more commonplace, where perhaps you exit your legacy career for a year or two and then go back to work at either a part-time or full-time job – or perhaps the gig economy. I think that that’s entirely possible. You know men derive a lot of value from paid work. Women, I think, probably enter retirement better than men. Because they have better attachment to the community and better attachment to friend groups that aren’t necessarily exclusively tied to work. But I think people will go in and out more often. You’ll choose your own adventure.”

On Lifelong Learning and Being Prepared

“…have the right pieces in place to take a step back. Sure, it helps out a lot whether you put money aside for education or you’re just mentally prepared for the shift. I am a strong believer in lifelong education. A lot of companies offer education in-house. Take those classes. Take those courses. They are free. They’re giving them to you. It’s the best way you can keep up on your skills. There are plenty of things you can do obviously within the community. Community colleges, for example, are a great resource that people should be leaning into on a regular basis. But be prepared for disruptions. The lives that our parents and our grandparents led where they were in work for 30 years, or sometimes more, with the same company, that’s gone by the wayside. You have to be prepared. You have to build up your own defenses for what the future may bring.”

On The Future

“…Change is inevitable. And it’s here. And we have two options. We lean into it or we hide from it. The second is hiding from it and that will only cause things to fall apart. Pretending the change does not exist will cause the systems that we really hold near and dear to our heart to collapse. The third is that opportunity exists everywhere in periods of change. And fortune has always favored the brave. It has favored individuals who have said: Okay, this is my reality, this is our reality, or this is the reality that’s coming, and we can adjust to meet the demands of tomorrow. So with those three things in mind, I have a very optimistic view of our future because I think that historically humans, and certainly from an American perspective, when opportunity presents itself, we really lead into it. So I think this could be a very great period for us. It’ll also allow us to  embrace some things that we’ve shied away from for a long period of time, including questions of equity and inclusion and if we do lean into it, this could be a golden period for us. So I look on the the bright side for this at the end of the day.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

Can learning from your parents’ mistakes help you age gracefully? In his 50s Steven Petrow began a list of things he was observing that he vowed never to do when he became old. Now in his 60s, he has a different appreciation of his observations. Listen in to a fascinating conversation as Steven shares his humor and insights on making smarter choices to age gracefully.

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Bio

Steven Petrow is an award-winning journalist and book author who is best known for his Washington Post and New York Times essays on aging, health, and civility. He’s also an opinion columnist for USA Today,  where he writes about civil discourse and manners. Steven’s 2019 TED Talk, “3 Ways to Practice Civility” has been viewed nearly two million times and translated into 16 languages.

Steven’s new book is Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old. He is the author of five other books, the most recent of which is Steven Petrow’s Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners. He’s a much sought-after public speaker, and you’re likely to hear him when you stream NPR or one of your favorite  —  or least favorite  —  TV networks. Steven also served as the host and executive producer of “The Civilist,” a podcast from Public Radio International and North Carolina Public Radio WUNC.

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For More on Steven Petrow

The Book: Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old: A Highly Judgmental, Unapologetically Honest Accounting of All the Things Our Elders Are Doing Wrong

Steven Petrow’s Website

How To Age Gracefully  (The article mentioned by Jane Brody in The New York Times)

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A special offer for listeners of The Retirement Wisdom Podcast: learn more and start your two-week free trial at www.onedayu.com/wisdom

Check out the video library to see what interests you.

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Wise Quotes

On Being a Perrenial

“There are many ideas that were good for a long time – and then they’re not anymore. And then of course there are new ideas that come into vogue – and one of the new ideas that I talk about is this notion of being a perennial. So we’re very divided by our generation. We have the Greatest Generation. We have the Boomers, Millennials, Gen X, Y, and Z. And in a way, those are divisions that keep us apart. And so I like this notion of being a perennial. Anybody can be a perennial, whether you’re 25, 64 like we are, or 85. It’s an attitude. And it’s an attitude of being involved and curious and often having friends of different generations. So this is like a new behavior that we can start to adopt. That is very gratifying. I’ve had the experience several times, especially with multi-generational friends, but also I’m having younger folks really kind of keep me in the swim of what’s happening in life. And I think that’s important to all of us.”

On Adapting

“The thing I saw most, especially I’ll say with my Dad – and I think this is somewhat of a male condition. He was very independent, very stubborn. He always liked to do things his way, and he really did not want assistance in general. And he did not want his three kids to be providing any kind of help – I’ll say it in air quotes. And we were very aware of the sort of family dynamic and the generational dynamic and did not want to be telling our father what to do. Both because we knew that that was futile and that that’s really not how we were approaching these problems, especially when he was falling a lot. So we tried to give him tools and he rejected most of them. And then he continued to fall and he died. He died from a series of falls. And what really struck me was his own father had died from a series of falls. And my Dad had been trying to help his Dad not do that. So in a way, I feel like I have a greater awareness of these issues. And I’m hoping that by having written them down and made a pledge, I will do better. And you know, that I will use that walker when I need the walker, or I will install the grab bar in the shower when I need it. But I also worry that I have this heritage stubbornness in me that may get in the way when the time comes. We’ll see about that. But what really happened was my Dad’s world got smaller by many of the decisions that he made. And we were trying to help him keep an open mind and involved in the world, which mattered so much to him. And that was painful.”

On Values

“We grow up and we work hard and much of the way people are valued in this society is on what’s your job title? How much do you make? What is your house looks like? Sort of these very tangible things. And I often refer to them as resume values. And I’ve seen this shift in myself and I’ve seen a shift in some others. And I think you’re an example of where you kind of move from resume values to – I really like this phrase – eulogy virtues. And those are the kinds of things you would hope that people might say about you when you die. I don’t really want someone to say when I died: Oh, well he was the senior vice-president at this or that. Or he had a three or four-bedroom house. I’m hoping people will say he was kind, he was generous. He liked his friends. He was good to his friends, his family, so on and so forth, whatever those things are. And I think this is kind of the shift in balance that I’m talking about here that becomes more important. It also becomes important for another reason because as we get older, we’re not in the same current professionally as we were when we were in our thirties and forties. And there is ageism in the workplace. And should you lose your job in your fifties or sixties, it’s much more difficult to get another job. And so if we’re defining ourselves against the standard that we had when we were 40, we’re going to come up short. So it also helps us to redefine the standard, how we’re trying to evaluate ourselves to play to our strengths and who we are these days.”

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

What Can You Do to Age Better? – Anna Dixon

The Skill Set for Life’s Transitions – Bruce Feiler

Retirement Planning Includes Getting Good at Getting Older – Rabbi Laura Geller

Successful Aging – Daniel Levitin

From Role to Soul – Connie Zweig

How Can You Be Better with Age? – Alan Castel

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About Retirement Wisdom

You haven’t worked this hard for so long to have a mediocre post-career life.

It’s your time. Make your new life special.

Work one-on-one with our Certified Designing Your Life Coach to explore alternative visions of your future and develop the pathway that’s right for you.

Take the first step toward your next life. Schedule a free call.

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We’re all aging, but what do we need to know about successful aging? I reached out to the person who wrote a comprehensive successful aging book, Daniel Levitin, a noted neuroscientist, musician, and author, to find out.

I discuss with Daniel Levitin:

• What led him to write Successful Aging
• How he defines successful aging
• Common misconceptions about aging
• How our brains change as we age
• What older brains are better at than younger brains
• The roles personality and mindset play in successful aging
• What he learned from the Dalai Lama
• Why you should consider working longer, and even never “retiring”
• How music can be helpful in successful aging
• What steps you can take to start to age successfully

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Bio

Daniel J. Levitin is an award-winning neuroscientist, musician, and best-selling author. His research encompasses music, the brain, health, productivity and creativity.

Levitin has published more than 300 articles, in journals including Science, Nature, PNAS, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Wall Street Journal. His research has been featured over 1800 times in the popular press, including 17 articles in The New York Times, and in The London Times, Scientific American, and Rolling Stone.  He is a frequent guest on NPR and CBC Radio and has appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, CBS This Morning, and CNN. His TED talk is among the most popular of all time.

He is the author of four New York Times bestselling books: This Is Your Brain On Music, The World in Six Songs, The Organized Mind and Successful Aging, as well as the international bestseller A Field Guide to Lies. A popular public speaker, he has given presentations on the floor of Parliament in London, to the U.S. Congress, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. He has consulted for a number of companies including Apple, Booz-Allen, Microsoft, the United States Navy, Sonos, Philips, Sony, Fender, and AT&T.

