The Longevity Secret Nobody Can Sell You with Gerontologist Dr. Kerry Burnight

0:00 How old was she when she made this pivot? Probably in her late 70s, early 80s. Oh, wow. That's a st- I didn't- I thought you were gonna say 50s. Mm-mm. Wow, so as long as that, that she changed the course of her life, and it may have added years to her life. So there's lifespan, how many years you live.

0:18 health span, how long you enjoy good health and good cognition. I'm all for both of those, of course. Yeah. But then this next piece of the quality of your long life, right? About like, why? Why do you want to live a long time? It's not so that in your casket you will look a certain way. Like what? He looks so young.

0:39 He looks so young. From cold plunges to supplements to VO2 maxing, it seems that we are obsessed with living longer these days. And sure, some of it works. I guess we'll have to wait and find out. But for better or worse, longevity has turned into a full-on industry. And for many, a competition. Who looks younger?

1:03 Who lasts longer? But there's something missing. I've met some of these longevity maxers, and a lot of them didn't strike me as particularly happy people. Which raises a question I don't hear many people asking. Which is, if we're going to live all these extra years, what are they actually for? That's why I wanted to talk to Carrie Burnight.

1:23 Carrie is a gerontologist. She studies how we age. She taught at UC Irvine and co-founded the nation's first elder abuse forensic center, where for decades she saw older people isolated and exploited, sometimes by their own families. All she saw was as people aged, their lives got worse. That's why she came up with the concept of joy span.

1:48 If lifespan is how long we live and health span is how our bodies hold up as we age, then joy span measures whether we're actually enjoying the life we have. So we sat down and talked about it. If we're going to do all that extra work to live a long time, how can we make sure that that longer life that we have is a good one?

2:10 If you like this episode, please remember to subscribe. This is a bit of optimism. Thank you. You and I have something in common, which is we believe that a good life is not measured in how long you live it, but rather how much joy and fulfillment and inspiration you get out of it. And I know this has been central to your work.

2:36 You've written about it. You've spoken about it, that there is more to life than the number of years we can get out of it. And I know the whole longevity movement seems to be completely preoccupied with the length of time they're living. And I've met some of the leaders of that movement, and some of them did not strike me as happy people.

3:01 I find it ironic. How did you start to think about the quality of our life rather than the quantity of our life? Where did that come from? Being a gerontologist has been such a great honor and working with older people. And I came to thinking about quality of life and thinking about joy from the opposite of that.

3:29 So for the first 20 something years of my career, I worked with adults who are suffering so much. And what I saw really burned my eyes. And I worked with people who had ended up slumped over in wheelchairs and alone, who had been financially exploited by family members. Just, I saw a lot. Yeah. And in seeing all of that, you think, how can we prevent this suffering to begin with?

4:04 What I was doing is I would come in after the suffering had occurred and try to help. And that's laudable. But if we know what would prevent that profound suffering, wouldn't that be where we'd want to get? Like it's like the top of the skateboard ramp, whereas I had lived at the bottom of the skateboard ramp.

4:23 You were treating the diabetes as opposed to helping people eat healthy before they ever got. I really was. Yeah. And so that's just been the guiding principle of saying, wow, we know a lot about how to fortify people for long lives and, the longevity movement seems to have really lost its way. So there's lots of different angles we could take this.

4:49 I'm curious to your opinion as to why it lost its way, because it seems perfectly legitimate as a thing to want to do, to live a long time. I mean, I think human beings have been trying to do that, you know, since the dawn of humankind. Where and why do you think it sort of got sidetracked? I think in a word, it's humility.

5:16 We've made longevity a competitive sport where we, I'm going to beat you by somehow looking younger or stronger or somehow in the same way as a society, I think we've lost our way where looks or fame or money or power, as a currency has taken hold. And so if we were to shift from competitive win, finite game, To like, actually, wait, what are we doing?

5:55 Have we thought through this thing? Like what? Are you going to never die? Is that like where you're going for? No. Are you going to somehow never get sick, never grow old? No. I don't think people... Why do you think we've lost our way? No. Well, I've never heard any... I didn't expect that answer, but I think it's really astute, which is this idea of competitive living longer, as if it's some sort of... Like someone's going to get a medal if they outlive everybody else.

6:27 It's very interesting, and I think it does drive weird behavior. I think it has become weirdly competitive, possibly because also money has entered the equation, which is almost everybody who's quote-unquote leading the longevity movement has something to sell you, you know? And I don't mind if people write books about their theories, but, you know, because if you come up with something and you share your ideas, but it seems like there's always the sort of the ancillary, like I'll sell you my diet, I'll sell you my workshop, I'll sell you my supplement.

6:58 Oh, don't forget the other supplement. Oh, and the other supplement. And then I'll send you the energy drink, and then I'll send you the energy bar. And then, you know, ironically, you should just be eating, you know, like, Fresh vegetables and like clean, clean protein and you'll be fine. Real things.

7:12 That's the irony, which is selling all of these things that are available for free inside food. And that's maybe drive some of this competitive stuff, which is I have to prove that my system works better than the other system. And the only way I can prove it is because I'm living longer. We don't know who's living longer, but I do love the fact that it's empirical.

