Who Wins the Diet-versus-Exercise Longevity Debate? Let’s Call It a Draw.

January 10, 2023

It’s nice to be back from my two-week writing sabbatical. I doubt I’ll do that again – I hope the rust isn’t apparent with this first article of 2023.

I got some pushback from a few readers on my 12/6/2022 post (see here) in which I claim diet to be the biggest determinant of a longer, healthier life.

Exercise, they claim, is more important than diet.

My argumentive side is inclined to invoke the Jim Fixx story to illustrate otherwise. You remember him – the guy credited with helping start America’s fitness revolution by popularizing the sport of running. Fixx claimed that diet mattered not if you exercised enough. He was a 240 lb, two-pack-a-day smoker before he became a runner. Despite losing 70 pounds, Fixx continued with a marginal diet, espousing that it didn’t matter what he ate.

He died of a heart attack at 52 after a morning run. The three main arteries leading to his heart were almost completely blocked with plaques, and his other arteries were filled with plaques as well.

But wait, why argue –

-over two things that both contribute to healthy longevity? How ’bout we avoid either-or thinking and go with both-and?

I’ve revealed my hand on what I think is most important. But let’s look at the arguments in favor of the other side.

Here’s a quote from a young man I follow on Medium.com, Gunnar De Winter:

“The closest thing we have to an anti-aging pill is not some fancy supplement, but physical activity. Exercise keeps your blood, your brain, and everything in between young, down to the (epi)genetic level.”

But what is the optimal level of exercise. That’s where it gets interesting – and challenging for us generally sedentary second-halfers.

You might want to sit down for this:

An article in Springer Open addresses “optimal” exercise for longevity, stating the following: (the bolding is mine):

Regular physical activity (PA) represents the most important lifestyle component associated with cardiorespiratory fitness, healthy aging and longevity. In order to induce general health benefits, public health guidelines recommend, beside strength and balance exercises, at least 150–300 min of PA at moderate aerobic intensity or 75–150 min at vigorous intensity per week [1, 2]. Much more engagement in PA, however, is necessary to achieve maximal benefits on longevity [3]. For instance, a large prospective cohort study demonstrated maximal longevity gains at about 700 min of moderate or 350 min of vigorous PA per week [4]. The accomplishment of this objective is challenging in particular when considering that even minimal PA recommendations are difficult to achieve in the aging populatio

Raise your hand if you can get motivated to find 100 minutes a day for moderate exercise or 50 minutes a day for vigorous exercise.

It’s a tall order for all of us. But the benefits are well documented.

My unassailable weekly exercise regimen amounts to about 550 minutes/9.2 hours of combined vigorous and moderate exercise. It seems like a lot until you think of it as a % of your week:

9.2/168 = 5.4% of my week.

I don’t find 5% to be much of a sacrifice in order to feel good and mostly pain-free every day and enhance the chances of putting more years in my life along with more life in my years.

Borrow 11% of average TV viewing time.

Ken Dychtwald’s research for his book “What Retirees Want” A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age” revealed that the average retiree in the U.S. spends 49 hours watching television.

If exercise is, in fact, the most important thing we can do to live a longer and healthier life, it wouldn’t seem to be too great a sacrifice to rechannel a bit of that sedentary habit into moderate or vigorous exercise.

I don’t think twice about 5% of my week going to exercise because it’s so ingrained as a habit I started nearly 40 years ago.

If it ain’t on the calendar (mental or physical) it ain’t gonna happen. It never leaves my mental calendar.

I know vigorous exercise isn’t for everybody in my cohort. I’m still waiting for another octogenarian to join me in the deadlift area at Lifetime Fitness.

It’s never too late to start, but always too early to quit.

There’s no arguing that statement.

Nor is there logic in arguing which is best – diet or exercise.

Let’s table the argument and max out with both.

What’s your exercise regimen look like? What works for you? What can we learn from you about how you come down on diet versus exercise? Leave a comment or drop a note to gary@makeagingwork.com. If you haven’t joined the Makeagingwork tribe, trip on over to www.makeagingwork.com and sign up to receive a free article each week on the topic of successful aging, longevity lifestyle planning, and health & wellness for folks over 50.

Happy Holidays!!

December 13, 2022

Photo by Clint Patterson on Unsplash

Thanks for being a reader and for all your feedback. I appreciate you and hope 2023 is your best. I’m gonna make it my best. So I’m taking some time away from Make Aging Work for a few weeks to refresh and rejuvenate and let that fatty acid clump between my temples settle down and defrag (remember that word?)

See you back here on January 9th.