Dr. Levitin earned his B.A. from Stanford in Cognitive Science, his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology with a Ph.D. minor in Music Technology from the University of Oregon, and completed post-doctoral training at Stanford University Medical School and UC Berkeley in Neuroimaging and Perception.

As a musician (tenor saxophone, guitar, vocals and bass), he has performed with Mel Tormé, David Byrne, Rosanne Cash, Sting, Bobby McFerrin, Victor Wooten and Tom Scott. Levitin has produced and consulted on albums by artists including Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell and on the films Good Will Hunting and Pulp Fiction, and has been awarded 17 gold and platinum records.

Levitin taught at Stanford in the Departments of Computer Science, Psychology, History of Science, and Music, and has been a Visiting Professor at Dartmouth, and UC Berkeley. He is currently the Founding Dean of Arts & Humanities at the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute, San Francisco, California, and James McGill Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Neuroscience and Music at McGill University.

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Wise Quotes

On Personality Factors and Successful Aging

“One of the big ones is conscientiousness. It’s the biggest single predictor, much more so than socioeconomic status, of how your life is going to turn out at any age. Conscientiousness is a cluster of different things having to do with reliability, dependability exercising due caution, and rule-following, to some degree. A kid who’s conscientious isn’t going to cross against the light, and so, is less likely to get hit by a bus. An adult who’s conscientious is less likely to end up in prison – and an older adult who’s conscientious is going to see the doctor when something’s wrong. They’re actually going to do what the doctor tells them to do. My doctor friends tell me that, you know, 80% of their patients are non-compliant and, but a conscientious person is. So that’s the role of personality in all of this. Now there are other factors that influence life satisfaction and health besides conscientiousness, but that’s the big one.”

On Mindset

“You don’t like the way you are? You can change – you can change at any age. And that’s a mindset issue – you have to want to change. It’s like the old joke about the psychiatrist and the light bulb. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? The answer is one, but the light bulb has to want to change.”

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More on Daniel Levitin

Daniel Levitin’s Website

Buy Successful Aging – now available in paperback

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Related Podcast Episodes on Positive Aging

How Can You Be Better with Age? – Alan Castel

What Can You Do to Age Better? – Anna Dixon

Are You Ready for The New Long Life? – Andrew Scott

Can You Grow Younger? – Marta Zaraska

Are You in the Driver’s Seat? – Cindy Cox-Roman on Personal Agency 

Is Working Into Retirement Good for Your Brain? – Dawn Carr

Advice for Successful Career Women Transitioning to Retirement – Helen Dennis

Retirement Planning Includes Getting Good at Getting Older – Rabbi Laura Geller

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring, but not done yet, discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste. And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

We help you design the life and/or the second career you want.

Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you.

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Explore retirementwisdom.com

Dr. Anna Dixon, CEO of the Centre for Ageing Better, joins our retirement podcast to discuss her new book, The Age of Ageing Better?: A Manifesto For Our Future. With an ageing population, governments and corporations have been slow to adapt, but there’s a lot within our control when it comes to ageing well. 

We discuss:

• The mission of UK’s Centre for Ageing Better
• What actions governments and institutions can take to create a society that can age better
• The most common misperceptions about ageing
• What people can do to combat ‘day-to day’ ageism
• Why she writes of The Loneliness Myth
• Life lessons from the pandemic – what we should keep and let go of
• How we should be preparing for retirement today
• Her advice for those of us who want to age better

Dr. Dixon joins us from London.

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Bio

Dr. Anna Dixon is Ageing Better’s Chief Executive, leading the vision of creating a society where everyone enjoys a good later life.

Anna has more than 15 years experience of working at the interface of research, policy, and practice. She has a successful track record of working at the highest levels of government to bring about positive change. Throughout her career, she has been committed to ensuring the voice and needs of the citizen are at the heart of her work.

Anna joined Ageing Better in September 2015 and has taken it from start-up to become an established organisation.

Prior to joining Ageing Better, Anna was Director of Strategy and Chief Analyst at the Department of Health from 2013-2015. She has also held positions at The King’s Fund, the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Department of Health and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies.

In 2005-6 she was awarded a Harkness Fellowship in Health Policy by the Commonwealth Fund of New York. She has a PhD in Social Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Wise Quotes

On Ageing Populations

“This age shift that I describe with many more of us living longer, and effectively the face of the population changing, with this many more older people. And it does mean redesigning work so that people can stay in work for much longer. It means both adapting our current homes, but also making sure that as we build new homes for the future, that we design them so that they’re fit for an aging population. They remain good places to live, even if we develop maybe dementia or mobility issues or different things that we might want to do or need in our later lives. So lots of actions, I suppose the key thing is just to say, it’s action across all parts of society and it’s action, both from national governments, but also from the private sector and the third sector.”

On Redesigning Retirement

“If we’re talking about a hundred-year life, the expectations that we get to a certain birthday and it’s a time to hang up our boots. I think we do need to rethink [retirement] – and many people already are. People are transitioning differently, sometimes requesting part-time work to be able to get a different work-life balance. Many people who at least enjoy their work, and physically able to, are continuing to work. Obviously, other people are having to work out of necessity. Let’s be clear, retirement savings are not what they were, the sort of pension, and Social Security. Certainly here in the UK is not very generous and people are having to continue to work to top up their income to maintain any sort of reasonable standard of living. So I think we need to get more realistic about a longer working life and the different sort of retirement rather than one in which we sort of from one day to the next stop work and then expect to have saved enough to enjoy [retirement].”

On the Longevity Gap

“Here, the sort of rule of thumb for a public pension is a third of our working life in retirement. I think it just doesn’t stack up with the gains, but we also have to remember that those gains in life expectancy are not equally shared. So we have about a 15-year gap in life expectancy between the richest and the poorest in this country. I imagine there are such similar disparities in the US and that therefore means that some people may have to start work earlier. They will also be dying at younger ages, and we don’t want them to have to sort of suffer in a way, a short retirement because of that. So we must also be looking to make sure that those gains in life expectancy are more equally shared.”

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For More on Dr. Anna Dixon

Read the book:  The Age of Ageing Better?: A Manifesto For Our Future

Centre for Ageing Better   – you’ll find a wealth of useful information here

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Related Podcasts You May Like

How Seniors Are Saving the World With Activism – Thelma Reese

We’re All Ageing. Are You Up for a Bolder Approach? – Carl Honoré

Are You in the Driver’s Seat? – Cindy Cox-Roman

The Skill Set for Life’s Transitions – Bruce Feiler

Retirement Planning Includes Getting Good at Getting Older – Rabbi Laura Geller

How Can You Be Better with Age? – Alan Castel

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring from their primary career – and aren’t done yet – discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste. And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you make yours great.

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Retire smarter. Explore retirementwisdom.com

Positive aging takes a different mindset – and a bolder one.

Carl Honoré is an award-winning journalist and author whose revolutionary first book, In Praise of Slowness, was an international bestseller and has been published in more than thirty languages. This excellent book can help you reframe how you think about getting older, learn how to retire well and enjoy life to its fullest.

Carl joins our retirement podcast from London to discuss the benefits positive aging,  living more slowly against the cultural pressures for speed and youth – and his new book (B)OLDER: Making the Most of Our Longer Lives.

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Wise Quotes

On the Advantages Older Workers Bring

“I think is quite surprising to people that – actually – in the workplace, people get more productive as they get older. There’s this awful toxic ageism – especially in the American workplace.  But I think you find it all over the world too, this idea in Silicon Valley that they talk about being finished at forty, and anybody over forty gets passed over for interviews and shunted into less interesting work and all this sort of stuff. Yet, people are on an upward curve performance as they grow older. Productivity goes up in jobs that rely on social skills. People get better at dealing with customers and clients, better at things like collaboration, listening, seeing the big picture, creativity holds strong, and there’s a lot of research, in fact, that suggests that it gets better, we become more creative as we get older. We loosen up. We join the dots better.”

On the Power of Language and Aging

“I think so much of the problem with our attitude with aging is bound up with the poisonous language we use. It’s woven into our vernacular, that younger is better and older is worse. When we forget something we call it a senior moment. Or we use that phrase finished at forty, or you’re the wrong side of thirty or the wrong side of forty, or you say you’re feeling your age and that means you feel weak and feeble and inferior or sore. It’s just, every time we use that language, I think it’s reinforcing that stereotype. It’s reinforcing the caricature. It’s reinforcing the wrong idea of aging.

