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From Lifespan to Joyspan: Embracing a Growth Mindset for Aging · Deep Transformation

• 0:25
  Welcome to this beautiful conversation with America's gerontologist, Dr.
• 0:29
  Kerry Burnight.
• 0:31
  This is very inspiring grounded work.
• 0:32
  One of the many moving and powerful things Kerry taught us is there can be joy in the absence of happiness.
• 0:38
  If you are senior or aging or connected to people who are or just want to think about this stage of life and process, you will not want to miss this.
• 0:46
  This conversation is a bit shorter than usual as Dr.
• 0:49
  Carey had to leave because she didn't want to let her 90 year old client down.
• 0:53
  Very noble indeed.
• 0:59
  Welcome to Deep Transformation, Self, Society, Spirit, Life enhancing, paradigm rattling conversations with cutting edge thinkers, contemplatives and activists.
• 1:09
  With Dr.
• 1:10
  Roger Walsh and John Dupuy.
• 1:15
  Welcome to Deep Self, Society, Spirit where we dive into some of the deep questions of our time and some of the great questions of all time.
• 1:24
  And with us today is our guest, Dr.
• 1:27
  Kerry Burnight.
• 1:28
  I'll speak more about her, but first, just to mention our co host, John Dupuy, and I'm Roger Walsh.
• 1:33
  Dr.
• 1:34
  Kerry Burnight, otherwise commonly known as Dr.
• 1:36
  Kerry, holds the distinction of having been the country's youngest gerontologist and she's now one of the best known and most influential.
• 1:46
  She was formerly a professor in the medical school at the University of California at Irvine and she is the author most recently of this beautiful book, Joyspan.
• 1:55
  Joyspan, the Art and Science of Thriving in Life's Second Half.
• 2:00
  And I'll give away part of the thing and say I think it's great for some great information for thriving at any age.
• 2:05
  Kerry, we have limited time, so let's dive in here.
• 2:09
  You went into gerontology early.
• 2:12
  You really, it's been your passion, your life, your profession, your real contribution.
• 2:17
  And yet as you went into this field, it seemed like you felt there was really something missing.
• 2:24
  Please say something about that.
• 2:26
  When I first went into the field 30 years ago, I was misguided.
• 2:31
  I saw older people as other.
• 2:34
  And it doesn't take long when you get the privilege of working with people who are preceding you to realize we, every one of us, whether you're 23 today or 103 today, we are all aging.
• 2:50
  And there is no us and them.
• 2:52
  It is just humans making the path and where we happen to connect on those paths.
• 2:59
  Yeah.
• 2:59
  Okay.
• 3:00
  Well.
• 3:01
  And yet we have a culture which is not so happy with the idea of all aging.
• 3:06
  But.
• 3:07
  And we will definitely want to get into that.
• 3:10
  But maybe we should start with a question.
• 3:12
  So the field of aging has moved from an emphasis on longevity or lifespan and then an introduced healthspan, the idea of how long can we maintain ourselves in good mental and physical health.
• 3:25
  But your introduction is Joyspan, so maybe just tell us what that is.
• 3:30
  So the word Joyspan was selected and created using the American Psychological association definition of joy as simply well being and, and life satisfaction.
• 3:45
  Doesn't mean ecstasy, doesn't mean toxic positivity certainly.
• 3:50
  It's just that wellbeing span was not nearly as catchy as Joyspan.
• 3:55
  And when we think about our lives, potentially our 100 year lives, it becomes clear that to focus so much just on length of life neglects something critical and that is the quality of our long lives.
• 4:12
  And so I just got so interested by watching thousands of people walk their long life paths.
• 4:21
  And some were so miserable and some were so engaged and yet objectively they had the same health conditions, many had the same socioeconomic status, they had lost their partners.
• 4:37
  And I just was so fascinated.
• 4:39
  Why is this experience so different from person to person?
• 4:43
  And that's what really prompted me to dig into the research literature to try to find out.
• 4:49
  Yeah, and Kerry, you mentioned right at the beginning that we tend to other the elders and see ourselves as separate from and in many ways look down on aging.
• 5:03
  And you drew the contrast.
• 5:04
  Yes, our culture valorizes youth and by all those good things.
• 5:09
  And we spend billions of dollars on face creams and so forth to try to mask aging.
• 5:16
  It seems like it'd be really important to kind of as we begin to step back and look at the big picture here, that is what are some of the factors that in our culture in particularly in contemporary western
• 5:29
  society and particularly in the United States, we tend to look down even demeanor, the aged and aging.