“The secret to living well and longer is: eat half, walk double, laugh triple, love without measure” Tibetan proverb

The Single, Most Important Thing You Can Change to Ensure a Longer and Healthier Life.

December 6, 2022

If we simply look at the stats behind the most prevalent lifestyle habits that cause early death, we have to come down on diet as the one most responsible for shortening our lives.

As this chart points out, the combination of poor diet with inactivity has now surpassed smoking/tobacco as the main cause.

Choosing to change our diet to one that is more plant-based with lowered intake of meat and dairy is most likely the one habit that will contribute the most to a longer and healthier life.

Check out the many excellent articles and videos on this topic available from Dr. Michael Greger at www.nutritionfacts.org.

There are those who would argue that exercise is the one thing that would have the most impact. I would argue to the contrary, but submit that the combination of a nutritional diet and a disciplined exercise program is the best one-two punch for a longer healthier life.

I can use personal experience to substantiate the claim that exercise alone is inadequate.

I smoked for 18 years until age 37 at which time I quit and truly became a gym rat, an exercise devotee. However, I didn’t change my diet away from the Standard American Diet (SAD) of calorie-dense, processed foods, and was not into fruits and vegetables. I became aware of the need for a diet change (with help from my Weight Watcher-devoted wife) in my late-50s.

Since then, it has evolved to a diet more balanced with significant levels of fruits, vegetables, and lean meat or fish. I’ve also reduced dairy, but confess that butter is still too tempting to avoid altogether. (I rationalize that by cooking vegetables in butter).

At age 73, at the suggestion of my primary care doctor, I had a carotid and heart scan simply as a precaution since I had never had one. Despite being in great physical condition, the heart scan revealed that I was in the high-risk category for cardiovascular disease(CVD) with the scan showing significant artery calcification.

Fortunately, subsequent nuclear stress and echo stress tests revealed that the calcification was “distributed” and was not causing significant blood flow issues. Fortunately, my left anterior descending artery (LAD), commonly known as the “widow maker” appears to be clear. I am lucky – I can continue my six-day-a-week exercise and strength-training regimen.

But the message was clear. My previous 5–6 decades of naivete about diet and my generally poor eating habits had contributed to this condition. I’m confident that I have stopped the progression of the calcification with my diet change and with my exercise program.

But, have I reversed it?

There are some who claim that CVD can be reversed (see Dr. Dean Ornish or Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn). Their evidence-based positions call for going totally vegan. I tried it and found it to be too much for me. So I’ve become a “flexitarian” with reduced animal-based products and a diet heavy on fruits and vegetables.

You may have heard of the story of Jim Fixx, the famous long-distance runner credited with helping start America’s fitness revolution by popularizing the sport of running and demonstrating the health benefits of regular jogging. Fixx had a family history of heart disease yet refused to change his diet away from heavy animal-based foods, claiming that what you eat is irrelevant as long as you maintained a high level of aerobic exercise. He died at 51 of a massive heart attack while on a run. The autopsy revealed that atherosclerosis had blocked one coronary artery 95%, a second 85%, and a third 70%.

So, diet is where I would focus first if health and longevity is your goal.

Be aware that we are up against formidable foes in being able to maintain a nutritional diet. Our food industry doesn’t care about our health and produces mostly C-R-A-P (calorie-rich-and-processed) foods. The industry has done a masterful job of taking our taste buds captive with their creative combinations of unhealthful components – sugar, salt, and fat.

Plus, we love our restaurants where the calorie content is 20–40% higher and the sugar-salt-fat content is higher than meals cooked at home.

Put that together with a healthcare system in which doctors receive no training on nutrition and care little about what we eat, you see that we are sort of in this boat alone when it comes to sustaining our good health.

We can keep it simple.

Protect the liver,feed the gut. That’s the advice of endocrinologist, Dr. Robert Lustig, from his highly educational book “Metabolical.” More simply stated, he’s saying eliminate the sugar and increase the fiber.
Ratchet up your exercise. Try to get to 300 minutes of aerobic and anaerobic exercise per week.
Find a purpose for your life. Don’t let loneliness and isolation creep in – they are killers too.
Never stop learning. And make understanding how the body and mind work part of that learning.

Not a lot of magic here. Put the odds in your favor with this simple plan.

Are Millennials and GenXer’s More Prepared Than Previous Generations for Retirement? Probably Not? So What?

November 29, 2022

I’m not sure how many in my subscriber tribe fall in the GenX or millennial age category. I’m guessing not the majority. Regardless, I’m forging forward with this message because it also has relevancy for us modern elders.

Statistics are revealing that the millennial and GenX generations are less financially prepared for retirement than previous generations. Here’s a chart that supports that:

The chart sends off some pretty scary signals if you are stacking it up against the still prevalent view of where one should be to experience traditional, full-stop retirement.