As we know from whether dealing with racism or sexism or any kind of social change, language is one the first steps towards changing how we feel about ourselves and our place in the world, and changing how we behave is the words we use. So I just recommend to people just push pause, think a little bit, check your language a little bit. Just don’t use phrases like a senior moment. Try and use phrases that are kind of neutral about aging, or upbeat about it. I think that can make a difference. There’s a lot of studies that show that if you have an upbeat view of aging you age better. You live longer, you better physically, cognitively, happier, et cetera. So language is a good way I think to do that.”

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Bio

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For More on Carl Honoré

Carl’s New Book:BOLDER is available on Amazon

Check out Carl Honore’s 12 Rules for Ageing Boldly

Carl’s Website

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Related Podcast Episodes You May Like

The Joy of Movement – Kelly McGonigal

The Mind-Body Connection and The Rabbit Effect – Kelli Harding

How Life Hacks Can Help Make Your Retirement the Best Time of Your Life – Sam Horn

Is It Time to Break Up with Busy? – Yvonne Tally

With the Freedom to Retire, Where Will You Plant Your New Tree? – Don Ezra

What retirement advice for women would an expert offer?  Helen Dennis has helped thousands prepare for the non-financial side of retirement planning.  She recently celebrated the 18^th anniversary of her popular weekly column Successful Aging. In this episode of our retirement podcast we asked Helen to share her views on a range of topics that can help you retire smarter:

• Why the term retirement needs to be retired
• The backstory of Project Renewment ®
• The key themes she’s seeing in Project Renewment®  groups
• What the different issues are that men face in this phase of life
• What gets in the way of freedom in retirement
• The pros and cons of a busy retirement
• What Joy has to do with retirement
• Her advice on how to navigate the transition from a full-time career to retirement

Wise Quotes

On Life Purpose and Retirement

“I think that’s one of the biggest challenges for retirement. Because when you’re working, you don’t have to think about purpose. You know exactly why you’re there. You know what you’re supposed to do, you know the expectations and you know the rewards. So, someone says, what is your purpose in life? As you’re working 50 hours a week, you say: my purpose in life is I get to work, do my job to support my family. So now we take all of that away and said, you know, it’s almost existential. You say, well, who am I now? Why am I on this planet? What is meaningful to me? And if you’ve never thought about that for the past 35 years or 40 years of your career. This is possibly a new thought and a new conversation. I think it is absolutely fundamental to have a meaningful purpose in retirement,  to have some sense of purpose – and it can be a journey.”

“Your purpose in the first five years may be a different purpose in the next five years. I think it’s a journey. I think talking about it in groups, in conversation groups – even with your book group – is very helpful. I think finding purpose can be hard as a solo activity. I think it’s one of the biggest challenges in retirement. You could be busy, you’d have a full calendar, but that sense of purpose may be missing – and a big piece of purpose often is giving back. That can be a very fulfilling aspect. It’s a challenge. It’s a process.”

On the Freedom of Retirement – and Life Changes

“Well, I think there is this feeling, particularly if you’ve had a high-pressure job, if you’re commuting in Los Angeles, and if you’ve had 12 changes in management that now you can breathe and say, Oh my God, I am finally free. I can sleep longer. I can breathe, I don’t have to hyperventilate. And so, there is this great feeling of freedom and then the unexpected occurs.  The unexpected like your adult children move home for whatever reason. We have grandparents raising grandchildren. The biggest one that seems to move into this space of freedom is caregiving. So, I think what we need to prepare for it is that freedom is not 100% of everything. We may have freedom and spirit, freedom of movement, freedom of thought. But we do have responsibilities. And the biggest one that seems to come in is caregiving.”

On Joy and Retirement

“We have a lot of environmental influences that can creep into our joy. And I love the definition of joy is the feeling of grinning inside…There are a lot of complexities of life and people go through their own struggles and yet you say, okay, this is a joyful time of your life.”

“Joy is not a word that is usually associated with aging and you don’t usually hear joy and retirement. So, it’s trying to shake that paradigm a little bit to say this has the potential to be the most joyful period of our lives. And when people are looking for joy, you’re saying, all right, how do I make myself joyful?”

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Bio

Helen Dennis is a nationally recognized leader on issues of aging, employment and retirement with academic, corporate and nonprofit experience. She has received awards for her university teaching at USC’s Davis School, Andrus Gerontology Center and for her contributions to the field of aging, the community and literary arts. She has edited two books and written more than 100 articles and has frequent speaking engagements. She is the weekly columnist on Successful Aging for the Southern California Newspaper Group and has assisted more than 15,000 employees in preparation for the non-financial aspects of retirement. In her volunteer life, she has served as president of five nonprofit organizations. Fully engaged in the field of aging, she was a delegate to a White House Conference on Aging and is co-author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller, “Project Renewment®: The First Retirement Model for Career Women.” Helen has extensive experience with the media including Prime Time, NPR, network news, the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee and Christian Science Monitor. She recently has been recognized by PBS Next Avenue as one of the 50 Influencers in Aging.

Project Renewment is available on Amazon

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Websites:

www.HelenMDennis.com

Project Renewment

Sucessful Aging column

Follow on Facebook

Interested in starting a Project Renewment®  group and have questions? Contact Helen Dennis at helendenn@aol.com

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More Wisdom?

For more retirement podcast episodes go here

For related retirement blog posts go here

For book reviews on the best retirement books go here

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring, but not done yet, discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste. And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Retire smarter. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you make yours great.

Aging Well Takes Skill

Wise retirement planning transcends your 401k. The transition to retirement is one of the most significant experiences you’ll encounter in your lifetime. And it’s increasingly being recognized as a new and distinct phase of life. One that’s rich with possibilities for personal development, spiritual growth, learning, and wisdom. While people retire at different ages, what we all have in common is that we are all growing older. And it turns out that aging well takes a new skillset.

In this episode of our retirement podcast, our guest is Rabbi Laura Geller, Rabbi Emerita of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, California, a founder of ChaiVillageLA and co-author of the new book, Getting Good at Getting Older. She was the third woman in the Reform Movement to become a rabbi and among the first to be selected to lead a major metropolitan synagogue.

We talk with Rabbi Geller about:

• Why she and her late husband decided to write the new book Getting Good at Getting Older
• If wisdom comes with age
• How we can cultivate wisdom (and as she recommends – a heart of wisdom) in the second half of life
• Why creating the right mindset and attitude about retirement is so important
• Spirituality and inner life in the second half of life
• The benefits of embracing lifelong learning and aging well
• What people who thrive in retirement do differently from those who struggle with the transition to retirement
• Where to begin if you want to get good at getting older

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Bio

Rabbi Laura Geller, Emerita Rabbi of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, was the first woman to be selected through a national search to lead a major metropolitan synagogue as Senior Rabbi. She was twice named one of Newsweek’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America and was featured in the PBS documentary “Jewish Americans.” Author of numerous articles in books and journals, she was on the editorial board of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary. She is a Fellow of the Corporation of Brown University from where she graduated in 1971. Ordained by Hebrew Union College in 1976, she is the third woman in the Reform Movement to become a rabbi. She is a Rabbinic Fellow of the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, a mentor in the Clergy Leadership Initiative, a facilitator in the Formation Project of On Being, and a member of the Board of The Jewish Women’s Archive. She is a founder of the first synagogue-based village, ChaiVillageLA, which is part of the national Village Movement. She is co-author with her late husband Richard Siegel, co-author of The Jewish Catalog(1973), of Getting Good at Getting Older.

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Wise Quotes 

On Wisdom

“It’s very important to acknowledge that it’s hard to have a lot of wisdom when you’re young. But as you say, getting older doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily wise. So, the activity of acquiring wisdom is a practice many of us prepare when we’re younger for our retirement. We need also to prepare for our spiritual work of this second stage of our life. And part of it, I think is really paying attention to what it means to be wise. What does it mean to pay attention to the opportunities that exist that this stage of our life and what are the practices that can help us do that? So, in our book, we speak about meditation, we talk about journaling, we talk about pilgrimage as opposed to travel. It’s one thing to take a trip. It’s another thing to experience that trip as a pilgrimage, a journey that will help us discover not only our roots but also what’s really important to us. It takes a focus on lifelong learning. We continue to learn and gain wisdom through the notion that when you stop learning, you start dying.”

