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

If you’ve ever dabbled in looking into how to extend your life, your social media feed might be inundated with the “hottest” longevity trends: from cold plunges to VO2 max tests to celebrity-endorsed supplements. As a society, we are obsessed with the idea of living longer. And longevity has become a multi-billion dollar industry where everyone’s trying to sell you their secret to a longer life. But if you meet the people leading that movement, you start to ask yourself “are they even happy?” If we’re all trying to live all these extra years, we should also make sure we genuinely enjoy them. That’s why I wanted to talk to Dr. Kerry Burnight about how we age. Known as “America’s Gerontologist”, she specializes in the mental, physical, and social aspects of aging. Kerry has spent two decades as a professor of geratric medicine, and co-founded the nation’s first elder abuse forensic center, where she saw older people isolated, exploited, and suffering. After years of arriving after the damage was done, she started asking a different question: what would prevent that suffering in the first place? Kerry’s answer is a concept she calls “Joyspan,” which is also the title of her New York Times bestseller Joyspan: The Art and Science of Thriving in Life’s Second Half. Her work reframes how we think about our long lives: not as a problem to solve by suppressing the aging process, but as a chance to grow with age and build a life with intention and joy. In this episode you’ll learn: ➡️ Why the longevity movement lost its way (in a word: humility) ➡️ How Kerry’s mom changed her outlook on life in her late 70s, and is thriving at nearly 98 ➡️ Three questions you should ask yourself every birthday ➡️ Why we should stop “growing older” and start “growing with age” ➡️ The one sentence that helps you find something good even when things are hard ➡️ How to help someone who’s stuck, without just commiserating ➡️ Why friendship might be “the Ozempic of longevity” ➡️ The four practices of people who are still loving life at 100 This conversation isn’t about rejecting the gym or the green vegetables – you should take care of your body too! But the parts of life that make it worth living are often difficult to assign a metric. They take work too. And it’s never too early (or too late) to start. This… is A Bit of Optimism. + + + To get a copy of Kerry’s book, Joyspan: The Art and Science of Thriving in Life's Second Half, head to: https://www.drkerryburnight.com/#joyspan + + + Chapters Chapters 00:00:00 Dedicating Your Life to Helping Others Age 00:00:43 Beyond Lifespan and Healthspan: Introducing Joyspan 00:02:20 Why the Longevity Movement Lost Its Way 00:03:13 From Elder Abuse to Prevention: A Gerontologist's Journey 00:04:45 How the Longevity Movement Lost Its Way 00:10:40 Introducing JoySpan: The Missing Piece of Longevity 00:13:48 The Chocolate Cake Principle: When Worry Is Worse Than the Thing 00:16:59 What Funerals Teach Us About What Actually Matters 00:18:20 The AGE Framework: Three Questions to Ask Yourself Every Birthday 00:21:25 Why the Intangibles Matter More Than Metrics 00:26:42 Growing With Age, Not Growing Older 00:32:30 Pain Isn't a Mistake: Why We Need to Stop Vilifying Struggle 00:32:45 Finding the Gift in Every Hardship 00:47:20 The Third Leg of the Stool: Friendship as Longevity Medicine 00:52:30 How to Talk to Young People About Aging (And Why Quality of Life Is the Key) 00:57:08 Four Practices for a High-Quality Life at Any Age 00:57:56 Redefining What It Means to Be Old + + + Simon is an unshakable optimist. He believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together. Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Simon has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. Simon is the author of multiple best-selling books including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together is Better, and The Infinite Game. + + + Website: http://simonsinek.com/ Leaderful: https://simonsinek.com/leaderful Podcast: http://apple.co/simonsinek Instagram: https://instagram.com/simonsinek/ Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/simonsinek/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonsinek Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonsinek + + + #SimonSinek + + +

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Simon Sinek?

  How old was she when she made this pivot?

• 0:01Speaker 01

  Probably in her late seventies, early eighties.

• 0:05Simon Sinek?

  Oh, wow. That's a, I didn't, I thought you were gonna say fifties.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 0:09Simon Sinek?

  Wow. So, so as long as that, that she changed the course of her life and it may have added years to her life.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  So there's lifespan, how many years you live. Health span, how long you enjoy good health and good cognition. I'm all for both of those, of course.