Here are some headlines from a Business Insider article quoting a Boston University economist who warns that GenXers and millennials will be facing a “retirement crisis.”

- Over half of Gen Z and millennials could enter retirement with insufficient savings, says a Boston University economist.
- With inflation rising, the magic number for a comfortable retirement could be close to $3 million.
- Working later in life to catch up on savings might not be a tenable solution.

The article goes on to suggest that, while $1 million has long been considered the “magic number for retirement savings”, for late GenXers and millennials that number should be closer to $3 million.

Chew on that for a second and do the math.

So, you’re 30 and have $37K in the bank. A well-meaning financial planner suggests that you should find an occupation and adjust to a lifestyle that will enable you to accumulate that $3M over the next 35 years (he/she probably still holds the number 65 as sacrosanct).

That’s too much math for me to calculate, but I’m comfortable suggesting that you will need to start saving somewhere around $2500-$3000 per month.

Uh – have fun with that!

Even if you are a slug and settle for a mere $1 million, the number is still a lifestyle-destroying number.

That’s why the retirement story is changing.

Although far too many of us pre-boomers and boomers continue to infer it, GenXers and millennials aren’t stupid. They are very aware. Many are looking at the consequences of previous generations’ commitment to the 20th-century linear life model of Learn – Earn – Retire – Die and deciding they want no part of it.

They are realizing it isn’t about the numbers, but about the lifestyle. They see no logic in a model that suggests 30–40 years of busting your hump and sacrificing health and relationships to achieve a number to support what, for far too many, is a retirement that is shorter than expected and full of health challenges as a result of the stress and poor lifestyle habits built into this old model.

Traditional, full-stop retirement is dying –

-and GenXer and millennials are helping drive the demise.

There is a growing “never retire” movement beginning to develop that eschews traditional retirement in favor of a life plan that calls for retiring into a lifestyle early in life doing what you enjoy most, are good at, that brings value to the world and the community, that supports their financial needs, and that they can do late into old age if they choose.

Call it a “never retire” model.

Yep, it’s totally antithetical and counter-cultural. But, it recognizes that the Learn-Earn-Retire-Die model worked 50 years ago, but makes no sense now. Learning and earning can be spread over the lifetime and in a way that is more fulfilling, less stressful, less selfish, less self-indulgent, and more in step with how our lifespans and healthspans are changing.

So, yes GenXers and millennials are less prepared for the archaic, traditional retirement model but are growing in their awareness of a more sensible, logical, relevant model that puts lifestyle and experience ahead of money and puts them on a path for a longer, healthier, and more fulfilling lifespan.

Should we be taking notes?

The reality is that lots of us modern elders – especially the younger boomers who missed the internet boom – aren’t financially prepared to support our extended life spans. Check out that $280K average retirement savings for the 65+ in the chart above. That may get us a lifetime of bingo and backgammon, but not much else.

Sorry, Mabel – the Norwegian cruise is off the table.

Maybe it’s not too late for us to listen to these youngers and jettison the retirement mindset and consider the never-retire option. I’ve been giving semi-retirement a go for almost two decades now balancing labor, leisure, and learning and it feels increasingly comfortable as the years advance.

But, no one wants to be me – including me more days than I wish to admit.

I’ll keep rolling with this model until the parts give out.

Maybe those behind us are onto something!

Whaddayathink about this? We’d love to have your two cents worth – or more. Leave us a comment or shoot an email to gary@makeagingwork.com.

I’m Still Alive Because I Traded COPD for CPD.

November 22, 2022

On June 5, 1979, I was on track for COPD – chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

I had been a serious smoker for 18 years. I’m talking 2-packs-a-day in Marlboro country for nearly two decades.

On June 6, 1979, I jumped off that track and opted, instead, for CPD – continuous personal development.

A cigarette or cigar has not touched my lips since.

Had I not jumped, I don’t believe I would be writing this today, at 80, having just completed a brisk 30-minute walk and a touch of strength training in my office with my adjustable kettlebell and exercise bands.

Between 6/6/79 and today, I watched my father and an uncle die of COPD. I am now witnessing its devastation play out with my sister.

All were multi-decade smokers.

Slow, creeping, irreversible suffocation is at the absolute bottom of the list of the ways I want to leave this planet.

We didn’t know better.

My formative years were in rural southeast Wyoming. In the 1940s and 1950s, smoking was not only accepted but it was also touted as healthy by doctors, dentists, actors.

I remember an ad for Lucky Strikes showing wounded veterans from the Korean War in a hospital ward smoking with the message that Luckies were an important part of their recovery.