On Intergenerational Relationships

“One of the things that we learned in working on our book is one of the secrets of getting good at getting older is cultivating friends across generation, younger friends, and actually older friends as well.”

On Meaning & Purpose in the Second Half of Life

“I think the bottom line is that when we are in midlife, we’re often sort of too busy to pay attention to the existential questions of meaning and purpose. You know, you have kids, you have older parents, you have work. You don’t really have time necessarily to really reflect on the meaning and purpose of life. But now at this stage, with the acknowledgment that there’s less time ahead than there was behind, I think people are in a position often to pay more attention to those kinds of questions. And those kinds of questions ultimately are spiritual questions. Not everybody defines spirituality in the same way. Not everybody speaks of divinity in their lives, but I think many people at this stage of their life have the spaciousness to be able to think about questions that they perhaps didn’t have the opportunity to think about before.”

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Rabbi Geller’s Book:

Buy Getting Good at Getting Older on Amazon

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Organizations Mentioned in this Podcast

Encore.org

Next Avenue

Our Brief Review of Getting Good at Getting Older as one of the best books on retirement and healthy aging.  It’s a comprehensive guide on how to age well and retire smarter.

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Related Podcast Episodes You May Like

(from Contributors to Getting Good at Getting Older)

Richard Eisenberg

Helen Dennis

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Planning for Retirement? We offer free tools:

Quiz on the non-financial side of retirement

Links to two of the best retirement planning calculators and a longevity calculator 

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Sign up for our Free Monthly Newsletter Wisdom Notes

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring, but not done yet, discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste. And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Retire smarter. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you make yours great.

The Keys to Growing Young

Can friendship, optimism, and kindness help you live to 100? Marta Zaraska, author of Growing Young joins The Retirement Wisdom Podcast to explain how the research indicates it can through the mind-body connection.

We discuss with Marta:

• What inspired her to write Growing Young
• Where some of us may be overinvesting and underinvesting based on scientific research on longevity
• How optimism and pessimism may affect longevity
• Why superfoods, supplements and “quick fixes” aren’t the wise moves to make
• Her favorite stories from her travels and experiments while researching her book
• Which things lower and which things raise mortality risk based on the research, including a few that may surprise you
• Lessons that may be helpful in quarantine
• What Longevity Habits to create

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Wise Quotes

On Optimism

“There is so much research showing that optimism can add anywhere from four to 10 years of life.  The number 10 years keeps reappearing in studies over and over. For example, Catholic Nuns, which are perfect groups of study because, you know, they all live in basically the same environment, their whole lives, especially those who entered very, very young. And there was a study exactly like that. They eat the same thing. They wake up at the same hour, they live in the same place doing exactly the same things. And there was one famous study that analyzed their diaries and those who are using the most cheerful language, the most optimistic language outlasted those who are using very gloomy, pessimistic words in the writing by exactly about 10 years. And the same was shown, for example, on autobiographies of famous psychologists on even the orangutans in zoos, you know, when they are evaluated by the zookeepers. Those who have the most cheerful, outgoing personalities outlive the more pessimistic, gloomy orangutans by 10 years as well. So it keeps coming back to the 10 years.”

On Longevity Habits

“When I think about diet and exercise, which again, are still important, but it’s very much inward-looking. So it’s very much an ‘all about me’ kind of thing – my body, my diet, my exercise. But when I think about those soft longevity habits, it’s more about looking outwards outside of yourself. I’m thinking about other people. So, when you wake up, just think: What can I do for others today? How can I be nicer? How can I contribute to my neighborhood, to my family? How can I be nice to my partner or to my neighbors or to my friends? –  things like that. Very, very simple, but this is a change of perspective. And I think that this can make a tremendous difference. Of course, there are very practical suggestions in my book as well. For example, do more things in synchrony with others.

On Synchrony

“There is an amazing effect with synchrony actually has an asset. For example, when we do things in sync with others, that boosts of those social hormones that we get out of it is actually double. So for example, when you dance with other people and when you sing with them, it makes you feel connected. And it releases all the social hormones that have beneficial health effects for you, such as endorphins, which are natural painkillers. But when you do it in synchrony, the effects are doubled. So for example, chorus singing or line dancing is kind of my career. So there are very, very practical tips out there as well for people to try.”

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Bio 

Marta Zaraska is a science journalist whose work has been published in The Washington Post, Scientific American, New Scientist, and The Atlantic.

​Her first book, “Meathooked: The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million Year Obsession with Meat” was chosen by the journal Nature as one of “the best science picks” in 2016.

Her new book, “Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100” was published in May 2020 and endorsed by Dan Buetner, (author “Blue Zones”), Emeran Mayer (“Mind-Gut Connection”), Shawn Anchor (“Big Potential”), among others.

It’s a research-driven case for why optimism, kindness, and strong social networks will keep us living longer than any fitness tracker or superfood.

Marta’s articles and books have been turned into TV programs in the US, Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Bulgaria, Germany and Poland, and reprinted around the globe from Oman and Dubai to Australia and Singapore. She has been interviewed by dozens of radio stations in North America and across Europe.  She has given a TEDx talk at Bocconi University, Milan, and has been featured as an expert in several documentary films.

​She has visited over 80 countries around the world and lived in six of them. She has reported from Rwanda, DR Congo, Nicaragua, India, Togo, Cameroon, and many other places. She lives in a tiny French village with her husband and daughter.

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For More on Marta Zaraska

Buy Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism &  Kindness Can Help You Live to 100 on Amazon

Her website

Our review of her new book

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Tiny Habits Can Lead to Big Changes – BJ Fogg

The Mind-Body Connection and The Rabbit Effect – Kelli Harding

How Can You Be Better with Age? – Alan Castel

We’re All Ageing. Are You Up for a Bolder Approach? – Carl Honoré

What Can We Learn from Blue Zones? – Richard Eisenberg

How Seniors Are Saving the World With Activism – Thelma Reese

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Looking to Create New Healthy Habits?

Retirement Wisdom’s Tiny Habits ®Coaching Program

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring, but not done yet, discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste.

And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

We help you design the life in retirement that’s uniquely right for you.

Retire smarter. Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you make yours great.

Our guest, Cindy Cox-Roman, a market researcher and gerontologist, joins our retirement podcast to share her perspective on the vital role of Personal Agency.

Psychologist Albert Bandura defines personal agency as “the human capability to influence one’s functioning and the course of events by one’s actions.” As you plan for your life in retirement, it’s wise to include personal agency so you can be in the driver’s seat of your retirement.

I discuss with Cindy:

• How she became interested in Gerontology
• What themes are emerging in her research on people 50+
• What personal agency is – and why it’s important
• How personal agency can change over the life course – and any gender differences she sees
• What influences agency
• How agency can be strengthened
• What she’s learned about mindful aging – and her advice on aging mindfully
• Her new additional role with HelpAge USA

Cindy joins us from Washington, DC.

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Bio

Cindy Cox-Roman is a market researcher, gerontologist, and founder of WIT Consulting LLC, a strategic research firm based in Washington, DC. She works with clients to bring the voice of older people to the design of products, services, and systems. As of October 1, Cindy became the Interim CEO of HelpAge USA, the only US nonprofit that is exclusively focused on the wellbeing and inclusion of older people in low- and middle-income countries.

​Earlier in her career, Cindy headed up the New York Custom Research practice of Yankelovich Partners, a social trend research firm studying the attitudes and opinions of the American public and business leaders. Before that, as a Vice-President at Y&R, she led the development of consumer insights and strategy for global advertising campaigns. She also helped establish the company’s first office in Budapest, Hungary, soon after the Berlin Wall came down in the early 1990s.

Cindy holds a Bachelor’s degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and a Master’s degree in Gerontology from the University of Southern California. Recently she has been conducting independent research on older people and personal agency, or the idea of being in the driver’s seat of your life. She’s passionate about this topic and is here to talk more about it today.