7:30 Yes. We'll find out in a couple decades who starts dying and getting cancer and everything. It's great. It's ironic. And I like the looks part of it as well. As a woman that you somehow are winning if you look like you're not growing old, but... Again, like to what end? To what end? And there is such incredible, profound beauty in aging.

7:54 Yeah. And in being with so many older adults all my life, it's so beautiful. So why have we gone toward this one? Why have we taken the nutrients out of an apple and sold it back to people? when we could give them the apple. Why can't we step into this new longevity that celebrates growing older? Tell me a story of someone that you've worked with who you, when you look at them, and I want you to think of someone specifically, and you look at them and say, that's how I wanna grow old.

8:30 I wanna grow old like this person. Yes. Tell me about this person. Well, I have to say it's my mom. And she will be 98 at her next birthday. Wow. She was not always on this path. And that's what I think is inspiring. She was on a certain trajectory. So Newport Beach, which means for people who are not from California, it means that there was getting caught up with how you look or how you come off to people or whatever.

9:02 A lot of pressure. You could have a TV show of The Real Housewives of Newport Beach. It would play just perfectly. It really would. Yeah. And she'd be the first to say this. I'm not talking out of school, but... As life goes on, every life that I've ever known has hard things to enter it. Yeah. So as, you know, her husband passed away and she went through bankruptcy and her son got leukemia, as life does, like to watch this intersection where there is a choice and that she like proactively made a choice to foster the inner self.

9:37 Mm-hmm. And it's like she was going here and then she went here. And so now I am so inspired by her about how she gives, how she connects with other humans, how she has greater humility and greater capacity to appreciate the ordinary. And so I had turned my camera on her And now I share her on Instagram and there's zero money is made on it.

10:05 It's just saying there are millions of examples of older adults who are role models for us. And that our hope is that we can be role models for the people who come behind us because we need to, as a group, get back on course to what it really means to age well. How old was she when she made this pivot?

10:24 I would say that it started, and hopefully we don't have to wait this long, but I would say that it started probably in her late 70s, early 80s. Oh, wow. I thought you were going to say 50s. Wow. So as long as that, that she changed the course of her life, and it may have added years to her life, but more important...

10:46 she's enjoying her life more. Yes. And so there's lifespan, how many years you live. Healthspan, we brought into the vernacular in the 1980s, how long you enjoy good health and good cognition. I'm all for both of those, of course. Yeah. But then this next piece of the quality of your long life, right?

11:07 About like, why? Why do you want to live a long time? It's not so that in your casket, you will look a certain way. Like what? He looks so young. He looks so young. Yeah. So it's lifespan, of course, we want to live as long as we can. Healthspan, we want to keep our bodies healthy so that we can get around, we can walk, we're ambulatory, we can lift things and partake in life.

11:34 Yes. You know, partake with our grandchildren. But then joyspan, which is, and I'm actually enjoying the life that I have. It's all three. All three. And they go in the same direction. And that's a really great thing, too. It's that things like purpose and all the things that I have learned from you for all these years, those are the things that propel us and are more powerful and salient than the physical things.

11:59 Like, it is the why. Yeah, yeah. The why for all of this. It's ironic, right? Because you hear people say, and you're right, they get the two things. They'll say things like, I want to live a long time, but not if I'm going to be, you know, stuck in a home and in a wheelchair and unable to partake and in pain from arthritis, then end it, then pull the plug.

12:19 You hear people make that compromise of my health span and my lifespan, that if I don't have the health, then I'd rather not have the life. But we don't hear people say... You know what? I don't want to be living a long time and a healthy body and depressed and anxious and lonely. We don't hear people saying that.

12:38 Yes. But that is something you witnessed when you're working with this geriatric population, which is people who their bodies may be fine. They were. They're living the number of years they have. They're winning awards. But grumpy and angry and lonely. Yes. And not enjoying life. Exactly. One thing I learned recently was that actually older people actually have very, very high suicide rates.

13:03 Yes. I didn't like you think teenagers, but actually old people have very high suicide rates. Absolutely. And that's why it's so critical. And I'm so grateful that we're having this conversation, right? That adjustments that we can be making in our thinking and understanding about the truth about aging.

13:21 Yeah. will impact suicide rates. There's incredible research out of Yale University showing that what you think about aging impacts how you age. So if we drink the Kool-Aid that old equals bad and don't grow old, we live on average 7.5 years less than people who understand that there are good things that come with growing older.

13:48 This reminds me of dessert. which is when we stress about eating chocolate cake, the cortisol released about stressing about eating the chocolate cake is worse for our bodies than the sugar in the chocolate cake. Yes. So if you're going to eat chocolate cake, just enjoy it. You don't have to eat the whole thing, but just do it with joy.

14:12 Do it with a smile and be like, damn, that was a good chocolate cake. On to the next. And it's very similar. Yes. Which is worrying about the thing is actually worse for you than the thing. Worrying about getting older is worse for you than getting older. Yes. Let me walk it through for you. So if I buy into this multi-billion dollar anti-aging messaging.

14:32 that old you, Simon, are going to get irrelevant, ugly, less funny, less charming as you grow older. And you think, okay, I believe that to be true. It's not true. But if you believe that, then you stop connecting at deep levels. You stop trying new things. You stop recognizing that in addition to the hard things, and there will be hard things in every life, there is also great beauty to be had in the humility of going, okay, I have challenges with my body or with my vision.