• 5:37
  I have some thoughts on that, but I'll toss it out to you and let's hear what your thoughts.
• 5:44
  I'd love your thoughts on that, both of you throughout this, because I have much to learn from you two.
• 5:51
  I do know that this multi billion dollar anti aging industry, the currency that they're working with is fear and fear cells.
• 6:04
  So if you vilify and make scary and awful and also promote the shared fallacy that somehow we could deny death.
• 6:17
  There's whole big conferences these days called the don't die Summit where people are going to try to somehow think let's not die and similarly to think that you are going to defy aging and you're going to trick people
• 6:33
  into thinking that you aren't the age you are.
• 6:36
  As a gerontologist, people often come up to me and they say guess how old I am.
• 6:44
  And they really want me to guess a decade younger and yet I don't ever think that they are not their age.
• 6:54
  And I'm delighted to say 84 and then they make a face and I say and how wonderful that is.
• 7:02
  And yet this realization I don't think is going to come from younger people.
• 7:06
  I think the first step is to recognize our internalized ageism and then really step into it.
• 7:14
  So for example, if somebody were to say you don't look 91, you say this is what 91 looks like.
• 7:20
  Or when someone says, hello young lady, think I am not a young lady, nor would I want to be one because there's so much good in aging, it's just that it's not lucrative to talk about it.
• 7:35
  And so what counter revolution we could make by going to the research based literature on what gets better as you get older?
• 7:44
  Yeah, I'd like to just take a step back and look at a really big picture because you're pointing to some of the economic and ego based factors that make us tend to demean aging or to deny aging and
• 8:01
  to sometimes look down on elders.
• 8:03
  But it feels like there's a larger cultural evolution here.
• 8:08
  Traditionally the elders were revered part in tribal cultures, et cetera, partly because there weren't so many of them.
• 8:16
  But in recent centuries with scientific revolution, technological acceleration, our culture has shifted.
• 8:24
  So there's an information explosion, a technological information explosion and innovation explosion.
• 8:31
  And we've gone from a culture that focused on wisdom to one that focuses on information, one that focused on life skills to technical skills.
• 8:45
  And I'm trying to avoid, think of how to avoid using some fancy words here.
• 8:49
  But the great anthropologist Margaret Mead pointed to the.
• 8:53
  We've watch witnessed a shift of cultural types from what she called post figurative, meaning that in the cultures, tribal cultures in which people learn from the elders, to what she called pre figurative cultures which the elders actually in
• 9:11
  many ways learn from the youth because there's so much novelty, so much new information and so many new skills.
• 9:21
  So we face this kind of double challenge here, not only dealing, as you've said, with the ego and economic factors, but also the very nature of our society and technology.
• 9:35
  What a great point.
• 9:37
  And I think of late the technology and the AI algorithms are having an impact that is exacerbating our division and in fact people's whole sense of reality.
• 9:57
  And I think we're seeing a lot of the blowback from technology.
• 10:03
  I think of it sometimes like plastic.
• 10:05
  Like for a time we thought plastic is so great, let's make everything plastic.
• 10:09
  And Wrap everything in plastic, plastic, plastic.
• 10:11
  And then we went, oh, my goodness, we've got all this microplastic in our brain.
• 10:16
  What are we doing?
• 10:18
  I think we're starting to come to a collective realization that this sort of tech worship is harmful in a lot of ways.
• 10:30
  And Kerry, you mentioned AI being a divisive thing.
• 10:33
  Say more about that.
• 10:34
  Why is AI dividing us?
• 10:36
  My perception is that the information that we consume seems to be increasingly feeding what it is we've already shown interest in.
• 10:50
  So if you click on something that supports a certain thing, you see all of that only.
• 10:56
  And so then it polarizes and you think, oh, that's quote, reality.
• 11:01
  And then the other side of a topic will think the same thing.
• 11:07
  And then it's, everybody thinks everybody is crazy and wrong.
• 11:12
  And I am not claiming to be an AI expert, but as a consumer, some of the things that I see, and then I go and really dig into it and I think, oh, my gosh, I feel like I'm
• 11:27
  being played as a result of what I am seeing and the information.
• 11:33
  Yeah, yeah.
• 11:34
  My experience with AI, I had to say, okay, stop telling me I'm so brilliant and I have wonderful ideas and how great I am.