Demonstrating a heavy dose of hypocrisy and naivete during high school, I would only smoke during the summer and not during school because of athletics. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t good.

But it was cool back then. And cool, as an adolescent, was important – just as it is today.

We didn’t know better, I guess. It was 1964 before the Surgeon General issued a general report citing health risks associated with smoking and 34 more years of denial and stonewalling by the tobacco industry before they admitted culpability and ponied up a $264 billion “settlement.”

It was hard, hard, hard!

If you’ve been a smoker, you know how hard it is to quit.

It took enrollment in an 8-week program called SmokeEnders (now offered online) for me to quit – along with the ever-present and openly expressed concern from my wife and two elementary school-aged children.

I remember that nearly half the SmokeEnders class of 40 had some level of emphysema and were there on doctor’s orders. Very few of these extreme cases were able to quit and most dropped out.

But, I was ready. I had already started running and knew that this had to happen. The class was the catalyst for me. And helped launch me into a four-decade Continuous Personal Development (CPD) process.

CPD is a big bucket.

6/6/1979 kickstarted an evolutionary process of personal development that continues today. What started as smoking cessation and an increase in physical activity has evolved into a deep commitment to continuous mental, physical, social, and spiritual growth.

I’ll offer up a few things I’ve learned on this non-stop journey:

Takeaway #1:

It’s never too late to start to improve; it’s always too early to quit.

CPD is age-independent. I push myself at each workout. I’m striving to get better every day at my writing. I still read a book a week and have for over 15 years. I’m learning that not knowing is more important than whatever I do know and that I’ll always be behind.

Takeaway #2:

With very few exceptions, we are born with a birthright of health and bodies and minds with amazing resilience and recuperative powers.

Just as my lungs returned to normal after 15 years, nearly all of the parts of this magnificent collection of cells will recuperate from mistreatment or accident when given the right tools. Collectively, we’re not very good at knowing what those tools are, or, if we do, we fail to use them.

Takeaway #3:

Culture is not our friend.

We’re persuaded to compare and seek comfort, convenience, and quick fixes. We choose a Snapchat/Instagram world where comparison sneaks in to rob us of joy. We are drawn away from our natural selves and give up our individuality in order to conform.

Takeway #4

We’re on our own to protect our birthright of physical and mental health.

A healthcare system that can’t/won’t spell prevention. A food industry that delights in our naivete and in destroying our livers and pancreases. A pharmaceutical industry that rides profitably on the backs of both. An entertainment industry that dulls our brains and steals 5+ hours of our time daily with mountains of drivel. All foes of CPD.

CPD is hard too.

CPD isn’t convenient. It’s often uncomfortable. It’s easy to abandon.

I had trouble giving up the Marlboro’s because there was a strong physical addiction as well as deeply ingrained habit patterns.

My goal is to strive to entrench my CPD in the same way while I give thanks that it stepped in for the COPD.

Do you have a 6/6/1979 in your story? Tell us about it. Leave a comment below for others to see. We’d love to hear from you on this topic.

We’re Approaching a Tipping Point – Start Saving Yourself Now!

November 15, 2022

Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay

Should this headline concern you?

Kaiser Permanente reports $1.5B Q3 loss

How ’bout these reports?

Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health (the largest Catholic health system, and the second-largest nonprofit hospital chain in the United States) reported a $1.3 billion operating loss for the 12-months end on June 30.

Ascension, based in St. Louis (a private healthcare system ranking second in the United States by number of hospitals) also reported a $1.8 billion loss for the fiscal year’s end in June.

Or this:

Third-quarter payer (insurance) profits:

UnitedHealth Group: $5.3 billion, up over 28 percent
Cigna: $2.8 billion, up over 70 percent

Third-quarter provider profits:

HCA Healthcare: $1.13 billion, down over 50 percent
Trinity Health: $1.4 billion in 2022 losses, down over 135 percent

These have come in the last couple of weeks from a leading healthcare newsletter, Becker’s Healthcare.

I don’t expect you’d have much reason to tune into Becker’s. I do because I’ve been swimming in the shallow end of the hospital pool for over 18 years, as a (former) executive healthcare recruiter, career coach, and, currently, as a coach, resume writer, and online presence (LinkedIn) expert for healthcare executives.

So, what’s the big deal?

Many big businesses suffer swings in profitability. Most recover, some fade away.

How might this scenario be different?

Look, my crystal ball has resulted in me eating a lot of broken glass, so consider the source for what follows. I’m going to suggest that we, of evolving “modern elder” status, be alert.

Alert to what?