15:09 I have lost loved ones. And yet at a deeper level, there is so much to be gained here. by savoring the whole process and recognizing that it was never supposed to be just easy. I found the thing that has helped me and I definitely fit the mold of as I got older, I definitely got insecure about getting older and, you know, pride out of myself on the fact that I sort of have no gray hair for my age and look younger than I am.

15:40 You know, my beard is getting quite gray now and I always sort of got away with not being until aging started to show up, waking up in the morning and parts of my body hurt that didn't hurt when I went to bed. What's that? Yes, that's part of it. And the thing that I have found that has helped me actually build my self-confidence, and I still have my moments, of course, is sense of humor.

16:07 I found that as I was getting older, I was trying to hide it. I was trying to hide that I was trying to get older. You know, pretend that I wasn't getting older. And I found that when I joke about it, I sort of, you know, I find that it just sort of makes me... not as worried about it. Yeah. And I still have things that bother me, but they bother me less.

16:29 Yes. It's, I'm not consumed by them. They're just like, oh yeah, that's happening. You know, uh, like my hairline keeps going higher and higher and higher and higher. And, you know, I would get it fixed, but I don't want to look like I'm 30. And it's not the important thing. It's not the important thing.

16:47 Yes. And that's why we're so lucky to be with older people. And you have role models ahead of you. And you go... And as a gerontologist, I go to a ton of funerals. That's part of the occupation. And every time I go... No one ever talks about their job titles. They never talk about their money or their car.

17:10 Never talk about their hairline. They never talk about their jowls. But they talk about, he really saw me. He was there when no one else was. And there's so much beauty in that. I just feel like investing in that. And something that you and I share is I went to look up... Your age. And I saw that we were both born on the same day.

17:34 No kidding. Yes. October 9th. Exactly. Oh, look at that. We're twins. And so I was thinking about that, not to be too much of a stalker that I, but I was thinking about birthdays can be an opportunity to evaluate how we're doing this thing differently. Aging aging is another word for living. Yeah, so all of us are Aging and that's why sometimes when people say she's an expert in aging.

17:59 I'm like absolutely not There's nobody gets through it and I don't even use the term aging gracefully. Yeah, I There's hard stuff. But to take our birthday and to ask these three questions. And I made an acronym for them that I didn't think of until after the book came out. Of course. I know the feeling.

18:22 I know it is like George Costanza. The jerk stole, Coral. They're running out of you. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So the three questions go with these commitments that we, in changing the narrative on how we think about aging. And it spells out age. And so asking ourselves how we are adapting. And that question would be simply...

18:46 How am I living? How am I walking with, for example, my visual impairment? Or how am I walking with the thing that my best friend passed away and I don't have them anymore? Because to adapt is a big part of what will enable us to have a longer joy span is what I want for people. So how am I living? And then the second one that goes to G is, is give.

19:10 So it is what's mine to give and what am I giving? Because the happiest older people are people who recognize that they have things to give and then find ways to give it. But if you buy into the societal messaging that you're less than and that as you are... as a 90 year old Simon have less to give, then you're not giving.

19:33 So that's why we need to put our shoulders back and say like, no, I have more to give than I've ever given before. So the first question, how am I living What am I giving? And then the last one is the E for emotional connection and that who am I walking with? And I've heard you talk about this, how important it is and that we're going to lose loved ones.

20:01 Many of us won't be in partnerships because of death, because of never marrying, because of divorce, a million different reasons. You come in alone and enter alone. and exit alone. And that's a natural part of it too. And so our proactive emotional connections of who am I really showing up for and who can I call with good news?

20:27 Who could I call when I'm on the toilet with diarrhea? Like these deep connections matter. So if we were to ask those three questions, I think it would put us on a different path We're talking about have a healthy body, of course. Keep yourself in shape, of course. Do the things, of course. This whole conversation is how you're showing up in life.

20:49 And I think one of the things that's going back to why the longevity movement sort of went sideways and people don't think about JoySpan, I think it's just harder to measure. I can measure my calorie intake. I can measure how many reps I'm doing and how many sets I'm doing at the gym. I can measure what supplements I'm taking.

21:08 I can count the number of pills, the number of grams that I'm supposed to be taking, milligrams I'm supposed to be taking. All of that stuff is measurable. And I think for people who like process and who like action, I don't think it's a coincidence that the longevity movement skews male. It's that sort of aggressive metric sort of thing.

21:25 It's just easy to measure. And I can measure the years that I live too. All easy metrics. Whereas how do I get happier? How do I find more joy? How do I feel like I'm giving? How do I create emotional connection? Those things are more amorphous. And I think because they're hard to measure, I think some people think they're hard to do or less important.

21:50 Right. Less important because it doesn't have a number. Yes. And, you know, that's kind of this whole conversation. What we're talking is the the unmeasurable parts of life. The Marine Corps has a word for them. The Marine Corps calls them the intangibles. Yes. And they talk about what makes the Marine Corps great.

22:07 Sure. All of the metrics and how good we do this and how good we do that. We count on that. But truly, the magic they talk about is the intangible. Yes. And they include things like loyalty. Yes. They include things like honor. You know, they're the intangibles. And I think we don't pay enough attention in our lives to the intangibles.