• 11:41
  That was pretty good.
• 11:42
  Like the first month.
• 11:43
  Now I'm sick of it.
• 11:45
  You know, I think you're just buttering me up.
• 11:46
  It's okay.
• 11:47
  I won't do that.
• 11:48
  And sometimes I answer questions since.
• 11:50
  Are you just telling me this because it's what you think I want to hear?
• 11:53
  Yeah, I don't want you to do that.
• 11:55
  And it goes, okay.
• 11:56
  No, I'm really.
• 11:57
  You know, maybe sometimes I'll try to say it in language I think you're gonn understand, blah, blah.
• 12:02
  But I said, I don't want that.
• 12:03
  I want the truth.
• 12:04
  And if I'm wrong, just.
• 12:05
  That was a dumb question or.
• 12:06
  Or whatever it is, but just give it to me straight.
• 12:09
  I agree, John.
• 12:10
  And I would also am seeing that place really within social media.
• 12:14
  Right.
• 12:15
  So when I go onto, for example, Instagram, what I see is very different than what someone else sees.
• 12:23
  And yet we both think that's, quote, reality.
• 12:27
  And so I have some friends recently who are saying, I don't know how you can believe that or think that that makes me think that you are, let's say, unethical.
• 12:38
  And then I was thinking at the same time the same thing about them.
• 12:42
  And then I thought, it is largely or at least partially technology that's feeding our division.
• 12:52
  Yeah, yeah.
• 12:53
  That's a whole topic unto itself, and a very important one.
• 12:57
  Kerry.
• 12:57
  Yeah.
• 12:58
  And John.
• 12:58
  Yes, we are living in, we're increasingly recognizing we live in information bubbles and, and self reinforcing information cycles.
• 13:07
  And it's very destructive.
• 13:09
  We could go down this, we could have a whole session on this.
• 13:12
  But let's get back to Joyspan.
• 13:14
  Yes, go back to longevity.
• 13:16
  And I'm sure you have all kinds of other experts who could talk about.
• 13:20
  One of the things I noticed you talked about the four pillars and is growth, connection, adapt and give.
• 13:29
  And I, it's very nice that we talked about it, but it came to me as like, this is not just for old people, you know, and if you adapt this into your life before you get old, it's going
• 13:39
  to make your aging journey a lot better.
• 13:42
  Trying to learn to be a human being like you know, in the last 20 minutes is rather challenging the way.
• 13:47
  That I think about it.
• 13:48
  It's for people who are aging and except for those who are actively dying, that is all of us.
• 13:55
  So I'm watching it be helpful for 20 year olds and 30 year olds and 100 year olds.
• 14:04
  And there are thousands and thousands of variables that impact the quality of our longevity.
• 14:10
  And so the work and took a long, many years for me to sort through all those studies and all those different variables to see how they sorted.
• 14:22
  And so the analogy that I use, in our physical selves, we have found that cardiovascular fitness, strength training, flexibility and equilibrium training fortify us for our aging journeys.
• 14:37
  And we all say, start as soon as you can do it.
• 14:40
  Balance these four, go for it.
• 14:43
  But what about our internal fortification?
• 14:46
  So I was delighted to see that they really consistently grouped into these four areas, none of which are new.
• 14:54
  Throughout the ages, contemplative thinkers and philosophers have pointed to these internal areas.
• 15:02
  But they are verbs because they take work.
• 15:06
  And I tried so hard to make them into a catchy acronym.
• 15:10
  I just spent wasted hours and hours to try catchy.
• 15:15
  And then one day I thought it, the words just are as they are.
• 15:19
  And the one thing to help listeners remember is that it starts and ends with a G.
• 15:24
  So sometimes oh, G, and then the last and inside it's C, A, which I'm from California.
• 15:31
  So that is some little bit of.
• 15:32
  Saying like gee, California.
• 15:35
  Yes, gee, they think these things.
• 15:38
  So grow, connect, adapt, give.
• 15:42
  And these are really simple words and not simple concepts in that there is so much within each one.
• 15:51
  And I'm not exactly a spring chicken.
• 15:53
  I'm probably a fall chicken if, you know, if I read things right.
• 15:59
  And I, I noticed that all these things that you said are things that that I have incorporated, and they are truly, truly important to me.
• 16:11
  When I made a friendship with Roger, I'd known of his work and really respected him.
• 16:15
  And I said hello at conferences before, but we both were met when my parents had just passed.