It seems COVID-19 may be forcing us to be honest by exposing many of the inherent weaknesses in our healthcare system – a money-driven, often counter-productive sick-care system built on cure and a model more and more experts – even those running it – are saying can’t sustain.

It’s also a model that isn’t addressing the mind-blowing deterioration of the health of the U.S. population.

It’s a system that won’t dare utter words “prevention” or “upstream”, both antonyms and anathemas to a model built on “cure” and “downstream.”

You’re on your own. Save yourself!!

I’ve been camped on that theme for the last five years but now I’m more than a little hyped up about the importance of knowledge-based self-care.

Operating on the fringes of the U.S. healthcare system for nearly twenty years has connected me with some of the brightest, most driven, selfless, dedicated, overworked, and under-appreciated people on the planet.

Healthcare professionals are some of the hardest-working and most committed people you will ever encounter. Hundreds of conversations with C-level hospital and medical practice executives over the last several years have informed me of the incredibly complex and daunting challenges they face.

I was once told that a hospital is the most complex organism on the planet to manage – perhaps as complicated as trying to run the military.

It’s herding cats at its best.

Yet, faced with incredible challenges, these execs show up every day, problem-solve, herd the cats, and help save lives.

They don’t complain.

They forge on –

-even aware they are steering a ship that is starting to sink, rapidly.

Are we finally going to be honest-

-about how busted our ~~healthcare~~ sick-care system is? If Harvard Health says it busted, it must be busted.

Here are some additional insights published recently by Becker’s Healthcare Review. Please note the portions I’ve bolded.

“Healthcare systems in the U.S. have had a challenging year, and they are on track for their worst financial year in decades, according to an Oct. 25 report from Health Affairs.

Dramatic margin fluctuations have characterized 2022, and U.S. hospitals are still operating substantially below pre-pandemic levels. Most metrics improved month-over-month in August as revenues and expenses climbed compared to July. However, most organizations are in poor shape with a negative operating margin, according to the report.

Several factors suggest hospital margins will continue to face challenges in the coming years. The labor shortage is noted as the primary driver for rising hospital costs. Nursing labor is a critical point as the report indicates hospitals have lost about 105,000 employees, and nursing vacancies have more than doubled. In response, hospitals have relied on expensive contract nurses and extended overtime hours, which caused labor costs to surge. The national nursing shortage is a continuing problem as a substantial segment of the labor force is approaching retirement, and the shortage of new nurses is projected to reach 450,000 by 2025.

Payment rates will eventually adjust to rising costs, which are likely to occur slowly and unevenly, according to the report. Medicare rates, adjusted annually based on inflation, are projected to undershoot hospital costs and are expected to widen the gap between costs and payments.

Economic uncertainty and the threat of recession are expected to create continued disruptions in patient volumes. While healthcare has been referred to as “recession-proof,” high-deductible healthcare plans and more aggressive cost-sharing mechanisms have exposed patients to costs, making them more likely to weigh them against other household expenditures.

Combined, these factors suggest that the current financial pressures are unlikely to resolve in the short term.”

Consider these comments from Scott Galloway, Clinical Professor at NYU Stern School of Business, in a recent blog post:

“The U.S. Healthcare industry is a wounded 7-ton seal, drifting aimlessly, bleeding into the sea. Predators are circling. The blood in the water is an unearned margin: price increases, relative to inflation, without a concomitant improvement in quality. Amazon is the lurking megalodon, its 11-foot jaws and 7-inch teeth the largest in history. With the acquisition of One Medical, Amazon is no longer circling…but attacking.”

Professor Galloway allows facts to speak for themselves (you may want to read his full blog here):

Per capita, U.S. healthcare spending went from $2,968 in 1980 to $12,531 in 2020 (both in 2020 dollars), resulting in an industry with 13% of the nation’s workers and total spending accounting for a fifth of U.S. GDP.

Two-thirds of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. result from sick-care issues (medical expenses and time off work).

Forty percent of adults in the U.S. have delayed or gone without needed sick care because it’s too expensive.

The U.S. has one of the highest infant mortality rates among developed nations.

Professor Galloway concludes with this summary opinion;

“No industry has better demonstrated the dis-economies of scale. If we received the same return on our healthcare spending as other countries, we’d all live to 100 without getting sick … U.S. healthcare is the worst value in modern history.”

U.S. healthcare is the worst value in modern history precisely because it is not healthcare – it is overburdened sick care.

Regardless of age, now is the time to start elevating our self-care knowledge, take charge of our health, put better habits in place, and jettison the mindset that says there is always someone that can come and save us from our poor lifestyle habits.

Nobody’s coming.