22:24 And at the end of life, it is people, they always talk about the intangibles. They bring that up. Who am I? What have I meant here? What has my time? It's all intangibles. So my question for you, and I'm so honored to ask it is, How do we decrease suffering of older adults and change how we as a society address this fact that every day 12,000 more of us are turning 65 to promote the intangibles in order that people would suffer less and enjoy greater quality of life?

23:01 Like, how do we do that? Well, I think asked and answered. I mean, here we are, right? I think we're doing it. I think it's important to have these conversations. Right. I think it's important to use terminology where we're not shaming or guilting anybody into it, but inviting people. I think that we are also talking about the fact that this stuff does require work, like eating well, like exercising, that the intangibles require work.

23:30 Like you have to put in effort to make friends and make people feel seen. You have to put in effort to adapt You know, it's not a one and done kind of thing. Something pushes you out of alignment, you know, whether it's the death of a loved one or some of the examples that you offered. There's a process that you have to go through.

23:51 And some of that work is actually quite hard. Yes. And so I think talking about and offering people tangible steps that they can take on this journey, even though it's intangible, there are tangible things we can do and there are tangible skills we can learn to aid us on that journey. I think that's why your work is important.

24:09 Why are you putting publishing your work and sharing your work is important? Because you have a point of view and a perspective that you figured some of this stuff out. Plus, you've seen it firsthand by working with an elderly population. And your mother, who sounds incredible, I think what's so inspiring about your mom is literally she waited almost the last minute to change the way she lives her life.

24:32 And not only has she lived longer, I mean, we won't know if she didn't live that long, that she wouldn't have lived that long without this stuff. But we can say she's definitely happier at 98 on this path than she would have been the other way. And interestingly, we can't even say she lives longer because research consistently shows us that, for example, feeling like you have a sense of purpose, even holding all the variables constant, that would impact that people with a sense of purpose live longer and in better health because of lower inflammation.

25:05 So it is physiologically. And that's what I mean. It goes in the same direction. on another episode where I did a blood test called glyconage, where they basically measure inflammation. I mean, that's basically what they're measuring. And that's what I learned about stress stacking. And they were telling me that there's three things that affect your glyconage, your inflammation.

25:27 Your genetics is about a third. So some of us are dealt a good hand and some of us not. Yep. Lifestyle and stress. lifestyle we can control for and stress that we can control for. Ironically, a lot of the longevity movement is high lifestyle, but bad stress. Yes. And the CEO was telling me that a lot of the people in the longevity movement who take their test actually score very badly.

25:54 Right. their inflammation makes them actually older than their chronological age because they've overstressed their bodies. And they have worries and their insecurities are even more exaggerated because as you said, it's become a competition of how strong I am, how good I look, how many supplements I take.

26:11 It's become, let me show you how I'm living longer than you. And the people who, They exercise, but not obsessively. They eat well, but not obsessively. But they sort of get the most out of life. And purpose definitely ranked really high. Their glycan age, their inflammation, the health of their body is way lower.

26:32 They're way younger than their chronological age. Exactly. That's exactly right. And think about the language that we use, staying young. That's staying. That's gripping ourselves going backwards. Whereas if we could start to embrace growing older. What would you say? Because growing older is biology.

26:52 Everybody grows older, whether you like it or not. I think, ah, I'm hearing what you're saying. It's the emphasis on the grow. Yes. Like getting old is maybe one way to say. Right, right, right. But growing, growing with age. And the thing is, we're swimming in a sea of ageism and internalized ageism so much so that we don't even know.

27:12 So people go, you don't even look your age. Like, actually, if you dig into that. We don't need to say that, right? We're stepping into, I'm 80. This is what 80 looks like. It's going to look different in different ways. Because this decline aging mindset that everything is downhill is simply not true.

27:31 It's not supported by the literature. Things get better as you get older. For example, you know who your people are. You have greater problem solving abilities as a result of solving so many problems. a greater appreciation of art and music and nature and spirituality and gray and less me, me, me. There's a lot of goodness to old, but we've got to push it aside and say, we're not doing it that way that we were doing it.

28:02 May I make an indulgence and ask that I change some of your language? Please. Because growing older, the problem is it's an accepted phrase. And so by redefining something that I already understand, it's harder to, it's like redefining a tree. I'm like, I think I know what a tree is. I'm like, let me use my definition.

28:19 So I like what you said a moment ago. I think it's growing with age because that's not an accepted terminology. And what it does when you say I'm growing with age, that makes somebody lean in and say, what? And you get to define it. And the emphasis is on you doing the growing while you age rather than the passage of time.

28:39 So I think growing with age is more curiosity inducing and more accurate than growing older. Well, it's not as if you're Simon Sinek telling me this. This whole journey has been so incredibly rewarding for opportunities like this. And I feel like because it's a kind of movement whose time has come, Just doors have opened and opened and opened and you're growing with age.

29:06 I'm growing with age and we can become the most Authentic version of ourselves. Yeah, and so like the best version of us Truly can lie ahead not because this part that part's probably not going to be the best version But that best internal version of who we really are It's so hopeful and when I see people go from I I don't want to get old to, I want to grow with age.

29:34 Yeah, I don't think that's okay. I think it's okay. Like, I don't think anybody wants to grow older. Right. I think that's okay to, you know, oh, I remember when I could just do something because I was young. I didn't have to warm up before I worked out or went for a run. You know, now when I go for a run, if I don't warm up, my knees hurt.