• 16:21
  I dearly love my parents, my book.
• 16:24
  I said, whatever problem they had, it was on me.
• 16:26
  It wasn't them.
• 16:27
  And everybody's going, you're in denial.
• 16:28
  But anyway, I really adored my parents, and Roger had just lost his wife, so we connected, and it was really beautiful.
• 16:34
  And then I called him up afterwards In a very 20th century thing, a phone call, and I said, hey, you want to do a podcast?
• 16:41
  And Roger agreed.
• 16:43
  And I think it's both been something that's been very powerful for us at this point in our lives, and my connection with Roger and the connection with the people that we meet and preparing for this purpose, meaning I'm
• 16:54
  learning a great deal.
• 16:56
  It's been a very powerful, positive experience, and it goes along right with what.
• 16:59
  You're saying and what you're offering is what we need.
• 17:03
  And I just feel so grateful.
• 17:05
  And I am a big fan of your podcast.
• 17:07
  And, you know, I have carried Roger's book with me throughout my life, and I remember, and I'm eager to get to read your book, too, so what you're doing matters.
• 17:19
  Kerry, we could dive into each of these four of your pillars.
• 17:23
  These is a lifestyle choice, a muscle that has to be exerted, used over a long time to really keep cultivating.
• 17:34
  And it seems like in some ways, it gets more challenging with age.
• 17:38
  For example, having quit the university during COVID I now notice that I have to be really proactive about establishing connections.
• 17:47
  It's like they don't happen spontaneously.
• 17:49
  They in the way they do and say if you're in college or in a large organization.
• 17:54
  So it feels like.
• 17:56
  Yeah, I completely agree with each of these.
• 17:58
  And also, also just to acknowledge that you emphasize they take work and they do real exercises.
• 18:05
  Yeah, I've been a gym rat for decades now, you know, and working out has been very important.
• 18:10
  So I still drag my old, older body to the gym.
• 18:13
  I've switched around.
• 18:14
  You know what I do?
• 18:16
  Cardio is what I focus on first, and then the fun stuff is doing the strength training and stretching afterwards.
• 18:22
  So I really focus on that.
• 18:23
  And lately they looked at my heart and said, man, your heart.
• 18:26
  And I had a massive heart attack a while back.
• 18:28
  Looks really healthy and strong because I just.
• 18:31
  But I.
• 18:32
  It's not something I started because I had a heart attack.
• 18:34
  In fact, I had the heart attack when I was walking out of the gym, interestingly enough.
• 18:38
  So.
• 18:38
  But that is a.
• 18:39
  As a built in practice has really been helpful.
• 18:42
  Yes, yes.
• 18:44
  And I think within each of these categories, you know, fleshing them out of the depth that we could go to.
• 18:52
  Like, for example, with growth, I think the first thought sometimes might be just, oh, I need to learn something new, for example.
• 18:59
  But I think growth also encompasses spiritual growth.
• 19:04
  Growth encompasses self acceptance.
• 19:07
  And a lot of these things, they're, you know, just the things that your expertise is of how to use faith and depth and wisdom to really go deep in these areas.
• 19:23
  Yeah.
• 19:24
  You're never too old to hang out with God, you might say.
• 19:27
  I've noticed that devout people seem to age better.
• 19:31
  I mean, they feel more connected.
• 19:33
  I mean, this faith that sustained them through their lives really comes very clear as they get older.
• 19:39
  And my grandmother, I don't know how old she was, was late 80s maybe or early 90s, she died.
• 19:45
  And she had been a devout Catholic.
• 19:46
  And I remember, and they lived out on the farm.
• 19:48
  It's just like, you know, you read little books when you're a kid.
• 19:50
  The grandparents lived in the country, but she'd be out every morning in a rocking chair out in the back doing a rosary.
• 19:57
  So when it came for her time to die, you know, she was always there surrounded by her family.
• 20:03
  And they took turns.
• 20:04
  And I went in and I was a long haired, you know, hippie, and I brought my guitar and everybody's kind of, what do we do with this guy?
• 20:11
  They're from a conservative part of Louisiana, and.
• 20:13
  But they were kind to me because they loved me.
• 20:16
  But I started playing for her and she went, my God, you're like, he's like an angel, you know.
• 20:21
  And she was so grateful.
• 20:23
  And she would start having visions of her family and the next life and all this stuff.
• 20:27
  And she was really radiant.