• 0:24Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  But then this next piece of the quality of your long life, right? About like, why? Why do you wanna live a long time? It's not so that in your casket, you will look a certain way. Like, what?

• 0:38Simon Sinek?

  He looks so young.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  He looks so young.

• 0:41Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah. 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? 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 gonna live all these extra years, what are they actually for? That's why I wanted to talk to Carrie Bernite. Carrie is a gerontologist.

• 1:25Simon Sinek?

  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. 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 gonna 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?

• 2:10Simon Sinek?

  If you liked this episode, please remember to subscribe. This is a bit of optimism.

• 2:20Simon Sinek?

  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. 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, I've met some of the leaders of that movement and they, some of them did not strike me as happy people. I find it ironic.

• 3:02Simon Sinek?

  How did you start to think about, you know, the quality of our life rather than the quantity of our life? Where did that come from?

• 3:13Speaker 01

  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. 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.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  And in seeing all of that, you think, how can we prevent this suffering to begin with? What I was doing is I would come in after the suffering had occurred and try to help.

• 4:08Simon Sinek?

  Hmm.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  And that's laudable.

• 4:10Simon Sinek?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  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

• 4:23Simon Sinek?

  You were treating the diabetes as opposed to helping people eat healthy before they ever got.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  I really was.

• 4:28Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  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.

• 4:45Simon Sinek?

  So there's lots of different angles we could take this. I'm curious to your opinion as to why it lost its way, because it seems perfectly legitimate as a, a thing to wanna do, to live a long time. I mean, I think human beings have been trying to do that, you know, since, since the dawn of, of humankind. Where and why do you think it sort of got sidetracked?

• 5:11Speaker 01

  I think in a word, it's humility. 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 a competitive win, finite game, to like, actually, wait, what are we doing? Have we thought through this thing?

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Like, what? Are you gonna never die? Is that like where you're going for? No. Are you gonna somehow never get sick, never grow old? No. I, I don't, I don't think people, why do you think we've lost our way?

• 6:12Simon Sinek?

  Well, I've never, I've never heard any, I didn't think you, I didn't expect that answer, but I think it's, I think it's really astute, which is this idea of competitive living longer, you know, as if it's some sort of, like someone's gonna get a medal if they outlive, you know, everybody else, is very interesting. And I think it does drive weird behavior. I think it, 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 the 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

• 6:56Simon Sinek?

  sell you my, my, my supplement. 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, and you know, ironically, you should just be eating like fresh vegetables and like clean, clean protein and you'll be fine.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Real thing.

• 7:12Simon Sinek?

  That's, 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, we don't know who's living longer, but I do love the fact that it's empirical.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:30Simon Sinek?

  We'll find out in, you know, a couple of decades, who starts dying and getting cancer and everything. That's, it's great.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  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?

• 7:48Simon Sinek?

  To what end?

• 7:49Speaker 01

  And there is such incredible profound beauty in aging.

• 7:53Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  And in, you know, in being with so many older adults all my life, it's so beautiful. So, so why have we gone toward this when, you know, why have we taken the nutrients out of an apple and sold it back to people when we could give them the apple?

• 8:10Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Why can't we step into this new longevity that celebrates growing older?

• 8:16Simon Sinek?

  Tell me a story of someone that you've worked with, who you, when you, you look at them and you, I want you to think of someone specifically, and you look at them and you say, that's, that's how I wanna grow old. I wanna grow old like, like this person.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:33Simon Sinek?

  Who, tell me about this person.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Well, I have to say it's my mom. And she will be 98 at her next birthday.

• 8:41Simon Sinek?

  Wow.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  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, a lot of pressure.

• 9:03Simon Sinek?

  You could have a TV show of the Real Housewives of Newport Beach. It would play just perfectly.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  It really would, yeah. And she'd be the first to say this, so I'm not talking out of school, but as life goes on, every life that I've ever known has hard things enter it.

• 9:19Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  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. 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 like turned my camera on her and now I share her on Instagram and there's

• 10:03Speaker 01

  zero money is made on it. 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.

• 10:21Simon Sinek?

  Hmm. How old was she when she made this pivot?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  I would say that it started and, you know, hopefully we don't have to wait this long, but I would say that it started probably in her late seventies, early eighties.

• 10:35Simon Sinek?