29:51 I did that yesterday. You know, where I used to just go for a run. I used to be like nothing, just put on my sneakers and start running. You know, I don't enjoy that and I would like that not to happen. Yeah. But if it's going to happen, if it's going to happen, then I'd rather grow with age than recede with age or not grow with age, remain stagnant with age.

30:07 Yes. I like that a lot. I'm going to start using that. And it is going to happen. You know, if we're lucky... We're going to be older adults. Yeah. So how did you even get into this? Like as a young sort of how old were you when you got into this profession? Like who says, you know what I'm going to do?

30:22 I'm going to study old people. Yeah. No old person decides to study old people. Young people decide to study old people. I was born into it. So on October 9th, my mom and dad had teenagers and they lived in LA in Pacific Palisades. And my mom's like, you know, I'm in my 40s. having menopause, going into the doctor to talk about my menopausal symptoms.

30:44 And the doctor said, oh sister, it is not menopause. It is another child. And so my dad had entirely gray hair when I was born. And when people would talk smack about older people as they do, I would hear it because my dad was old. He was 40 something. So, but, so I always had a heightened awareness.

31:07 And then one day I was at UCLA and a woman came as a guest lecturer and she said she was a gerontologist. How do you even spell that? Truly, truly. And so I got all excited and I applied to this program at USC and I didn't get in. So then I tried again and I, you know, did the program. And then, as I said, I worked for a long time.

31:37 in the darkest, most suffering parts to it until I realized that we can together, with taking all of us, we can have a better way. So you've literally been studying this since you were in school. I mean, this is your life's work, literally. I think about it constantly. Yeah. And I think it's really important to mention you went into it to help alleviate pain.

32:02 And you said you spent a lot of time with people at the end, at the worst. And you recognize it doesn't have to be this way. Right. And you saw someone like your mom. And it really doesn't. And it doesn't just require that you're going to have... perfect health and nothing hard is going to happen to you.

32:19 Every single life has, by its very nature, a lot of painful things. JoySpan is how you walk with the hard parts. I want to talk about this for a while. I want to go down this rabbit hole, which is, for various reasons, and we can talk about the reasons if we want, we've vilified the concept of pain. We have made struggle and hardship the enemy.

32:45 There's an irony in it, right? Because I don't think you can grow with age without taking some punches. Right. You know, you don't become a better fighter when you win all your fights. You become a better fighter when you've taken some punches. I think we forget the value of hardship and the value of pain.

33:02 I'll give you an extreme example. I believe that everything is about balance. Nature abhors a vacuum and seeks equilibrium at all times. And so if something good happens in our life, well, that came at a cost. Right. You should know that cost. And for some people, those costs are worth it. And some people there aren't.

33:21 But there's always a cost for the good that happens in our lives. And at the same time, when bad things happen, there's always something we get from it. There's a lesson or some something to be learned or become whatever it is. And so it's I what I found is that when I evaluate the costs of the good things that happen to me, it keeps me humble.

33:36 Yeah. and make sure that I don't get too seduced by the good things, because the costs go up. And at the same time, when bad things happen, and I'm not talking about in the short term, like when bad things happen, you mourn, you go through anger, you go through sadness. Absolutely. I'm not talking about find the good lesson the day it happens.

33:54 Right. You know, that's not fair. But at some point in a healthy amount of time being passed, you can say, okay, what did I get from this? A friend of mine who's in her early 40s had a stroke. And she was blind for a short period of time. It's been over a year. And I saw her recently. And I asked her, I prepped the question.

34:21 I said, I'm going to ask you a really uncomfortable question. And forgive me, given what's going on. But I'm really curious. I said, I know you don't like that you had a stroke, clearly. I know you never want to have another one. And you don't wish this upon anyone. I know that. But I'd like to know, if you said to yourself, I never want to go through this again and I wish it never happened, dot, dot, dot, but I'm glad it did.

34:47 I'd like to know what of this whole experience you're secretly glad because you got something from it. And she was great. She answered the question with vigor. She didn't think very long. She looked at me and she said, I'm a better person. She says, I like myself more. She goes, I used to be very judgmental.

35:09 I'm not so judgmental anymore. She said, I was impatient. She goes, I got all the patience in the world now. And she said, I'm kinder. I'm kinder to myself and I'm kinder to others. She goes, I like myself better now. And though I don't want to go through that again, and I wish I never went through it, I'm a better person because of it.

35:29 It's so beautiful. And that's my point, which is at some point after the hardship, the tragedy, the difficulty, I think it is right to ask myself the question, I wish this never happened, but I'm glad it did because, and it forces, it's a forcing mechanism to find goodness and joy and struggle. And I think we live in a world right now where discomfort is something to be actively avoided.

35:54 listening to what you're saying is making me emotional because you are putting words to what I have seen over and over again, which is really the impetus of the work. That life, it isn't a case of avoiding all pain. And I'm I just don't know any life that have that. And so that recognition of that pain is part of it.

36:23 And that in that pain, there is that equilibrium of what we've learned and what humans do with both the good things and the rougher things. And I, too, have a similar situation. One that I just learned about on my way driving here from Laguna Beach, and that is that my mom, who I was just talking about, they called and said that because she's in congestive heart failure, we need to make a decision about a surgery.