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Wise Quotes

On Uncertainty

“And [the research] is a work in progress, but I’ll share some themes that have come out, which are also supported by other academic research. And they’re very clear and they’re very compelling. A major theme is a disconnect between what we often hear about people in their fifties, sixties, seventies, et cetera – that this is the time when you really know yourself. You have life figured out. You have a lot of self-confidence. You see these quotes all the time in interviews with celebrities and things like that. And certainly, there can be a lot of that, but there is a disconnect between that and the reality that for a lot of people, this can be a time of great uncertainty and that’s not talked about as much. So in the first research study that I did, I talked qualitatively to primarily women, but also some men about this time in their life.  And one thing I asked a typical research question: If there were three words to describe this time in your life, what would they be? And there was a wide variety of things, but one consistent theme made it clear that this is what I’d call an ‘UN’ time – because the words that people tended to consistently use to describe this time of the life were words like unpredictable, unsure, and unsettling. Part of it can be the political environment and the economic environment, et cetera. Those are all [key] things, but this was more about internal uncertainty and being unsettled. And as I probed further, it really came down to the fact that for the first time in their life, there is no roadmap.”

On Personal Agency

“So another great metaphor is being in the driver’s seat of your life. So when you have agency, you’re in the driver’s seat of your life. So the travel analogy comes up a lot here, but you’re figuring out where you’re going. You’re figuring out what speed you’re going. You’re figuring out what paths you take, what road you take… Are you going to follow GPS? – or are you going to go a back way? It’s the opposite of being in the passenger seat, where you are completely at the whim of whoever’s behind the wheel and you might be able to offer a suggestion, but you’re not actively in charge. So I really like that metaphor and it seems to fit well. And it’s important because having a sense of agency is really directly tied to our life satisfaction because deciding where we’re going to go and how fast we’re going to go. And what routes we’re going to take is linked to our, our deepest desires and our motivations and our sense of our uniqueness. So it helps us be happier. We may not always get what we want, but we have a sense that we are where we’re trying to head.”

On Losing Personal Agency

“And a lot of what we talk about when we think about Agency is that the very real social norms and social pressures and social reaction from family and friends and society that we can face. So I’ll just wrap up by just saying that in my research that I did, and I found this in academic research, is that it is a fact that we can begin to lose a sense of personal agency or being in the driver’s seat of our life in our fifties and sixties. So in the survey that I had done, there was a statement: Do I agree or disagree – I’m in the driver’s seat of my life. And women 45 to 55, fifty percent strongly agreed with that statement compared to only a third of women, 75 to 84, who strongly agreed. So people themselves can feel a loss of agency for a bunch of reasons, which is a problem because it can make us feel unfulfilled and bitter.”

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For More on Cindy Cox-Roman

You can follow Cindy on Twitter @CindyCoxRoman

Business website: www.witconsulting.net

HelpAge website: www.helpageusa.org

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We mentioned an autobiographical reflection exercise in this episode. I decided against posting an isolated exercise, because upon reflection, I think it’s best to do this with someone trained in guided autobiography.

A great resource is The Birren Center for Autobiographical Studies, created by the late James E. Birren, the founding dean of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

Another resource I’d recommend a fellow Life Planning Network & Encore Network member Dr. John Countryman. Here’s a short interview  with John Countryman

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Related Podcast Episodes with Examples of Personal Agency 

How Seniors Are Saving the World With Activism – Thelma Reese

Retired, But Not Done Yet – Dr. Cynthia Barnett

I’m Not Done. Are You? – Patti Temple Rocks

The Skill Set for Life’s Transitions – Bruce Feiler

Your Retirement Won’t Come with a Road Map – Carol Hymowitz

How to Build a Non-Profit Encore Career – Betsy Werley

Advice for Successful Career Women Transitioning to Retirement – Helen Dennis

Retirement Planning Includes Getting Good at Getting Older – Rabbi Laura Geller

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring, but not done yet, discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste. And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

We help you design the life and/or the second career you want.

Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you.

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Explore retirementwisdom.com

Advances in science and technology are creating healthier and longer lives.

Andrew J Scott is Professor of Economics, former Deputy Dean at London Business School and Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

 His research focuses on longevity, an ageing society, and fiscal policy and debt management and has been published widely in leading journals. His book with Lynda Gratton, The 100-Year Life, has been published in 15 languages, is an Amazon bestseller and was runner up in the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award 2016 and Japanese Business Book of the Year Award 2017. His recent 2020 book, The New Long Life, considers how the challenges and opportunities of social and technological ingenuity might shape a new age of longer lives.

He was Managing Editor for the Royal Economic Society’s Economic Journal and Non-Executive Director for the UK’s Financial Services Authority 2009-2013. He has been an advisor on policy to a range of governments and government departments. He is currently on the advisory board of the UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility, the Cabinet Office Honours Committee (Science and Technology), co-founder of The Longevity Forum, a member of the UK government’s Longevity Council and the WEF council on Japan and a consulting scholar at Stanford University’s Center on Longevity.

With a unique perspective as a global economist, professor, and government advisor, he draws upon a range of disciplines. His ground-breaking work on longevity, economics, and the value and effect technology and longevity combined, will have on the wider society, is shaped by his professional connections to academia, industry, social pioneers and policymakers around the world.

Andrew previously held positions at Oxford University, London School of Economics and Harvard University. His MA is from Oxford, his M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and his D.Phil from Oxford University.

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Wise Quotes

On the Longevity Dividend

“…we discovered to a new degree, that age is malleable. There are things we can do to help how we age, how we exercise, how[ we change] our environment, how we live our life. And that means we’re aging differently. Yes, there are more older people, but how our aging is changing – and that’s a great opportunity to be seized. And if you think about what’s really happened, did I say most of these years of extra life are healthy? Not all of them. So that period at the end of life has got longer, which is a challenge. But most of those years have been healthy. So what’s really happened is we kind of added something on to middle age – from sort of 50 plus – that’s where most of those extra years of life have come from. And people tend to think that aging is about just the end of life’s got longer, but really it’s about all of life.”

On Measuring Age Differently

“And the metaphor I give is, imagine your day went from being 24 to 32 hours long. That’s not just about what you do differently at the end of the day. It’s what you did differently over the whole day. And that’s I think the challenge we’ve got, – how do make the most of this longer life and in particular, how do we invest in making sure that our future self is as healthy as possible? So there are new risks around, but there are also great opportunities, but the public narrative tends to focus on the negative. Oh, we must be older because we’re living longer – as opposed to the good news that we’re living better. At the heart of this is our reliance upon chronological age – we measure age chronologically – how many candles on your birthday cake, which means you’re living for longer, you’re kind of older. But we really need to think about biological age. Are we fit and healthy? I also would argue that we need to think in a more forward-looking manner, not how many candles are on our birthday cake, but how many more birthday cakes do we still have to come – and using that people are got a lot more future they need to prepare for. So it’s an opportunity.”

On the Multi-Stage Life

“So we’ve said there’s going be a multi-stage life –  and a multi-stage career, where you may have three or four different stages to your career. One may be focused around making money. One may be about balancing your family responsibilities. One could be doing something entrepreneurial. And of course, that’s already beginning to emerge. You’re seeing people at 50 plus being one of the most popular age groups for starting up a company, for instance. And just, as I said earlier, we invented teenagers and pensioners. We’re starting to see people behave very differently in their forties, fifties, and sixties, and doing these mid-career transitions. So many people that come up to me and either said, You know,  this is exactly what I’ve been doing or saying, I realized now I’ve got another 25 years ahead of me. I need to reskill retool, take a break, and do something else.”

On Navigating Transitions

“I think it’s going to be a really big skill cause you know, the longer life goes on, your ability to think long term is going to become ever more important. Your ability to invest in your future self is going to be key. And that’s something that not everyone finds easy. And then as you say, transitions will become more common. And how do I plan for them? What can I expect and how do I deal with them? I think one of the challenges here is that we don’t really know how to live these long lives. Because our parent’s generation isn’t going to really give us much of a guide because we’re on average living longer than them. So you need to look around and sort of see what people are doing. See what experiments are happening. Just as it took a long while to work out what to do with teenagers and how they spend their time, and how it took a long while to work out what retirement was, what kind of exploring these sort of mid-life transitions as well.”

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The New Long Life Book

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Website

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Related Podcasts You May Like

What Can You Do to Age Better? – Anna Dixon

The Skill Set for Life’s Transitions – Bruce Feiler

How to Build a Non-Profit Encore Career – Betsy Werley

Design Your Life and Get Unstuck – Dave Evans

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Related Book Review

The 100-Year Life 

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring from their primary career – and aren’t done yet – discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste. And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you make yours great.