  Oh, wow. That's a, I didn't, I thought you were gonna say fifties.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 10:39Simon Sinek?

  Wow. So, 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, she's enjoying her life more.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Yes. And so there's lifespan, how many years you live. Health span, 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.

• 11:02Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  But then this next piece of the quality of your long life, right? About like, why? Why do you wanna live a long time? It's not so that in your casket, you will look a certain way. Like, what?

• 11:16Simon Sinek?

  He looks so young.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  He looks so young.

• 11:18Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:23Simon Sinek?

  So it's lifespan, of course, we want to live as long as we can. Health span, we want to be, 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.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:34Simon Sinek?

  You know, partake with our grandchildren. But then joy span, which is, and I'm actually enjoying the life that I have. It's all three.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  All three, and they go in the same direction.

• 11:43Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  And that's, 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, than the physical things. Like it is the why.

• 12:01Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  The why for all of this.

• 12:03Simon Sinek?

  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, then end it, then pull the plug. 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.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:27Simon Sinek?

  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.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:39Simon Sinek?

  Uh, but that is something you witnessed when you're working with this geriatric population, which is people who, their bodies may be fine.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  They were.

• 12:47Simon Sinek?

  They're living, the, the, the number of years they have, they're winning awards, but grumpy and angry and lonely.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:56Simon Sinek?

  And not enjoying life.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 12:58Simon Sinek?

  One thing I learned recently was that actually older people actually have very, very high suicide rates.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:04Simon Sinek?

  I didn't, like you think teenagers, but actually old people have very high suicide rates.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  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.

• 13:21Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  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.

• 13:48Simon Sinek?

  This reminds me of dessert, which is when we stress about eating chocolate cake, the cortisol released about stressing about eating the chocolate cake, the, is worse for our bodies than the sugar in the chocolate cake.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:04Simon Sinek?

  So worrying, so if you're going to eat chocolate cake, just enjoy it. Be, you know, you don't have to eat the whole thing, but like just do it with joy. Do it with a smile and be like, damn, that was a good chocolate cake. Onto the mix. And it's very similar.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:17Simon Sinek?

  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.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Yes, let me walk it through for you. So if I buy into this multi-billion dollar anti-aging messaging, that old, you, Simon, are going to get irrelevant, ugly, less funny, less charming as you grow older. And you think, okay, I, 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.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  I have lost loved ones and yet at a deeper level, there is so much to be gained by savoring the whole process and recognizing that it was never supposed to be just easy.

• 15:24Simon Sinek?

  Hmm. I found the thing that has helped me, and I, I, I've definitely fit the mold of as I got older, I definitely got insecure about getting older. And, you know, pride of myself on the fact that I sort of have no gray hair for my age and look younger than I am. You know, my beard is getting quite gray now. And, uh, 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?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:57Simon Sinek?

  You know?

• 15:57Speaker 01

  That's part of it.

• 15:58Simon Sinek?

  Uh, 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. 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. Um, 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.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:26Simon Sinek?

  And I still have things that bother me, but they bother me less.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:29Simon Sinek?

  They, they, it's, I'm not consumed by them. I'm, 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.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  And it's not the important thing.

• 16:46Simon Sinek?

  It's not the important thing.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  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, never talk about their hairline.

• 17:12Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  They never talk about their jowls.

• 17:14Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  But they talk about, he really saw me.

• 17:18Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  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, um, your age and I saw that we were both born on the same day.

• 17:34Simon Sinek?

  No kidding?

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:35Simon Sinek?

  October 9th?

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 17:36Simon Sinek?

  Oh, look at that, we're twins.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  And so I was thinking about that, not to be too much of a stalker that I, but, um, I was thinking about birthdays can be an opportunity to evaluate how we're doing this thing, aging.

• 17:50Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  And aging is another word for living.

• 17:53Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  So all of us are aging. And that's why sometimes when people say, she's an expert in aging, I think absolutely not. There's, nobody gets through it. And I don't even use the term aging gracefully because there's hard stuff.

• 18:08Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  But to take our birthday and to ask these three questions. And, um, I made an acronym for them that I didn't think of until after the book came out.

• 18:19Simon Sinek?

  Of course, of course. I, I know, I know the feeling. I know it's like, it's like George Costanza.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:25Simon Sinek?