They’ll just wait in their inefficient hospital or medical office buildings for you to wade through all the paperwork and languish in the waiting room to get 15 minutes to be told which drug or surgery is appropriate to treat your “downstream” issue.

But, wait – what about Amazon, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart?

They all are getting into the healthcare business to provide primary care services. Doesn’t that change things?

Don’t be deceived. Follow the money. Do these companies do anything that doesn’t appease shareholders?

They are the sharks in the water circulating this bleeding hulk and see the opportunity to take their vast technology experience and put it to work to streamline an inefficient system.

It doesn’t change the brokenness because it remains a sick-care system. These companies see the opportunity to get you in and out of that 15-minute cure-based system faster and tap that government/insurance cash cow quicker.

More people in and out quickly and directed to the drug counter twenty steps away. Aside from Amazon, is it a coincidence that the other three are dominant players in the retail pharmacy world?

Pills – the other, and incredibly profitable, side of this mess – riding on the backs of its brokenness.

Costs are going to continue to go up, service and availability will decline.

Physicians are burning out and retiring out. Medical school enrollments are down.

So are the nurses. Fewer young people are made of the stuff that it takes to be a nurse and fewer are showing interest in the profession.

We’ve built monoliths (see picture at the top) that can’t sustain in the long run.

You and I are suckers if we don’t get smarter about our lifestyles.

The mission? Simple – stay out of the doctor’s office. Be proactive about your health, not reactive. Avoid this broken system.

Let your 24×7, 35 trillion-cell immune system do its thing. Give it what it needs to keep you out of this busted system. Our bodies and minds are incredibly resilient with amazing recuperative powers, but they need our help to provide the raw materials.

Eliminate UPFs (ultra-processed foods) and sugar.
Increase fiber intake.
Increase weekly exercise to 300 minutes, including some rigorous strength training.
Challenge your brain – learn to dance, learn another language, join a chess club, take up the guitar
Expand your social network, including hanging out with younger people.
Infuse your longevity bonus with something purposeful.

Set your sails to take advantage of the emerging longevity revolution and design a longevity lifestyle that keeps you out of this system.

Take charge – be the CEO of your health.

Are You a “Modern Elder?” Take This Test and Find Out.

November 8, 2022

By now, you know I’m a big fan of Chip Conley, author, entrepreneur, and founder of the Modern Elder Academy.

His book “Wisdom @ Work: The Making of a Modern Elder” was a top read for me in 2019 and led me to write about the Modern Elder concept a few times:

Chip has a daily newsletter that I follow. He recently sent out a “quiz” to test how we stack up against the Modern Elder criteria. I’m sharing it here so you can take it and test yourself to see where you fall.

Straight from his weekly newsletter:

Here are 10 affirmative statements. Rate yourself as a 0 if the statement doesn’t resonate with you. Give yourself a half-point if it feels right to you, but it’s not an enthusiastic “yes.” And give yourself 1 point per statement if you feel a full-body yes.

Outside of my family, I am often in environments where I am the oldest or one of the oldest, and I don’t hide my age.

I am both a lifelong learner and a “long-life learner,” someone who wants to live a life that’s as deep and meaningful as it is long.

I enjoy growing older, and I believe my best work and life are ahead of me.

I feel like my ego is no longer my primary operating system, and I have a growing stirring in my soul.

I have developed an active practice of cultivating and harvesting wisdom based on metabolizing my life experiences, and I can teach others to do the same.

I love becoming a new beginner at something and am endlessly curious.

I believe my emotional intelligence has grown, and I’m less reactive than I was ten years ago.

I have moved from the accumulation stage of my life to the editing stage. I am good at ending projects, relationships, mindsets, and distractions that don’t feel nourishing or allow me to serve others effectively.

People tell me that I’m a great mentor and a conduit for wisdom. I would be honored to be called a “wisdom worker” instead of a “knowledge worker.”

I no longer define myself based on my achievements, image, status, or power, as I’m more focused on my purpose and legacy. The sentence “I am what survives me” defines my life today.

Of course, depending on the day, your answers may differ. Your tabulated score will run from 0 to 10.

If you scored from 0 to 5, you’re probably not a modern elder yet, so you might focus on those statements in which you scored yourself a 0 and ask, “How might I develop habits or practices that allow me to feel more affirmative about this characteristic?”

If you scored above a 5 and below an 8, you’re a budding modern elder, and you might find MEA’s programming perfectly timed for where you are in your life as a prep school for modern elderhood.

If you scored an 8 or above, who knows, you might be teaching at MEA someday. If you haven’t experienced our in-person or online programs, start with that and begin documenting the ways you’re developing your curiosity and wisdom.

I gave myself a 9. Not sure my roommate would agree, but I felt pretty good with it.