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Retire smarter. Explore retirementwisdom.com

We discuss with Dr. La Puma:

• How he came to combine medicine, cooking, and farming.
• The state of the medical profession today in embracing of Culinary Medicine.
• What he sees as the pillars of a healthy diet from the Culinary Medicine and EcoMedicine points of view as we age.
• How some major diseases may be preventable with the right lifestyle modifications, in his opinion.
• What he’s found works in helping people make changes in their lifestyle.
• The unique health challenges that men face – and what areas men should focus on.
• What role Nature and EcoMedicine play in a healthy lifestyle.

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Bio

John La Puma MD is Clinical Director and Founder of Chef Clinic; he’s also a professionally trained chef, organic and regenerative avocado farmer and a New York Times best-selling author twice.

He has led clinical trials of nutritional interventions designed to improve burnout, obesity, hypertension, osteoarthritis, insomnia and diabetes, and pioneered culinary medicine. His mission is to help you get measurably healthier with what you eat and how you live.

Dr. La Puma guest taught the first medical lecture on Nature Therapy at Harvard University’s Lifestyle Medicine course, and taught the first Nutrition and Cooking course for medical students in the US, at SUNY-Upstate with Dr. Michael Roizen of the Cleveland Clinic, and the first Culinary Medicine clinical course for medical students in the US, at DMU.

He has authored over 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers and three medical books, including a CME book and the first peer-reviewed article about culinary medicine. His work has been published by the New England  Journal of Medicine, JAMA and the British Medical Journal.

Four of his books–Refuel, ChefMD’s Big Book of Culinary Medicine, Cooking the RealAge Way and The RealAge Diet–have been bestsellers around the world, been translated into 8 languages and sold over a million copies.

Dr. La Puma is a renowned speaker and demonstration cook. He delivered the first lectures at Harvard and at TEDMED on Culinary Medicine, and at the University of Chicago on Comfort Food. He has also presented at the prestigious TEDx and Gel Health conferences and is consistently rated among the very best speakers by the audiences he addresses.  He has been a consultant and spokesperson for CIGNA, Caremark, GSK and Kraft, among other partners, and founded Alternative Medicine Alert, an evidence-based monthly newsletter for clinicians on dietary supplements and integrative medical approaches.

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Wise Quotes

On The Benefits of Lifestyle Modifications

“The CDC actually addressed that and they believe that 80% of heart disease, stroke and diabetes and 40% of cancer is preventable with lifestyle change. The CDC is about as conservative an institution in American medicine as exists. I think that almost all arthritis, particularly osteoarthritis is preventable. I think that loss of mobility as we age is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to decline quickly. Having major diseases become and be thought of as preventable problems that can be mitigated is really a game-changer…So having more control than you think means that you can make better choices – and that they will matter. And after 50, almost all of aging is your choices before 50. Your genetics have a lot to say, but if you make a decision, you can change your life….not just improve your longevity, but improve your quality of life. And of course your flexibility, your energy level, your curiosity, your cognitive alertness, your ability to communicate. There are a lot of amazing things you can do with lifestyle change.”

On Men’s Health

“…what we can do first and most controllably is change what – and how – we eat and do so with these behavioral strategies that I’ve identified. And in our research, this worked really well. And in the thousands of men who have read the Refuel book and written to me, the changes have been remarkable. People lose 10 pounds or more and have better muscle mass and strength and sleep better and just sort of get their lives back. And men have to be given permission for this. I think because it’s not expected of us be healthy – but that’s actually a sexy thing to a lot of women that healthy men take care of themselves and are proud of it. And so it’s been a privilege to help so many people get well, and I’m really proud of the work that we’ve done.”

On Purpose

“Leading a life that is purposeful – as an attitude- is probably the secret to longevity. These behaviors – and sleeping well, eating well, getting enough exercise, being outside, managing stress – are behaviors that improve wellness. But while…well-being starts with purpose, [it’s] understanding who you are as a person and what your role is in the world in relationship to both other people who you love and to others and to the planet itself.  Shadow journaling is one mechanism for reflecting on who you are and what your purpose is so that when you get up in the morning, it’s not just what there is to do, but the reason for doing it.”

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For More on John La Puma, MD

Website

Refuel: A 24-Day Eating Plan to Shed Fat, Boost Testosterone, and Pump Up Strength and Stamina

Cooking the RealAge (R) Way: Turn back your biological clock with more than 80 delicious and easy recipes

The RealAge Diet: Make Yourself Younger with What You Eat 

Follow on Twitter

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Podcast Episodes You May Be Interested In

Successful Aging – Daniel Levitin

The Mind-Body Connection and The Rabbit Effect – Kelli Harding

Tiny Habits Can Lead to Big Changes – BJ Fogg

The Joy of Movement – Kelly McGonigal

Coping Strategies & Moving Forward – Nick Wignall & Verla Fortier

Can You Grow Younger? – Marta Zaraska

What Can You Do to Age Better? – Anna Dixon

Are You in the Driver’s Seat? – Cindy Cox-Roman

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring, but not done yet, discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste. And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

We help you design the life and/or the second career you want.

Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you.

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Explore retirementwisdom.com

Does your retirement planning account for caregiving? Will you be a caregiver? Who will be your caregivers?

We talk with expert Joy Loverde about what you should include in your retirement planning.

Joy joins us from Chicago.

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Bio

Joy Loverde has a reputation for being a path carver and visionary. Joy is the author of the Who Will Take Care Of Me When I’m Old? and the best-seller, The Complete Eldercare Planner. The American Medical Association says, “It’s the best book we’ve seen.”

With over 30 years experience as a media spokesperson, Joy’s appearances include the TODAY Show, Good Morning America, CBS Early Show, ABC News, Fox News, National Public Radio, SiriusXM, and others.

During her career, she has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, TIME, Money, New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Reuters, Reader’s Digest, Family Circle, Psychology Today, Good Housekeeping, among others. USA TODAY ran a four-part series on Joy’s eldercare programs.

Joy specializes in keynotes for family members and professionals including employers, women’s groups, centers for healthy aging, associations, law firms, financial institutions, alumni associations, senior housing, health care providers, and retreat centers and others.

A seasoned on-camera professional, product endorsements include GoodFeet, Estate Inventory Services, Age Without Borders, Energizer Battery Company, Boomer Living, American Senior’s Housing Association, and a host of other products and services.

With a focus on the mature-market population, Joy serves as a marketing and media consultant to senior housing, HR professionals, attorneys, financial planners, clergy, and other members of the fast-growing eldercare industry.

Joy’s work has taken her to every corner of the world where she has personally interacted with thousands of family members and professionals in the field of aging. She also loves connecting with you on social media.

Wife, mom, grandmother, Cubs fan, Joy was caregiver to her parents, is married to family-law attorney, David V. Schultz, is grandmother of 10, and resides in Chicago.

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Wise Quotes

On Thinking Like a Strategist

“Well, first of all, people don’t know what thinking like a strategist is. So what I like to do is just break open that can of worms by saying critical thinking is really the practice of changing your perspective.  If you just continue to think the way you always have, it might just keep you in that little box and nothing will really change in your life. So the idea about thinking critically just breaks that wide open. So here’s how I do it. I talk to people who are very different than me, different cultures, different careers. And I ask them questions that scare me because they will have a whole different idea about things that might pertain to aging. That is quite scary. So I talk to people who are different. I also talk to people who are young and people who are old. And one of my favorite advisors is my eight-year-old granddaughter. And I ask her this question all the time. I say, what would you do if you were me? So that is what I mean by thinking strategically.”

On Caregiving

“If you’re going to be a caregiver, the number one rule is to get a financial planner for yourself because the expenses of being a caregiver can be quite emotional. So if we find out that mom or dad is running out of money, most caregivers, because they’re so loving and wonderful, start to dip into their own pockets and they start shelling out money and really jeopardizing their own retirement. So the number one thing that people need to do, if they anticipate being a caregiver, is to get a financial planner. Find out how much money you have, find out what your parents have or the person you’re caring for. And then go from there, do not go into this blindly when it comes to financial planning. As far as I’m concerned, this is one of the most rewarding jobs there is. And I wrote in my first book, it’s a responsibility that is difficult at best, and yet the rewards are priceless. No one comes away from the experience the same as when they started. And as we go to our elders and we listen to them, we may not realize it in the moment, but we will receive riches in return. I honor caregivers every day in my life.”