• 20:28
  So my first experience with dying was like, seriously, Mommy is what we called her in French.
• 20:35
  It was very, very powerful.
• 20:37
  And I've seen things that have not been like that.
• 20:39
  Yeah.
• 20:40
  And what a legacy she left in showing how older can be.
• 20:45
  Many people don't have an example.
• 20:47
  And so sometimes for my patients who haven't had an example, we talk about, gosh, now you can be that example.
• 20:55
  Your legacy can be how you embrace this last part of it.
• 21:00
  Yeah, beautiful.
• 21:01
  Glad you're both bringing in spirituality and spiritual practice.
• 21:04
  Because it seems like now with all we know about the psychological and physical benefits of contemplative life, that this feels like it certainly deserves emphasis And I think where I would add to expand one topic in your book
• 21:22
  might be the meditation which we now know there's just so much information showing it enhances not only psychological well being and physical health in a variety of ways, but also maintains cognitive mental function and even minimizes some of
• 21:39
  the neural effects of aging.
• 21:41
  So I couldn't agree more.
• 21:43
  And it is that there should be much more in that book about meditation.
• 21:48
  And the funny thing is is I had wonderful section and then I took it out because I had it in multiple places and then I didn't put it back in enough.
• 21:59
  And there's a few topics like that, ah, in my ruthless elimination of things I eliminated some great ones.
• 22:05
  But the good news is there are so many other books that we that are complementary that we all need so good.
• 22:12
  Well, your Joyspan book is Delight and you talk about one of the pillars of a joyful life is at any age is giving service, contribution.
• 22:23
  And it's been amazing to me to see just how much research is coming out on the psychological and physical benefits of contribution and service, even longevity, let alone psychological well being.
• 22:37
  And one thing that you imply, but I don't recall dealing with it much in a lot of scope, was the fact that you certainly mentioned that being joyful is a gift.
• 22:49
  But in light of what we now know about social networks and the way emotions move through social networks to extraordinary degrees, we find that there's actual solid research, as you know better than I, that if we, one of
• 23:04
  us, all of us get more joyful, then not only do the people we know get more joyful, but the people they know and the people they know, it's like three degrees of separation.
• 23:15
  It's extraordinary how far these emotional ripple out through social networks.
• 23:19
  So as you say, being, yes, service is crucial, but just being, cultivating oneself, having some joy turns out to be a gift too.
• 23:29
  That's right.
• 23:30
  What a great point.
• 23:32
  And I think maybe at this point we can think about too differentiating joy from happiness because a lot of times people use them together and of course there's no one set definition.
• 23:44
  But the way that I think about it is that happiness seems a little more circumstantially dependent, whereas joy, because it's kind of an inside out way, I think it's great because there are challenges with getting older, with losing
• 24:02
  a loved one, with having medical conditions one didn't expect, or in my case having an adult child with a brain tumor that we didn't expect.
• 24:11
  So joy can be there even at times and we all have them.
• 24:17
  That happiness is not there.
• 24:19
  And so I'm so inspired when I get to work with people who, from the inside, have kind of a baseline joy that, as you said, that I can feel and is coming to me even in times of great
• 24:34
  grief.
• 24:35
  Can both exist?
• 24:37
  Yeah.
• 24:38
  Beautiful.
• 24:39
  You know, one of the things I do, I'm CEO of a company that creates brain entrainment technology.
• 24:44
  So once a week, I, most weeks, I do a guide, I do a meditation where we all listen to one of our products and I say a few words.
• 24:51
  They call it a Dharma talk.
• 24:52
  I don't know how much Dharma it is, but.
• 24:54
  And this last time, just this week, in fact, it was yesterday, I've really been investigating this Charlie Kirk assassination and who he was and what the young man was and what motivated him.
• 25:06
  And I was just.
• 25:08
  Nietzsche said, I'm paraphrasing that if you look into the abyss, the abyss looks into you.
• 25:13
  And I felt like the abyss had looked into me.
• 25:15
  And I thought, you know, I've got 45 minutes before I have to be this wise guy.
• 25:20
  And not.
• 25:21
  Not in a mafia sense, but a wise person.
• 25:23
  And what came to me very proud was meditating, getting ready to meditate.
• 25:27
  And it came to me that as an antidote to this stuff, the abyss are the antidote to all these addictive technologies that we're using that are designed to be addictive is soul centric activities, you know, stuff that.
• 25:44
  That enhances the soul, you know, so if you're old, you can't go outside, well, look out the window.