  The jerk still called, like Running Out of You.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 18:28Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  So, but like the, 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 like asking ourselves like how we are adapting. And that question would be simply, how am I living? How am I walking with, for example, my visual impairment? Or how am I walking with, um, the thing that my best friend passed away? And I don't have them anymore. Because like 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 give.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  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, as a 90-year-old Simon have less to give, then you're not giving. 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?

• 19:54Speaker 01

  And I've heard you talk about this, that how important it is and that we're going to lose loved ones. 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 and exit alone. And that's, 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? Who could I call when I'm on the toilet with diarrhea? You know, like these, like deep connections matter. So if we were to ask those three questions, I think it would put us on a different path.

• 20:39Simon Sinek?

  We're talking about have a healthy body, of course. Um, keep yourself in shape, of course. Do the things, of course. This whole conversation is how you're showing up in life. 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 joy span, I think it's just harder to measure. You know, I can measure my calorie intake. I can measure how many reps I'm doing and how many sets I'm doing at the, at the gym. Um, I can measure, you know, what supplements I'm taking. I can count the number of pills, the number of grams that I'm supposed to take, be taking, milligrams supposed to be taking. All of that stuff is measurable. And I think for people who like process and who like action, I, I don't think it's a coincidence that the longevity movement skews male. It's that sort of aggressive metric sort of, sort of thing.

• 21:24Simon Sinek?

  It's just easy to measure. And I can measure the years that I live, too. All easy, all easy metrics. Whereas how, how do I get happier? How do I find more joy? How do I, 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.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:50Simon Sinek?

  Less important because it doesn't have a number.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Yes, and you know.

• 21:55Simon Sinek?

  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.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:04Simon Sinek?

  And they talk about what makes the Marine Corps great. Sure, all of the metrics and how good we do this and how good we do that. We count all that, but truly the magic they talk about is the intangibles.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:13Simon Sinek?

  And they include things like loyalty.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:15Simon Sinek?

  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.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  And at the end of life, it is people, they always talk about the intangibles.

• 22:30Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  They're, 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? Like, how do we do that?

• 23:03Simon Sinek?

  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. 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. Like, you have to put in effort.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:32Simon Sinek?

  Uh, to make friends and make people feel seen. You have to put in effort to adapt, you know? It, it, it's not a one and done kind of thing. Something pushes you out of, out of alignment. You know, whether it's the death of a loved one, or all the, some of the examples that you, you offered. There's a, there's a process that, that you have to go through. And some of that work is actually quite hard.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:54Simon Sinek?

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

• 24:37Simon Sinek?

  But we can say she's definitely happier at 98.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:42Simon Sinek?

  On this path than she would have been the other way.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  And interestingly, we can even say she lives longer because research consistently shows us that, for example, feeling like you have a sense of purpose.

• 24:53Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  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. So it is physiologically, and that's what I mean. It goes in the same direction.

• 25:10Simon Sinek?

  On another episode where I did a, a blood test with, called glycine age, where they basically measure inflammation. I mean, that's basically what they're measuring. And that's what I learned about stress stacking.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:21Simon Sinek?

  And they were telling me that there's three things that affect your glycine age, your inflammation. Your genetics is about a third. So some of us are dealt a good hand and some of us not.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 25:33Simon Sinek?

  Um, lifestyle.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:35Simon Sinek?

  And stress. Um, lifestyle we can control for and stress that we, we can control for. Ironically, a lot of the longevity movement is high lifestyle, but bad stress.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:46Simon Sinek?

  And the CEO was telling me that, that, uh, that, um, a lot of the people in the, in the longevity movement who take their test actually score very badly. Their, their inflammation is actually, makes them actually older than their chronological age because they've overstressed their bodies.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:01Simon Sinek?

  And they have worries and their insecurities are even more exaggerated. Because as you said, it's like, it's become a competition of how strong I am, how good I look, how many supplements I take, you know? It, it's become, let me show you how I'm living longer than you.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:15Simon Sinek?

  You know? And the people who, they exercise, but not obsessively. They're eat well, but not obsessively. But they sort of get the most out of life and purpose definitely ranked really high. Their glycine age, their, their inflammation, the health of their body is way lower. They're way younger than their chronological age.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's exactly right. And embrace, like, 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.

• 26:49Simon Sinek?

  What would you say? Cause growing older is biology. 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.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Yes. Like getting old is maybe one way to say.