On Intergenerational Relationships

“People know by the time they reach their later years, that the world is fraught with problems. And that if we back up and we take ourselves out of the picture, then how are we helping the next generations? It’s just really important for us to be a part of the solution and not think that playing golf 24/7 and sitting poolside is the way to go. People regret not staying involved.”

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For More On Joy Loverde

Who Will Take Care of Me When I’m Old?

Website

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Life’s Big Decisions – Adrian Camilleri

Retirement Planning Includes Getting Good at Getting Older – Rabbi Laura Geller

Some Kind of Heaven – Lance Oppenheim

Advice for Successful Career Women Transitioning to Retirement – Helen Dennis

Successful Aging – Daniel Levitin

When Will You Flip the Switch? – Dr. Barbara O’Neill

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About Retirement Wisdom

We help people who are retiring, but not done yet, discover what’s next.

A long retirement is a terrible thing to waste. And a meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.

We help you design the life and/or the second career you want.

Schedule a call today to discuss how we can help you.

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Explore retirementwisdom.com

Achieving the financial security to retire is a big milestone. But you’re not done. There’s inner work to be done to move into this next phase of life. Retired psychotherapist and bestselling author Connie Zweig joins our retirement podcast to discuss her new book The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul – and her insights on how reflection and contemplation can be valuable practices in your transition.

We discuss:

• How retirement can be a catalyst for an inner journey to reimagine life
• What the words retire and yoga have in common
• The obstacles often encountered on this inner journey – and what Shadow Work is
• How an Identity Crisis following retirement is different from a Mid-life Crisis
• Why letting go is important – and challenging
• Her own journey in retiring as a therapist – and what it’s taught her
• What she’s learned from grandparenting
• What an Elder is – and how one becomes one
• How people can come to view retirement as a spiritual journey
• The main message of her new book The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul

Connie joins us from California.

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Thank You

Thanks to our wise guests and loyal listeners The Retirement Wisdom Podcast is among the top 3% in popularity globally according to Listen Notes.

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Bio

Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired therapist, co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow, author of Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality and a novel, A Moth to the Flame: The Life of Sufi Poet Rumi. Her new book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, extends shadow-work into late life and teaches aging as a spiritual practice. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for 50 years. She is a wife and grandmother and was initiated as an Elder by Sage-ing International in 2017. After investing in all these roles, she is practicing the shift from role to soul.

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Wise Quotes

On Letting Go

“My framework in the book is that the shift from senior to Elder in late life is a rite of passage. And we don’t have rites of passage for elders in our culture, right? It just doesn’t exist. So there are three stages of every rite of passage – and the first stage is letting go. And that might mean letting go of outworn roles or attitudes, letting go of outworn beliefs, or self-images or relationships that don’t work – or jobs, or finances, or goals of some kind. And so letting go at every stage of life is hard because as humans, we bond, and we get attached. And with our egos to try to control everything. But to become an Elder, we actually need to let go of the Ego’s agenda and step into a different speed limit, a different pace of life, a different sense of flow. I call it from Obligation to Flow – and we need to let go of the past. A lot of people are clinging to the past, feel regret about the past, and need to give and receive forgiveness about the past. So there’s a chapter about how to do the emotional work to help us let go of the past so that we can live fully in the present because many people don’t know how to do that. They don’t really know how to be here and enjoy it fully.”

On Becoming an Elder

“I think this is very individual, but what I explore in the book is that everyone becomes a senior with a Medicare birthday, but becoming an elder is not an age. It’s a stage. It requires intention and what I call inner work so that there’s a certain level of self-knowledge and awareness and ways of relating and a desire to give to the common good. Some people are Activists Elders, and some are Creative Elders and some are Spiritual Elders. So we can transmit the knowledge of our lives in many different ways, but there is this impulse of generosity to give back.”

On a Life Review

“There are lots of tools in the book. The last person I spoke with before you today said, she’s having to really chew it and digest it. It’s not a quick read. It calls you to stop and contemplate your life. So you learn how to do a life review. You learn how to do emotional repair. You learn how to do spiritual unfinished business, and you contemplate life completion. What is a complete life, a fulfilled life for you? And what can you do about that now? What steps do you need to take to actually move toward that now? So, I know that the book is really rich. I’m getting a lot of feedback, and it’s an invitation to the reader to use this time.”

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For More on Connie Zweig

The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul

Website

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Retirement Planning Includes Getting Good at Getting Older – Rabbi Laura Geller

Successful Aging – Daniel Levitin

Chatter & Your Inner Voice – Ethan Kross

Retirement & It’s Discontents – Michelle Pannor Silver

The Skill Set for Life’s Transitions – Bruce Feiler

Who Will You Be in Retirement? – David Ekerdt

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About Retirement Wisdom

You’ve prepared for the financial side of retirement. Let’s face it: you didn’t work that hard to have a mediocre retirement. So, what if you prepared just as well on the non-financial side?

You’d be ready to live the life you’ve worked hard to earn – and be poised to sidestep the pitfalls that derail too many retirements. Pitfalls that could waste your most valuable asset – your time.

Design your new life, using the same principles of design thinking that Apple, Nike, and other savvy companies use. It’s your new life. Think like an owner. Invest time to explore your options and discover the new path that’s right for you – on your own terms.

It’s your time. Get ahead of the game.

Schedule your free call with Joe Casey, a certified Designing Your Life Coach, about your new life and how our three-phased process can help you make it a reality.

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Explore free tools at retirementwisdom.com

Browse all 4 seasons of our retirement podcast here to get smarter about your next phase.

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The views and opinions expressed by guests on The Retirement Wisdom Podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the host or Retirement Wisdom, LLC. The Retirement Wisdom Podcast covers the non-financial aspects of retirement planning. From time to time we invite guests who discuss other aspects of retirement planning, solely for educational purposes. Listeners are advised to consult qualified financial, medical and/or mental health professionals on those matters.

It’s easy to take for granted how much we count on technology. Can you imagine life in the pandemic without it? But what does the future hold for technology that will make life easier for older adults? Keren Etkin, author of The Age Tech Revolution, previews what’s coming and why Age Tech should be part of your planning, especially if aging in place is your goal.

We discuss:

• What AgeTech is about
• What a Gerontechnologist does – and what led her to that field
• The two trends that are colliding and accelerating the development of new technology that will help older adults
• The 6 areas where technology can enhance the capabilities of older adults
• Myths about older adults and technology
• How older adults will use technology in our daily lives 10 years from now
• The Longevity Explorers and what we can learn from them
• Why retirement is ripe for disruption
• How reinvention and re-skilling are alternatives to traditional retirement
• The role robots will be playing with older adults in the future
• How planning for technology should be on your list if you’re planning to age in place
• The coolest technology for older adults she’d like to see developed

Keren Etkin joins us from Israel.

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Bio

Keren Etkin is the author of The Age Tech Revolution – a book about the intersection of technology and aging, founder of TheGerontechnologist.com, a media platform that covers the global agetech ecosystem and offers online courses through the AgeTech Academy, and the founder/director of AgeLabIL at Shenkar college in Israel, an interdisciplinary R&D center focusing on agetech.

Named one of the most influential people in aging, Etkin is a sought-after public speaker and advisor for agetech startups, investors in the longevity economy, care providers and organizations who work on innovation in aging.

Previously, Etkin was the first employee at Intuition Robotics, maker of ElliQ, a pioneering social robot designed with and for older adults, and co-founder & VP of Product at Sensi.ai, a startup that developed the first artificial intelligence solution for remote care monitoring.

She holds an M.A. in Gerontology and a B.Sc. in Life Sciences from Ben-Gurion University.

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For More on Keren Etkin

The Age Tech Revolution on Amazon

Website: TheGerontechnologist.com

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Smarter Tomorrow – Elizabeth Ricker

Are You Ready for The New Long Life? – Andrew Scott

Who Will Take Care of You When You Are Older? – Joy Loverde

Successful Aging – Daniel Levitin

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Mentioned in This Episode

Apple’s iOS 15 Has a Fall-Prevention Feature Everyone Should Use

The Longevity Explorers

Stay Hydrated: There are a number of Water Bottles with sensors on Amazon – here’s an example

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Wise Quotes

On Older Adults & Technology

“The facts are that older adults are adopting technology at increasingly growing numbers in the past decade and that this trend of of tech adoption has been around since before Covid. And the pandemic has definitely accelerated it. It accelerated tech adoption and tech usage for everyone, and that is also true for older adults. They bought tech devices they adopted more video chat than ever before, not just to to chat with their children and grandchildren but also also to consume healthcare care services and to use telehealth, and to chat with their friends. And their their book club steadily was online rather than in person. So we saw this massive boost in adoption which is great and also everyone suddenly realized – and when I say everyone, I mean the general population. Everyone who has an older loved one in their lives and also governments –  everyone – realized that it’s not a luxury to have older adults use technology. It’s a necessity in our society.”