• 25:49
  Or a connection with nature, kindness to the person behind, you know, the cashier and the grocery store, all of these things.
• 25:57
  Having a pet, you know, that is of another species that you really deeply develop a personal, loving relationship with, being kind to people, you know, and we live in such a divisive, hard time.
• 26:09
  So.
• 26:09
  So just came to me is how important soul centric activities are to whatever stage of life we're in.
• 26:17
  And I would venture to say that in an old age, if you didn't do that, you're.
• 26:23
  It's not going to be a good experience.
• 26:26
  It really won't be.
• 26:27
  What a great point, John.
• 26:29
  Absolutely.
• 26:30
  I got to have the privilege of visiting somebody who is in her later 90s and she is now non verbal and quite contracted.
• 26:40
  So curled up in bed mostly.
• 26:43
  And yet she has been soul centric.
• 26:46
  And she has worked on these inner, spiritual, psychological, connective parts to her life.
• 26:54
  And when I visit, I put my head down on the pillow next to hers.
• 26:59
  And when I'm talking and also when I'm not talking, just that being her eyes open up and I can see, I can see in her such beauty.
• 27:10
  And I think, wow, it doesn't take words, it doesn't take anything material at all.
• 27:17
  And yet I can see in her what I hope for myself and for others.
• 27:23
  So I, I really hear what you're saying.
• 27:25
  Yeah, yeah.
• 27:27
  And Kerry, one of the things you emphasize, which feels really important, love to hear you, hear you speak about amplified, is you draw a distinction.
• 27:38
  But.
• 27:38
  Well, first I'll back up and say you point to the power of our beliefs about ourselves and particularly about aging.
• 27:46
  And I don't think you use the phrase, but the way I interpret is you're talking about beliefs about aging becoming self fulfilling prophecies.
• 27:55
  And you in particular talk about a growth mindset and a decline mindset.
• 28:01
  And maybe you could help us understand those.
• 28:04
  Yes, the default these days is the decline aging mindset, which beautifully spells out, damn, damn, everything's going downhill.
• 28:18
  Less relevant, less vital, less attractive, less all this.
• 28:24
  And it becomes so pervasive that you don't even realize that it's a mindset and you make decisions.
• 28:33
  I couldn't learn that at this point.
• 28:37
  Who would want to hang out with me, you know, I'm 90, whatever.
• 28:41
  And yet it is a choice.
• 28:44
  And it is like when we open our eyes and look, there is also a growth aging mindset.
• 28:50
  Gam.
• 28:51
  Or if you put an E on it, it could be game, which would be better.
• 28:54
  But with a growth aging mindset, and this is the one that is more supported in the research, that there is continued growth and that you have this opportunity to continue on your path all the way to the end
• 29:10
  of your life and conceivably beyond that.
• 29:12
  And so research shows that we have the potential to not be so beholden to what other people think about us as we get older.
• 29:27
  True.
• 29:27
  We have the potential for greater humility, which I think is something that society would so benefit from.
• 29:34
  We have the potential for greater appreciation of friendships and nature and music and art.
• 29:42
  And so when we think, oh my goodness, forget you damn decline aging mindset and look at this growth aging mindset, like how might I really picture a future me that is spectacular?
• 29:58
  Humans can't help but work toward that one.
• 30:01
  So what you expect impacts what you experience.
• 30:05
  So when people say to me, which they do all the time, aging sucks, I think how dangerous that is.
• 30:13
  And there's a research study out of Yale that shows that aging beliefs also impact the length of your life.
• 30:20
  So those who endorse age beliefs that are the decline aging mindset live on average 7.5 years less than those who endorse positive growth mindsets and aging.
• 30:34
  So that alone, I mean for those of us who are trying to, you know, live a long time and then even more so the quality and the health benefits of that kind of thinking.
• 30:47
  Yeah, I'm curious.
• 30:47
  Part of that growth.
• 30:48
  You mentioned that there are some that.
• 30:51
  Of course the conventional cultural belief is that capacities go down decline with aging, but you mentioned there are some that actually increase.
• 31:01
  And maybe you could tell us about those.
• 31:04
  One that I love is better told in a story than it is in a chart.
• 31:09
  And so I had a colleague at Harvard who has passed away, Jean cone, who had an MD, PhD in geriatric medicine.
• 31:18
  And he every Wednesday would pick his parents up at the train station.
• 31:23
  They were in their 90s.