36:52 And they said it was something that we would do on Monday. almost 98. It is to be expected, but it is like, yes, this is how life does. It isn't wrong because it's hard or confusing or has some indignity. And then similarly, our daughter right before she was supposed to start for medical school was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

37:18 Again, not what anyone would wish for, not what we would ever expect. And yet when you ask those questions now, it's been two She wasn't able to go to that school. She needed to go to a different school next to her neurosurgeon. Way more empathy than she ever would have had. Way different trajectory.

37:40 So it isn't toxic positivity because we recognize that I don't want this. This stinks. This is hard. This is painful. This is lonely. And yet in that lies the beauty of what it means to be human and like what matters in life. is a lot more than your abs and your VO2 max. And I'm not asking people to be, it's not even a gratitude practice.

38:08 It's not like, I'm glad it happened. That's not what we're talking about. It's a forcing mechanism to recognize the balance, to recognize the equation. That's all it is. Anybody who's listening to this, I hope is sort of internalizing it and recognizing where we can make these tweaks to, in their lives and how we respond to hardship and difficulty.

38:25 But here's the bigger question, which is, how do we help another person grow with age? I want to hear your response, but I will offer one as well. So I think the first step is to recognize that being there for someone to like be with, I am with you. I'm, I am listening to you. I love you. I see your value, right?

38:55 You're not alone in it, right? That to me always feels like the first step when somebody comes to me, whether they're stuck or not stuck is, we want to start with, ugh, humans. And then in terms of how I view aging, is that we need to like put our mask on ourselves in the airplane. And so I have a lot of people you can imagine as a gerontologist, people will come to me because they want to fix someone else.

39:29 Like you got to tell my spouse, you got to tell my mother-in-law, you got to tell my mom, my dad. Starting with your own aging journey about you feeling like I'm stepping into it. I'm putting in the work to make the choice about reinventing what it means to myself to grow with age. Like we can start there because it seems like a movement starts with each person making the commitment.

40:03 And that maybe then, then the people that we're lucky enough to walk this life with will have some, instead of you, us diving in and commiserating, like, yeah, that sucks. My life sucks too. It sucks. It sucks. It sucks. It sucks. Aging is like that. You can go all day with the organ recital of what's not working, you know?

40:26 But I'm also curious with your perspective, how might we do that? I think there's two parts to it. And I think part one is the part you talked about, which is sitting in mud with somebody. Just sitting there. I'm with you. You're not going to go through this alone. Yes. I know it sucks. And not feeding it.

40:45 Yeah, screw him. You're like, yeah, it's like, yeah, you should. Like, it's not feeding it. It's just being like... Boy, that really, boy, that sucks. I can only imagine. You're like, wow, you know? And I'm not going anywhere. Yeah, and I'm not going anywhere. I think that's part one, absolutely. Okay.

41:00 I think part two is at some point, and I always do it with permission, asking permission to then give some truth. Can I share my, you know, I wouldn't recommend doing it on day one. Right. But, you know, at some point, say, can I say something? Can I make an observation? Can I make an observation that might be uncomfortable to hear?

41:22 And if they say, you know what, I don't want it. I'd be like, okay. But I always ask permission so that they're complicit in my observation. Because if they get mad at me in my observation, I'm like, hey, hey, hey. I asked and you said yes. So don't scream at me. Right? So the minute I make them complicit, they're actually on the journey with me, which is really their journey.

41:43 But to ask permission to say, can I make an observation that might be uncomfortable to hear? Get over yourself. Like, I hear you. What you went through was rough. You're not the first person to go through this. You're definitely not going to be the last person. But I've seen people do this better than you.

41:56 And I think you have a choice, which is you can continue to live your life in the rearview mirror. Or you can start focusing forwards. I actually just heard this the other day. The best life advice ever. There's only two directions. Forward and forward. You know? And I think at some point, slapping somebody around and being like, you know, because that's what I want.

42:20 Yeah, I would like you to give me that advice. Like I was putting myself in the position of your friend who needed to hear that. And yeah, my first reaction might be pissed and my second reaction would be convicted like. You're right. Yeah, or, and I told you my little trick, I know you never want this to happen again and you don't want it to happen, I got it, I got it.

42:43 However, deep down inside, finish this sentence. I wish this never happened, but I'm secretly glad it did because, you know? And that's, again, it's just a forcing mechanism. No matter how bad someone's situation, at some point, at some point, they can see value. And let's be honest, most of the bad stuff that we go through is relatively small stuff.

43:05 A breakup, a job loss, a fight, you know, lots of work, a plan not going according to plan, you know, loss of an aging loved one, but you know. Yes. I mean. It's nature. You know. Yeah, natural. Yes. You know, as they say in England, they had a good innings, you know. It's like we knew it was going to happen at some point.

43:28 Yes. It's not like somebody being tragically struck down in their 20s, right? That stuff is sort of normal. It's the unexpected stuff. that's the hardest to deal with. And most of us will only experiencing those things, hopefully, a handful of times in a lifetime. Yes. One, two, three, four at most of these horrible things that will happen in an entire lifetime.

43:52 And that pain is supposed to be part of it. Pain isn't like, it's not a mistake that you have some pain, ironically, right? I haven't ever met anyone who, like, there's been not one bit of pain. Like, I don't, I don't know anybody like that. I know young people like that. It's one of the reasons I think, you know, I have younger friends and I think they're amazing and they're wonderful.