• 27:03Simon Sinek?

  Right, right, right. But growing, growing with age.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  And the thing is, we're swimming in a sea of ageism and internalized ageism, so much so that we don't even know. 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 gonna look di- different in different ways. Because this decline aging mindset that everything is downhill is simply not true. 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

• 27:51Speaker 01

  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.

• 28:02Simon Sinek?

  May, may I make an indulgence and ask that I change some of your language?

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Please.

• 28:06Simon Sinek?

  Cause growing older, the problem is it's a, it's an accepted phrase. And so we're, if 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 re, use my definition. So I like what you said a moment ago. I think it's growing with age because that's not an accepted terminology. And it, and it, what it does when you say, I'm growing with age, that makes somebody lean in and say, what? And you, you get to define it. And the emphasis is on the, you doing the growing while you age.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:37Simon Sinek?

  Rather than the, the, the passage of time. So I think growing with age is more curiosity inducing and more accurate than growing older.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  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, it's a kind of movement whose time has come, like just doors have opened and opened and opened.

• 29:05Simon Sinek?

  You're growing with age.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  I'm growing with age and we can become the most authentic version of ourself.

• 29:12Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  And so like the best version of us truly can lie ahead.

• 29:18Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Not because of this part. That part's probably not going to be the best version. But the best internal version of who we really are, it's so hopeful. And when I see people go from, I don't wanna get old to I want to grow with age.

• 29:34Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, I don't think that's okay. I think it's okay. Like, I don't, I don't think anybody wants to grow older.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:39Simon Sinek?

  I don't think, I don't, 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, I'm, my knees hurt.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  I did that yesterday.

• 29:52Simon Sinek?

  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, I don't enjoy that and I would like that not to happen. But if it's gonna happen, if it's gonna happen, then I'd rather grow with age than recede with age or not grow with age, remain stagnant with age.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:08Simon Sinek?

  I like that a lot. I'm gonna start using that.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  And it is going to happen. You know, if we're lucky, we're going to be older adults.

• 30:16Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. So how did you even get into this? Like, as a, as a young, sort of, how old were you when you got into this profession? Like, who says, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna study old people.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:24Simon Sinek?

  No, no old person decides to study old people. Young people decide to study old people.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  I was born into it. So on October 9th, I, 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. 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. And then one day I was at UCLA and a woman came as a guest lecturer

• 31:13Speaker 01

  and she said she was a gerontologist. And I was like, what is that?

• 31:17Simon Sinek?

  How do you even spell that?

• 31:18Speaker 01

  Truly, truly. And so I, 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, the program. And then, as I said, I worked for a long time 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.

• 31:49Simon Sinek?

  So you've literally been studying this since you were in school? I mean, this is your, this is your life's work, literally.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  I think about it constantly.

• 31:57Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. And I think it's really important to, to mention, you went into it to help alleviate pain. And to, and you, 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.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:09Simon Sinek?

  And you saw some, someone like your mom.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  And it really doesn't. And it doesn't just require that you're gonna have perfect health and nothing hard is gonna happen to you. Every single life has by its very nature, a lot of painful things. Joy span is how you walk with the hard parts.

• 32:28Simon Sinek?

  I wanna talk about this for a while. I wanna, I wanna 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, um, the enemy.

• 32:45Simon Sinek?

  There's an irony in it, right? Because I don't think you can grow with age without taking some punches.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:51Simon Sinek?

  You know, you don't become a better fighter when you win all your fights. You you become a better fighter when you've taken some punches. I think we forget the value of hardship and the value of pain. I'll give you an extreme example. I believe that everything is about balance. Nature pours a vacuum and seeks equilibrium at all times. And 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. 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.

• 33:31Simon Sinek?

  And so it's I what I've found is that when I evaluate the costs of the good things that happen to me, keeps me humble. 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.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:54Simon Sinek?

  You know, that's not fair. But at some point, in a in a healthy amount of time being passed, you can say, OK, 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. She's been over a year. And I saw her recently. And I asked her, I prepped the question, I said, I'm gonna ask you a really uncomfortable question. And forgive me, but given what's going on, but I really, I 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.

• 34:40Simon Sinek?

  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. I'd like to know what of this whole experience you're secretly glad because you got something from it.

• 34:56Simon Sinek?