How did you rate yourself? What areas do you feel strongest about? Where do you need the most work? Let us know with a comment below.

How Does Age Affect Multitasking Ability? You’ll learn it doesn’t work!

November 1, 2022

Photo by Rodnae Productions on Pexels

The ability of humans to multitask is largely a myth. Neuroscience tells us that our ability to multitask is virtually non-existent.

The term multitask came from the computer world. It’s what a computer does well with multiple processors moving quickly back and forth across functions at great speed. Still, the individual functions are being done linearly.

We can’t truly multitask since we only have one processor. We can’t do it. Yes, we can chew gum and walk but those are autonomous functions we’ve done so often that the brain doesn’t have to think about doing them.

Trying to do two non-autonomous functions at once doesn’t work. To sit at your desk trying to do multiple things is a waste of time. People who claim to be multitaskers may have the ability to jump from one task to another and back without losing track, but it takes a lot of effort, wastes a lot of time, and sacrifices productivity.

In his best-selling book “The One Thing”, author and entrepreneur Gary Keller points out that:

“- multitasking is a lie” and that “the truth is multitasking is neither efficient nor effective. In the world of results, it will fail you every time.”

Or, as author Steve Uzzell states:

“Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time..”

So, if we accept that we can’t truly multitask, then it would seem to come down to the question of whether or not age affects our ability to move from one task to the next efficiently and not lose track of where we’ve been.

I accepted long ago that multitasking doesn’t work. At 80, I will attest to some deterioration in my ability to not lose track when I have multiple projects cooking.

Since I’m not retired, by choice, and choose to continue to work at what I love to do, I’ve had to rely more on calendars and other tools to avoid losing track and rely less on my mind to keep track of everything.

I’ve also improved at prioritizing and narrowing down the things that need attention.

I think some deterioration in areas like this should be expected. Staying mentally active can help slow that deterioration.

Mobile Meditation

There is one autonomous multitasking activity that works for me.

Walking and thinking.

Yes, I can still move my feet and legs without thinking about it – for that, I’m grateful.

I rarely miss a day without a walk of 20-30 minutes. Lately, I’ve been using that time as a form of meditation, letting my subconscious work on whatever problem or challenge is at hand.

I’ve tried the immobile version of meditation. The mobile version works better for me. It gets my heart rate up so it’s kinda like an autonomous twofer, I guess.

The Deep Work Solution

If you are mildly ADHD, as I am, trying to multitask is the devil incarnate. Not a lot gets done on a long list of things if I allow myself to get into that trap.

I’ve benefitted greatly from the work that Georgetown University professor and author, Cal Newport, has done in researching and publishing his best-selling book “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success In a Distracted World.”

Deep work isn’t easy, even for someone without the “shiny object syndrome” that I suffer from. But it works.

Heads down, uninterrupted, undistracted focus on “one thing” for 1–2 hours, as proposed by Newport, takes you out of multitasking mode and can prove to be incredibly productive.

When you read about people who seem to achieve staggering amounts of production in the same 168 hours that we all have, you can rest assured that they are not multi-tasking but more likely doing two things: (1) time-blocked deep work and (2) prioritizing and delegating where possible.

Neither of those capabilities needs to give way to aging.

What’s your opinion on multitasking? What works for you to improve your use of time. Share your thoughts with a comment below. And thanks for reading. If you haven’t joined our mailing to receive our weekly articles, trip on over the www.makeagingwork.com and join the tribe.

Please Don’t Ask Me How Old I Am. You Won’t Like My Answer.

October 25, 2022

A member of a golf foursome I found myself in recently asked me on the third tee box how old I was. I don’t recall what spawned the question – perhaps the dismal state of my golf game as demonstrated on the first two holes.

I gave him my standard answer to the question:

“I’m on my next-to-last mattress.”

His was a predictable response – raised eyebrow, cocked head, and a chuckle once the thought got processed.

I use this response to the question less for an attempt to be clever but more to be true to a disdain for the automatic slot that a person’s version of age is likely to place me when they hear the number.

My age doesn’t define me.

If pressed, I’ll reveal the number, but prefer to let that thought lie and simmer.

Somedays I regret knowing my birthdate.

Black baseball legend Satchel Paige is often credited with saying: “How old would you be if you didn’t how old you were?”

That question came to life when I read a guest post on Chip Conley’s “Wisdom Well” daily blog written by Mhaire, (read the article here) a fraternal twin who, with her brother, was surrendered to an orphanage at a toddler age with no paperwork. They were tall for their age, leaving it anyone’s guess as to their age. Their progression through orphanages, a “rotating roster of caretakers”, and eventual connection with relatives carried with it an obligatory, but fabricated, birth certificate that was a decade or more wrong.