44:13 But I could never be that guy that dates somebody, you know, half my age. Not because they're not wonderful and smart and fantastic and enjoy my company and I enjoy theirs. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And that's why they're my friends. You know, I have people who are half my age who are my friends and I love them and I love spending time with them.

44:31 But I can't learn from them. Not in the way I'm ready to learn. Right. I can learn stuff, of course I can learn stuff. They teach me stuff all the time, but I need to be around people also and who've been punched a couple times. Yes, exactly. And it sounds like you really are leaning into diversifying your social portfolio.

44:55 And there's so much, we talk about our financial portfolio, but that diversity of younger friends, yes. Older friends, yes. Yeah. And the only way that you make it through a life with enough social capital is to be very proactive in cultivating. I have a friend who has an incredibly high standard for his friends.

45:19 It's intimidating, but it's also quite inspiring. And after hearing him talk about it, he says, I don't want to spend any time with anyone who doesn't inspire me, lift me or help me grow in some way, shape or form. When I go home at the end, I want to be like, wow, that was really worth it. You know, I don't completely agree with him because I think he's diminishing like fun.

45:44 like sometimes I grow zero I'm inspired zero but I had fun you know um but I know what he means and I and I after after having that conversation with him I sort of I took a hard look at some of my friendships and I realized I had friendships in my life that were They were friendships of convenience or laziness.

46:06 It's a horrible thing to admit. Not that they're not, everybody's a good person in this, right? Otherwise I wouldn't spend time with them and they wouldn't spend time with me. But the reality is, and I'm not speaking for myself, there's no arrogance in this because I would say, they would say the same of me.

46:18 Which is, we spent time together and very little of it involved growth. The conversations were... fine there's a lot of lounging around you know um and i think we filled space for each other to not be by ourselves which has value but but if given the choice of how i spend time and when time is the greatest commodity that we can give to someone i found myself sort of reevaluating some of my friendships.

46:55 And the irony is those friendships are such loose bonds anyway, that by divesting a little bit of energy, you find out that they just kind of, and nobody's angry. It's just like, it's proof that it wasn't worth fighting for on either side because neither person fought for it. And whether they disengage from me or I disengage from them, the other person didn't respond by doubling down on like, where have you been?

47:17 I miss you. Yes. You know? Yes. It just didn't happen. What I'm learning now, I'll be 57, and it's that I need to step up and be a better friend, a more proactive friend, more like, it's so much a verb of friending, of like really going, I'm thinking about you, I'm choosing you, you're choosing me. It should feel special.

47:47 And this is my new work. My work is the verb of friending, to friend. This is what the work we do. I didn't know that. Yeah, that's literally the book I'm writing, which is how to friend. We're crap at it. Yes. And we don't know how to do friendship. Yes. We have therapists to help us have marriages, and we have coaches to help us at work to be leaders, and we have nothing to help us do the act of friending.

48:11 So I'm trying to write about it and learn about it. I think you're 100% right. I can't wait for that book. And it's a book that will like all lifelong because the biggest predictor is these connections that we have. I mean, that's the big like the Ozembic of longevity is friendship. Right. Yeah. If we could put it into a shot, we would all be running around doing that.

48:34 And to say, how do we do it? Am I putting enough into it? I think friendship is the third leg of the stool of your joy span. Yes. Right? Because if I say the first leg is my romantic partnership, and whether you call that lifespan, the point is there's lots of data, there's lots of work, there's lots of...

48:59 available help, you know, to help you make your romantic relationship successful as possible. Then the third one, the second one is professional. And that would be your, you know, your health span. Again, lots of data, lots of stuff on how to like build a career, find the job that fits you. And then you get to the third one, which is joy span and friendship.

49:17 And there's so little information and so little data and so hard to measure. And we don't even know when it's good and when it's not. And yet you need all three legs of the stool to live a fulfilled and happy life. Yes. And I want you to be romantically successful. I want you to be professionally successful.

49:31 I want you to be friendshiply successful. But we don't talk about the friendship part. Right. It is the exact equation of your joy span. Yes. And it is hard to measure. And we take it for granted. And it's usually the afterthought or something that happens by accident. We're clumsy about it. But we don't do work.

49:47 Yeah. We don't work for it. I sometimes try to use that. Robin Dunbar was a scholar with the Dunbar circles. And it has the center and then consecutive rings outward. And then you write who is closest, who is out. And I do that exercise for myself. And I do it with other people. And I think... Man, we have a long way to go because we don't know.

50:10 We can't even think of the people, where they go, what we're doing. I mean, we are so hungry for it. Yeah. Okay, good. And let's combine now all these conversations, which is when we go through hardship in our romantic relationships, we work hard to fix it. When we go through hardship in our professional relationships, we work hard to fix them.

50:29 When we go through hardship in our friendships, we abandon the friendship. Yes. And so there's the value of hardship in friendship as well. So I am not equating those friendships that maybe we should reevaluate with whether they have difficulty. I'm not talking about constantly difficult. That's different.

50:48 But that friendships that run into violations of trust, you know, just like we have violations of trust in professional and romantic relationships, doesn't mean they're irreparable. It means that the foundation has been shaken, but there is such thing called repair. Yes. If you think it's worth it. like which relationships, like kind of the metrics of them, because which are the ones that you go, I will go to the mat.