  And she was great. She answered the question with vigor. She didn't think very long. She looked at me, she said, I'm a better person. She says, I like myself more. She goes, I used to be very judgmental. 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 I like myself better now. And though I don't want to go through that again, and I wish I never went through it.

• 35:27Simon Sinek?

  I I'm a better person because of it.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  It's so beautiful.

• 35:30Simon Sinek?

  And 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.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:41Simon Sinek?

  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.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  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 it life, it isn't a case of avoiding all pain. And I just don't know any lives that have that. And so that recognition of that pain is part of it. 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.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  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. And they said it was something that we would do on Monday. And at 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.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  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 years. She wasn't able to go to that school. She needed to, you know, go to a different school next to her neurosurgeon. Way more empathy than she ever would have had. Way different trajectory. So it isn't toxic positivity.

• 37:42Simon Sinek?

  No, no.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  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.

• 37:56Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  And like what matters in life is a lot more than your abs and your VO2 max.

• 38:04Simon Sinek?

  And I'm not, I'm not asking people to be, I'm not even, it's not even a gratitude practice. It's not like, I'm glad it happened. That's not what we're talking about. What it is 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 in their lives and how we respond to hardship and difficulty. But here's the bigger question, which is, how do we help another person grow with age?

• 38:33Speaker 01

  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? 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 ah, humans. And then in terms of how I view aging

• 39:14Speaker 01

  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. Like, you gotta tell my spouse, you gotta tell my mother in law, you gotta tell my mom, my dad.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  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.

• 40:02Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  And that maybe then, then the people that were lucky enough to walk this life with will have some

• 40:12Speaker 01

  instead of you, us diving in and commiserating like, yeah, that sucks. My life sucks too.

• 40:18Simon Sinek?

  Feed, feed it.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  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? But I'm also curious with your perspective. How might we do that?

• 40:31Simon Sinek?

  I I think there's two parts to it. And I think part one is the part you talked about, which is sitting in mother with somebody, just sitting there. I'm with you. You're not going to go through this alone.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:41Simon Sinek?

  I know, I know it sucks. And not feeding it, 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?

• 40:55Speaker 01

  And I'm not going anywhere.

• 40:57Simon Sinek?

  I'm, yeah, and I'm not gonna hear. I think that's part one, absolutely.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  OK.

• 41:00Simon Sinek?

  I think part two is, at some point, and I always do it with permission, asking permission to then give some truth. Can I, can I share my, you know? I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing it on day one.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:15Simon Sinek?

  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? If they say, you know what? I don't want it, I'm like, OK. But I always ask permission so that they're complicit in my, in my observation. Because if they get mad at me, you know, observation, I'm like, hey, hey, hey, I asked, and you said yes. So don't, 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. But to ask permission, say, can I make, 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. And I think you have a choice, which is you can continue to live your life in the rearview mirror.

• 42:01Simon Sinek?

  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?

• 42:14Simon Sinek?

  And and I think at some point, slapping somebody around and being like, you know, because that's what I want.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would like you to give me that advice. Like, I was a mat 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.

• 42:34Simon Sinek?

  You're right. Yeah. Or, and I told you my, my, 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. 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 a for again, it's just a forcing mechanism. No matter how bad someone's situation, at some point, at some point, they can, they can see value. And let's be honest, most of the bad stuff that we go through is relatively small stuff. A breakup, a job loss, a fight, you know, lots of work, a plan not going according to plan, you know, loss of an, of an aging loved one, but you know.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:19Simon Sinek?

  I mean.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  It's nature, you know, natural. I, yes.

• 43:24Simon Sinek?

  You know, as they say in England, they had a good innings, you know, it's like, we knew it was gonna happen at some point.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:28Simon Sinek?

  It's not like somebody being tragically struck down in their, in their, in their, in their twenties, right? That stuff is sort of normal. It's the unexpected stuff.

• 43:40Simon Sinek?

  That's the hardest to deal with. And most of us will only experiencing those things, hopefully, a handful of times in a lifetime.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:47Simon Sinek?

  One, two, three, four at most of these horrible things that will happen.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  And that pain is supposed to be part of it. Pain isn't like, that's, 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 know anybody like that.

• 44:05Simon Sinek?