It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it, what that would be like for us with our fetish for numbers, categorization, and life portals.

I’m changing it up.

After reading Mhaire’s post, I may move my response from “clever” to “weird, strange, esoteric” and further confirm the suspicion that I was dropped on my head as a child.

Ask me how old I am today, and I’m gonna say:

“I am today.”

OK, maybe not. I’m already too good at finding ways to dissolve relationships. Maybe the mattress gig is adequate for now.

But, I’m guessing you see my point. If not, let Mhaire help make it for me with these excerpts from her post (the bolding is mine):

“The point is that other people’s versions of age do not matter. And I am not the only person in the world who does not know their birthday. Many people don’t. Especially those of us from orphanages, or who have been through wars as children, those who lost their parents, or even cultures who identify age differently than the Gregorian calendar.

In American society, age seems to be something to negotiate (age gracefully) or commodify (buy this to fight aging), or to use as a weapon (you are older than me). We have a whole body of writings and research to argue against the idea of an elder as a bad thing (which frankly I agree with whole heartedly. Elders are to be celebrated, regardless of chronology).

Others place their definitions of where I am in their version of age to help them understand where I might be. Living in the present is what I do, because age is the thing that defines the future and the past, yet it doesn’t define me. There has never been a way to do so. Not because I don’t let it, but because it never has.

I suspect I am better off.”

Time travel sucks!

“You and I are standing this very second at the meeting place of two eternities: the vast past that has endured forever, and the future that is plunging on to the last syllable of recorded time. We can’t possibly live in either of these two eternities – no, not even for a split second. But by trying to do so, we can wreck both our bodies and our minds.” Dale Carnegie

Old Dale got it – time travel does suck.

I’ve written a lot about the dangers of mental “time travel” i.e. back into the regrets of the past and the fears of the future versus the life-enhancing qualities of being able to live in the present moment.

I wonder if not knowing my birthdate would make the avoidance of time travel easier. It seemed to help Mhaire.

I’m getting better at staying encapsulated in today. But, even with the realization that today is all that I have, it’s still difficult to avoid that time-travel track and stay in line with my life purpose.

One thing is certain. If I’m preoccupied with my number and what my culture says it means, I’m gonna be sucked back into the past or shot forward into the future where fear remains the main resident.

Author and podcaster, James Altucher, puts it this way:

“Regret steals joy from the past, anxiety steals opportunity from the future. Both steal energy from the present. Anxiety is the opposite of self-care.”

If you and I should happen to meet personally and you ask my age, you’ll understand if I respond with a weird, flippant answer.

It’s all in the interest of protecting my self-care.

If Career Defined You, How Do You Find Fulfillment in Retirement?

October 18, 2022

There’s a bigger question.

If your career is fulfilling, why would you retire?

Ask Warren Buffett or William Shatner or any of a long list of creative people who find fulfillment in their careers, don’t retire, and will only hang it up when the body/mind hangs it up.

Or consider George Burns who worked until he was 100 and said:

Retire? I’m going to stay in show business until I’m the only one left.
People are always asking me when I’m going to retire. Why should I? I’ve got it two ways — I’m still making movies, and I’m a senior citizen, so I can see myself at half-price.
How can I die? I’m booked.

Unfortunately, most people won’t have total control of their career situation, having chosen to work for someone. There’s where the challenge lies.

The transition into retirement is one of the major disruptors in life, often with unforeseen problems. The respected Holmes and Rahe stress scale determined that retirement is #10 out of the top 43 stressors in life.

Take a peek at the nine that are ahead of it:

Death of spouse (100)
Divorce (73)
Marital separation (65)
Jail term (63)
Death of close family member (63)
Personal injury or illness (53)
Marriage (50)
Fired at work (47)
Marital reconciliation (45)
Retirement (45)

Research has confirmed that lack of fulfillment together with feelings of irrelevance and the loss of identity are common among retirees. It’s a direct result of drifting into retirement without a non-financial plan that would address the mental, physical, social, and spiritual side of retirement.

Smart retirees are starting their retirement planning 5–10 years ahead of the projected retirement date with an eye toward building in something that will replace the fulfillment they experienced during their careers.

That’s a very individual process. Some find it in volunteering. Some start businesses. Some mentor and counsel. Some find very fulfilling hobbies.

In keeping with our human nature, it appears that whatever it is, fulfillment will come from avoiding a self-indulgent, leisure-based retirement and having an element of giving back or bringing some level of value to the world.

Happy in your retirement? Tell us how you’ve made it work for you. We’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below.