51:17 We will do this our whole 100 year lives or ones where you go, no, this is better because, you know, I think I hardly have the vocabulary for it because we need it so bad. And I think you are the one to give us that. And this circles exactly back to what we were talking about with growing with age. And the reason for that is that every funeral I go to is talking about the quality of their friendships.

51:45 Really, when it comes down to it. Look at that. They are going, you know, family relationships, work relationships, chosen people moments. We were on the river. We were laughing. We were. You're exactly right. Don't you want to be the person that the family chooses, that the family asks you to give a eulogy?

52:05 Yes. Like, don't you want to be, don't you want to have so much value in someone's life? that the family asks you to give a eulogy. Yes, yes. Like that's a good standard for a friendship, right? It really is. So let me change, everybody who's 40 plus, 50 plus listening to this, they're tuned in. I've lost everybody who's 20 or 30 listening to this.

52:30 We're talking about old people, right? We're talking about old people trying to get the most out of their lives before they croak, right? That's what we're talking about. That is the subject. Us. Oh yeah. I mean, this is a subject that people who are approaching their mortality, who are closer to the age they're going to die than the age they were born.

52:45 Like, we're having these conversations because that's our life, right? Somebody who's in their 30s, this is the most I don't even know if they're still listening. It's like asking somebody, you know, to start saving money on their first. Like nobody thinks about the future. Right. Right. Like how do we how is this conversation?

53:05 You've had these conversations, which is why I'm asking you. Like, how do I frame this? How do we frame this topic so that someone in their 20s and 30s is actually thinking about the stuff that we're talking about seriously? This is what I think is changing. I think that we, older people, are stepping into it.

53:25 And we are putting our shoulders back and leaning into this and showing that we are dancing, we are making friends, we are laughing, we are learning new things. And you think about how isolated and lonely younger people feel. So these same principles, it isn't like a them thing. And us young and old kind of thing, like investing in our quality of life and recognizing that it's an inside job that has a choice and that has work.

53:57 And in the same way that investing in our weightlifting, if you do a little bit every day, you're going to have a different trajectory. The same thing is true in terms of a quality of life. There are known things that... that you can do that the earlier you start, you're going to improve your quality of life.

54:13 There we go. That's it. That's what it is. That's the thing. That's the great unifier, that regardless of our age, we want a high quality of life. Yes. And high quality of life includes lifespan, health span, and joy span. And all young people already aware of lifespan and health span because we've had it from gym class.

54:39 And everybody knows what eating healthy is, whether we do it or not. But joy span is the thing that improves the quality of life dramatically yes dramatically more it's the third it's the third leg of the stool yes and it'll give more there's this word again if you have the third leg of the stool then you have more balance yes in your life there's that word again exactly and it's like when people say what is it even it is love and meaning and purpose.

55:10 And like you called it the intangibles, but they're harder to measure, but they really, and there is some MIT age lab has created a fulfillment index that they're starting to use in some doctor's office in like Humana's center. Well had as putting this forward so we can just start to talk about these things that were more than just And I think being tangible about it, right?

55:35 Because though they are called the intangibles, if you can put some meat on the bone, if you can help people see the thing, I think that you're right. So what we mean by quality of life is living a life that includes love and purpose and meaning. Giving. And service and wanting and being wanted. Yes.

56:01 In the book, I divided them into four things and I really made them verbs because I wanted people to know that they take work. And so the analogy is with your body, we also divide it into four things, which is physical strength, cardiovascular health, balance and equilibrium training. And so in the internal part, we talk about connecting with other humans, understanding.

56:25 adapting to these changes that come that you didn't want or what we've talked about as the pain part of it. Which happened at all ages. Absolutely. And then this incredible piece that giving, like recognizing that you have something to give and the corollary of giving, which is receiving. Like that ability to receive that because we all have times and we're giving the gift of giving and then that last one of growing so all lifelong to grow and to ask yourself in what way am i growing as a person and that is something people who that I work with who enjoy their lives at a hundred are doing those four things.

57:06 Say them again. Say them again. Okay. So they, and again, I wish they had such a lovely acronym, but it starts with a G and ends with a G. So we got that going. Okay. The middle two are CA. We live in California. Okay. It's not great. Okay. So the first G is growing. And then? Connecting. adapting and giving.

57:28 Okay. And no particular order, just do all of them at some point. It's like arms, legs, you know, core, but it doesn't matter the order to just do them. Exactly. Same thing. And that there are, they are small, that these practices are small little practices, giving, connecting, adapting and growing. Yes, this is like an utter dream come true to get people talking and thinking about it so that we can not just say, oh, we're so weird about aging.

57:54 It's so bad how we treat people. And the tragedy isn't that we're growing older. It's that we've made it humiliating and less than and awful. When in fact, we can put the work in to redefine what it means to be old. Thanks so much for coming on. I've learned so much. I just absolutely love the term growing with age.

58:20 I'm fully embracing that. I am too. I'm so grateful. I already know there's a list of friends I'm going to call. I'll be like, you're going to love this. This is great. Thank you so, so much. I really appreciate you coming on. What a joy. Thank you very much. A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company, lovingly produced by our team, Phoebe Bradford and Devin Johnson.

58:42 Subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. And if you want even more cool stuff, visit simonsynic.com. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.