  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. 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. I, I, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I, 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. I love them. And I love spending time with them. But I, I, I can't learn from them. Not in the way I'm ready to learn.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:38Simon Sinek?

  I can learn stuff. Of course, I can learn stuff. They teach me stuff all the time. But, but I need to be around people also. And I, who've, who've been punched a couple of times.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. And it sounds like you really are leaning into diversifying your social portfolio. And there's so much, we talk about our financial portfolio, but that diversity of younger friends, yes, older friends, yes, you know, and it, the only way that you make it through a life with enough social capital is to be very proactive in cultivating.

• 45:14Simon Sinek?

  I have a friend who has an incredibly high standard for his friends. It's intimidating, but it's also quite inspiring. And after hearing, 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, when I, when I go home, at the end, I want to be like, wow, that was really worth it, you know? I, I, I can't, I don't completely agree with him because I think he's diminishing like fun. Like, sometimes I grow zero, I'm inspired zero, but I had fun, you know? 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

• 45:58Simon Sinek?

  my friendships. And I realized, I had friendships in my life that were, they were friendships of convenience or laziness. It's a horrible thing to admit. Not that they're not, they're all, 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, which is, we spent, we spent time together, and very little of it involved growth. Conversations were fine. There's a lot of lounging around, you know? And I think we filled space for

• 46:38Simon Sinek?

  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. 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.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:05Simon Sinek?

  It's just like, it's proof that it wasn't worth fighting for on either side, because neither person fought for it.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:11Simon Sinek?

  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? I miss you.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:18Simon Sinek?

  You know?

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:19Simon Sinek?

  It just didn't happen.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  It, 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, I, it's.

• 47:46Simon Sinek?

  It should feel special. And I, this is my new work. My work is the, the verb of friending, to friend, you know, this is what the work.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  I didn't know that.

• 47:53Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, that's literally the book I'm writing, which is, which is how to friend, you know, like, like, we, we're crap at it.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:00Simon Sinek?

  You know, and we don't know how to do friendship.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:02Simon Sinek?

  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. So I'm trying to write about it and learn about it. I think you're 100% right.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  I can't wait for that book. And it's a book that will, like, all life long, because the biggest predictor is these connections that we have.

• 48:23Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  I mean, that's the big, like, the Ozempic of longevity is friendship, right?

• 48:29Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  If we could put it into a shot, we would all be running around doing that. And to, to say, how do we do it? Am I putting enough into it?

• 48:38Simon Sinek?

  I think, I think friendship is the, is the third, is the third leg of the stool of your, uh, uh, joy span.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:47Simon Sinek?

  Right? Because if I say the first leg is my romantic partnership, and whether you call that lifespan, the point is, is there's lots of data, there's lots of work, there's lots of 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. 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 or when it's not.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:23Simon Sinek?

  And yet you need all three legs of the stool to live a fulfilled and happy life.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:27Simon Sinek?

  And you, I want you to be romantically successful. I want you to be professionally successful. I want you to be friendshiply successful. But we don't talk about the friendship part.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:34Simon Sinek?

  It is the exact equation of, of, of your joy span.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:39Simon Sinek?

  And it is hard to measure. And we take it for granted. And it's usually the afterthought or something that happens by accident.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  We're clumsy about it.

• 49:46Simon Sinek?

  But we don't do work. We don't work.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  I sometimes try to use that. Robin Dunbar was a scholar with the Dunbar circles. And I, it has the center and then consecutive rings outward. And then you, 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, we can't even think of the people, where do they go, what we're doing. I mean, we are so hungry for it. Yeah. Okay, good.

• 50:16Simon Sinek?

  And, 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 go, we work hard to fix them. When we go through hardship in our friendships, we abandon the friendship.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:33Simon Sinek?

  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're, whether they have difficulty. I'm not talking about constantly difficult, that's different. 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, there, there is such thing called repair.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:02Simon Sinek?

  If you think it's worth it.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  But don't we need a vocabulary of, like, which relationships, like, kind of the metrics of them? Because which are the ones that you go, I will go to the mat, 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're talking about with growing with age.

• 51:36Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  And the reason for that is that every funeral I go to is talking about the quality of their friendships. Really, when it comes down to it.

• 51:47Simon Sinek?

  Look at that.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  They are going, you know, family relationships, work relationships, chosen people, moments, we were on the river, we were laughing, we were.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  You're exactly right.