On the Future of the Home and Aging in Place

“We can we have can have sensors installed and like wall-mounted sensors, wearable sensors in the ring, in the watch and whatever. I think 10 years down the line, we’ll have ambient sensors sort of embedded in our homes sensing us – sensing what we need and and delivering what we need, based on their understanding of of the surroundings, based on whatever readings they get from our bodies. Laurie Orlov calls it the Internet of Behavior. The sensors will be able to predict what we need and and basically give it to us – and I think that can go a long way towards aging in place, because one of the one of the barriers to aging in place is that oftentimes people’s homes are not very customizable. It costs a lot of money to customize your home to to adapt your changing needs as you grow older. And your community might not be so adaptive if you’re not as agile as you used to be twenty or thirty years ago. I think that technology can definitely help us with that and I also expect us to have more robotics and automation into our lives because at the end of the day some of the things that people struggle with in the home as they grow older is is just like household maintenance and household chores – and that’s not a reason to to leave your home right? Because most people prefer to age in place, we can definitely automate a lot of that and we can definitely use technology to to predict our needs and to help us live longer, better, healthier and more active lives. It can help us maintain our our general well-being both physically and emotionally as we grow older and to enable anyone who wants to, to age in place.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

Planning for retirement goes well beyond your 401k or IRA. How will you invest your time after your full-time working years?

You’ll need another portfolio.

I help people create an active multipurpose retirement, with the right mix of interests, activities and pursuits to invest your time wisely. And for many, like me, it includes a new version of work – redefined on your own terms.

Schedule a call to see if a 1-on-1 program or a small group Designing Your New Life program can give you an edge in your next chapter.

Visit retirementwisdom.com for tools and resources to help you retire smarter.

The number of adults who live alone is growing. Even those who have children cannot count on their help. The number of older adults who live within 10 miles of a relative has fallen significantly. When my guest Carol Marak was working in technology she returned home to be a caregiver for her parents. And she got a wake-up call. Who, she wondered, would help to care for her when she grew older? The struggles Carol’s parents faced were warning signs of what she could expect. Divorced and childless, Carol lived alone in a suburb. Caregiving for her parents required a massive effort involving three siblings and numerous professionals. That care could someday be needed for her—only she would not have family nearby to step up to the challenge.

Carol’s book Solo and Smart teaches people how to assess, discover, and plan—to gain control over how they want to live in the years ahead –  not only how to age well but how to live well—by shaping the future they want rather than reacting to it.

Carol Marak joins us from Dallas.

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Bio

Carol Marak is an Author, Speaker, Founder of the Elder Orphan Facebook Group, and former family caregiver. Her book, Solo and Smart, A Guided Roadmap for a Supportive and Secure Future is based on Carol’s own plan as a single senior facing aging alone. It was her caregiving experience that revealed what’s needed when looking ahead. Carol is a native Texan and lives alone in a highly active high rise in a Dallas urban area.

Carol has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, PBS, NPR, AARP, US News & World Report, the American Society on Aging, local newspapers throughout the U.S. and radio shows.

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For More on Carol Marak

Solo and Smart, A Guided Roadmap for a Supportive and Secure Future on Amazon

Website CarolMarak.com

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Podcast Episodes You My Like

Where Will You Live Next? – Ryan Frederick

Who Will Take Care of You When You Are Older? – Joy Loverde

With the Freedom to Retire, Where Will You Plant Your New Tree? – Don Ezra

Retirement Planning Includes Getting Good at Getting Older – Rabbi Laura Geller

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Wise Quotes

On Lessons From Caregiving 

“My mother lived with several chronic illnesses and so their  needs were very demanding. They really expected us to help them out because they did that for their parents. My parents were farmers and we lived in a rural community. So we just helped each other out as a family. And we were a very large family. However, once we started moving off going to college, that put a real dent in how we could share in those responsibilities. We tried to hire help, but they just wouldn’t have of it. So my sisters and I really ended up pitching in as best we could. And quite frankly, we did a pretty good job taking care of them. And my parents were very lucky to have three loving daughters. Unfortunately many of us don’t have that. =. So, once they both passed, I was out on a walk one day and I was thinking about my parents. I was missing them. I was crying. And then I started reflecting back on that experience of elder care and the demands of growing older and what that means, what that looks like. And then all of a sudden I just stopped and I thought, Oh my gosh, what am I going to do? I’m single. I have no children here. I am. I’m close to 55 years old, what will I do? And Joe, I tell you I was walking and it just stopped me in my tracks. I thought, Holy Moly, what am I gonna do?  because it’s,  it’s filled with so many complexities growing older. So that was my wake up call. And it was more than a wake up call. It was really more like a slap in the face. It’s like, get your act together. So that’s where it all started for me.”

On Her Core Message

“The core message from my book is to change your mindset from problem solving to possibility thinking- and then find a strategy that helps you evaluate the future risks that you potentially face, which will equip you with knowledge, power, and control.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

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About Your Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career. He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.

Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and listeners, ranks in the top 1.5 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes. Business Insider has recognized him as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference.

He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy coming this summer.

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Intro and Outro voiceovers by Ross Huguet.

Does your retirement planning include how you think? Positive views and negative views on aging matter. Yale professor Dr. Becca Levy’s ground-breaking research shows how age beliefs can benefit the aging process, including the extension of life expectancy by 7.5 years. Today’s culture brings a steady stream of negative messages on aging, but you can challenge those messages and cultivate positive age beliefs.

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Bio

Dr. Becca Levy, the leading authority on how beliefs about aging influence aging health, is Professor of Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and Professor of Psychology at Yale University. Her pathfinding studies have changed the way we think about aging and have received awards from the American Psychological Association, the Gerontological Society of America, and the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics. Dr. Levy has given invited testimony before the US Senate on the adverse effects of ageism and has contributed to US Supreme Court briefs to fight age-discrimination. She serves as a scientific advisor to the World Health Organization’s Campaign to Combat Ageism.

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For More on Dr. Becca Levy

Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Ageism Unmasked – Dr. Tracey Gendron

The Second Curve of Life – Arthur C. Brooks

The Mind-Body Connection and The Rabbit Effect – Kelli Harding

The Expectation Effect – David Robson

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Wise Quotes

On Positive Age Beliefs

“People who took in more positive age beliefs at the start of the study they had a median survival advantage over those who took in more negative age beliefs. They had a median survival advantage of seven and a half years.”

On Role Models

“It can be really important to increase awareness of some of the negative messaging and challenge it. But also I think it’s important to find ways to strengthen some of the positive older role models or positive images of aging that are around us. And so something that we found that can be effective is to record what I call a portfolio of diverse and positive images of aging. What that involves is writing down say five or so positive older role models. And some of them can be from your own life, It  could be a great aunt, a great uncle and some of them could be from the general world at large or from current events,  a great scientist that you know about. It would be good to come up with somebody that you admire for a different reason so that’s where the diversity of images come up. So if you list one person you may admire because they have a great sense of humor, and another one could be because they’ve got a great work ethic, or a great sense of social justice. So for each person it’s good to think about a quality that you really admire about that person that you would like to strengthen in yourself. And we found that actively engaging in these different older role models can also start to strengthen some of our our positive age beliefs.”

From Declining to Thriving

“The most important message is that even though we know that these age beliefs are taken in at a very young age from the culture and they can be reinforced over time, we also know that they’re not set in stone. So they’re malleable. We can change them. And I think that has implications for us as a society that we could actively try to promote an age liberation movement that reduces or eliminates ageism and promotes and celebrates aging, and finds opportunities for people across generations. It also suggests that on an individual level, there are things that we can do to shift the negative age messaging from messages of decline to messages of thriving, by actively curating the messages that we take in and reinforcing the messages of aging that are encouraging inclusivity and celebrating aging.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

Take charge of your future.