Make Next Year Your Best Year!

Here’s How

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One of the many challenges in planning for retirement is grappling with the unknown. A big unknown is longevity. No one really knows how long they’ll live. And there’s a growing number of centenarians these days. What if you live to be 100? Or what if you become a super-ager and live much longer than that? It’s something to consider in your planning, both financially and non-financially. And this longevity revolution we’re in the midst of is creating many challenges for systems that were built to support lives that lasted a handful of years after retirement. William J. Kole, author of The Big 100: The New World of Super-Aging, joins us to discuss the joys and consequences of longer lives – and what we can learn from super-agers that could help you live a triple digit life.

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William J. Kole, recently retired as the New England news editor for Associated Press, is a veteran journalist and former foreign correspondent who has reported from North America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The grandson of a woman who lived a few months shy of 104, Kole has been writing about extreme longevity since the 1990s, when he was based in Paris and told the world the extraordinary story of Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122. His many awards include one from the Society of American Business Editors & Writers for an investigation into the exploitation of undocumented immigrants by the Walmart retail chain. The Big 100: The New World of Super-Aging is his first book. He speaks French, Dutch, and German, and resides in Warwick, Rhode Island.

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For More on William J. Cole

The Big 100: The New World of Super-Aging

Website -Bill Kole Books

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Check Out Our Best Books on Retirement

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Podcast Episodes YouMay Like

Breaking the Age Code – Dr. Becca Levy

The Well-Lived Life – Dr. Gladys McGarey

The Mindful Body – Ellen Langer

The Measure of Our Age – MT Connolly

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Best Books on Retirement You May Like

Live Life in Crescendo – Stephen R. Covey & Cynthia Haller Covey

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

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Mentioned in This Podcast Episode

Dr. Thomas Perls’ Life Expectancy Calculator

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Wise Quotes

On Longevity in America

“We are aging in the United States by practically every metric. We’re going to hit a very important milestone just a little over 10 years from now in 2034, when the numbers of Americans who are 65 and older will outnumber those who are 18 and younger for the first time in our history. And the number of people who are 85 and older are rapidly growing. It’s one of the fastest growing subsets of the population. But what’s really driving this, what I call a new world of super aging, is really two-fold. One is just demographics. So the baby boomers, a huge generation numerically are getting older. I’m one of them. I think you might be too, Joe. {Indeed}And there’s at least 70 million about by some counts, a bit more than that. The oldest of us is about 77 right now. So in the next 25 years, the fittest of those people will age into triple digits. And interestingly, centenarians tend to occur in one in 5,000 in the population in general, in many places at least. This is according to Tom Perls at the New England Centenarian Study, which is the largest of its kind in the world. And so just by virtue of there being so many boomers aging, we’re going to see a sort of algorithmic increase in the numbers of people living to 100. And then there’s a medical and technological piece, where we are doing a better job at treating, and in some cases, curing the things that kill us.”

On Stress & Longevity

“For me, what really tops the list is that they handle toxic stress very well, and stress is the enemy of longevity. For the book, I had some really interesting conversations with Martin Picard, who is a biologist who was studying these things. Stress really affects us right down to the mitochondrial level in our cells, and it’s amazing. It’s one of the reasons why I made some changes to my own life to try and avoid it. And centenarians tend to do a very good job of handling stress. When you talk to them as I have, you’ll hear a lot: don’t sweat the small stuff. And these people, they’re not easily aggravated. They’re just psychologically wired to be chill or they have learned some good techniques to just sort of chill out. Other things, we mentioned: positivity. There’s a fascinating study recently in the last few years out of Yale that suggests that having a positive attitude, not just in general being positive, but having specifically a positive attitude about our own aging specifically can add up to seven and a half years to our lifespan. And that’s an incredible amount of time, more than what we gained by watching our cholesterol and exercising and our diet and all of that combined. And of course, people who are positive tend to do those things anyway, as well as not smoke. And they tend to go easy on the booze. So that’s a key thing. We also mentioned social isolation. People in the Blue Zones, and many centenarians who are successful, tend to not be languished in solitude, and that’s key as well.”

On Genetics & Lifestyle Choices

“Fortunately, there are some things we can do to optimize our genetic makeup. So the prevailing thinking is that our behaviors, our diet, our exercise, the amount of sun exposure we allow ourselves, things like this account for about 75% of what gets us to 90. And then from that point on the genes, the genetic piece increasingly plays a more prominent role and it’s more like 50% of getting us to 100. And then once you’re past 100 and then you get into the realms of the woman I mentioned,who’s a super centenarian, someone who’s 110 or above, then the genetics piece really accounted for almost all of it. I mean, she has hit all five lottery numbers – plus the Powerball.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

I help people who are retiring, but aren’t quite done yet, discover what’s next and build their custom version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™

A meaningful retirement doesn’t just happen by accident.  It takes more than a vision. Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one on your own terms.

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About Your Podcast Host 

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.