• 52:00Simon Sinek?

  Like, don't you want to be the person that the family chooses, that the family asks you to give a eulogy?

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:06Simon Sinek?

  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?

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 52:15Simon Sinek?

  Like, that's a good standard for a friendship, right?

• 52:17Speaker 01

  It really is.

• 52:18Simon Sinek?

  Uh, so let me change, every, everybody who's, you know, forty plus, fifty plus, listening to this, they're tuned in. I've lost everybody who's twenty or thirty, you know, listening to this. 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.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Us.

• 52:38Simon Sinek?

  Oh, yeah. I was like, 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.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:45Simon Sinek?

  Like, that, that, we're having this conversation because that's our life, right? Somebody who's in their thirties, 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.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:01Simon Sinek?

  Right? Like, how do we, how is this conversation? And 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 twenties and thirties is actually thinking about the stuff that we're talking about seriously?

• 53:18Speaker 01

  This is what I think is changing. I think that we, older people, are stepping into it 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 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, in the same way that investing in, in our weightlifting,

• 54:00Speaker 01

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

• 54:13Simon Sinek?

  There we go. That's, that's it. That's what it is. That's the thing, that's the great, that's the great unifier, that regardless of our age, we want a high quality of life.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:23Simon Sinek?

  Um, and high quality of life includes lifespan, health span, and joy span. And all young people already aware of lifespan and health span, because it's, we've had, you know, from gym class.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:39Simon Sinek?

  You know, and everybody knows what eating healthy is, whether we do it or not. Um, but joy span is the thing that improves the quality of life dramatically.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:49Simon Sinek?

  Dramatically more. It's the third, it's the third leg of the stool.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:53Simon Sinek?

  And it'll give more, there's this word again, if you have the third leg of the stool, then you have more balance.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:00Simon Sinek?

  In your life. There's that word again.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Exactly. And it's, like, when people say, what is it even? It is love and meaning and purpose 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, is putting this forward so we can just start to talk about these things, that we're more than just.

• 55:33Simon Sinek?

  And I think being tangible about it, right? Because though they are called the intangibles, if you can put some, some meat on the bone, if you can help people see.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:42Simon Sinek?

  Uh, the thing, I think that you're right. So what we mean by, uh, quality of life is living a life that includes love and purpose and meaning.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Giving.

• 55:55Simon Sinek?

  And, and, and service and, and wanting and being wanted.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 56:01Simon Sinek?

  You know?

• 56:01Speaker 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, adapting to these changes that come that you didn't want, or what we've talked about as the pain.

• 56:30Simon Sinek?

  Which happened at all ages.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  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, 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.

• 57:06Simon Sinek?

  Say them again, say them again.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  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.

• 57:14Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  The middle two are C A, we live in California.

• 57:18Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  It's not great.

• 57:19Simon Sinek?

  So.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Okay, so the first G is growing.

• 57:22Simon Sinek?

  And then?

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Connecting, adapting, and giving.

• 57:27Simon Sinek?

  Okay, and no, and there, no particular order, just do all of them at some point? It's like arms, legs, you know?

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Leg day.

• 57:33Simon Sinek?

  Core, but like, doesn't matter the order, just do them.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 57:36Simon Sinek?

  Same thing.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  And that they're, they are small, that these practices are small little practices.

• 57:41Simon Sinek?

  Giving, connecting, adapting, and growing.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  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, it's so bad how we treat people, and like, the tragedy isn't that we're growing older, it's that we've made it humiliating and less than and awful.

• 58:05Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  When in fact, we can put the work in to redefine what it means to be old.

• 58:11Simon Sinek?

  Thanks so much for coming on. This is, I, I'm so, I've learned so much and that the, I just absolutely love the term, uh, growing with age. I, I'm, I'm fully embracing that.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  I am too.

• 58:23Simon Sinek?

  And this, I can't, like, I already know there's a list of friends I'm gonna call, I'll be like, you're gonna love this, you know? Uh, yeah, this is great. Thank you so, so much. I really appreciate you coming on. What a joy.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  Thank you very much.

• 58:34Simon Sinek?

  A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company, lovingly produced by our team, Phoebe Bradford and Devon Johnson. Subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts, and if you want even more cool stuff, visit simoncynic.com. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself, take care of each other.