• 31:25
  It was before there were cell phones everywhere.
• 31:28
  And one day they took the train in to have dinner at his house, but he was running late and wasn't there.
• 31:35
  So they walked out dumping snow.
• 31:39
  Both had walkers, can't see their dumb Harvard son anywhere.
• 31:44
  So then they look over and they see a pizza place and they carefully walk over to the pizza place and they say we'd like to order a pizza to be delivered to our son's house.
• 31:58
  And when you deliver that pizza, we'd like to ride along in the car with it.
• 32:04
  So they got themselves to his house with dinner.
• 32:08
  And that is problem solving.
• 32:10
  And it is problem solving not only from the increased potential for neurological integration between the left and right hemisphere, but also experience based problem solving.
• 32:21
  And when we realize that we hold that potential for increased problem solving as we get older and we put aside the ageist belief that we don't have that we have less to offer, we can come up with these
• 32:34
  incredible solutions that younger people are not going to come up with.
• 32:39
  And so that's what I like let's publicize that because we need those experience based solutions that I don't think you're going to see a 20 year old have thinking of that riding along in the car with the pizza.
• 32:53
  And you also mentioned some other things just to make sure we don't lose.
• 32:58
  And I think you mentioned the emotional stability increasing with age and what sometimes called wise reasoning, particularly in social situations, people being able to see what's most appropriate, which will be most helpful.
• 33:12
  So that seems to increase with age.
• 33:14
  And there's something known in your book which isn't surprising because it's not widely known even in the culture, even among psychologists.
• 33:22
  And that is that significant research now showing that people can actually move through so called stages of adult development, so not only acquiring new skills or information, but actually more like new operating systems and move from say, formal
• 33:42
  to post formal operational thinking or from conventional to post conventional morality, et cetera.
• 33:49
  So it's getting clear we have just underestimated the potentials of aging and that one of the challenges for us is to get this information out into the culture.
• 34:00
  Because as you just said a few minutes ago, having the vision of possibilities opens those as potentials for us.
• 34:08
  I love that.
• 34:09
  And I think that you should write a book about that because like a research based book about what gets better as you get older.
• 34:17
  And then we would find a way to really get that out, would give us a whole toolbox that we already have.
• 34:23
  So it's sort of.
• 34:24
  Sometimes I think people hold a toolbox but they don't open it because they don't know it's in there because they've been so busy with what the outside of the toolbox looks like.
• 34:35
  Yeah.
• 34:35
  Well, Kerry, I think you're calling Joyspan two is onion too.
• 34:41
  I never have a Joyspan too, because they asked me when I came up with the word, would you like to trademark it?
• 34:48
  And I said, oh, no, I want people to use it.
• 34:51
  Just as we all say lifespan and we all say healthspan, let's all say Joyspan.
• 34:57
  So of course not.
• 34:59
  Well, then some other venture capital, you know, people heard about it and trademarked it and now are trying to go after me not to use it.
• 35:11
  Oh, goodness.
• 35:11
  But the good news is, you know, the people can use it.
• 35:15
  The cat's out of the bag.
• 35:16
  So they hold the trademark, but we can, we can still use it.
• 35:20
  But they said you must never write a book about it again.
• 35:23
  Okay.
• 35:23
  Goodness gracious, isn't that something painful, Kerry?
• 35:28
  We've been focusing largely on individuals, but we probably should step back here and look at social and economic factors because, yeah, Joyspan's wonderful, but it's much harder if you're poor, particularly hard if you're on the streets or something.
• 35:45
  And we are facing a forthcoming tidal wave of elder poverty.
• 35:51
  We've lost so much in the way of pension plans.
• 35:55
  Defined benefit plans are pretty much gone the way of the dodo.
• 36:00
  The Social Security network, Social network support is being shredded as we speak.
• 36:06
  The Donald Trump's Big Beautiful Bastard bill is going to raise premiums for medical insurance for people.
• 36:17
  I mean, we're just looking at incredible, incredibly difficult times for a lot of people.
• 36:22
  But Particularly for the elderly.
• 36:24
  Love to hear your comment.
• 36:26
  I'm so glad you bring that up.
• 36:28
  Okay, so I started my career for the first 16 years I just really focused on elder abuse, neglect and financial exploitation.
• 36:38
  So my partner Laura Mosqueda at UCI and I, UCI, we created the nation's first elder abuse forensic center.
• 36:45
  And we really were digging into rough situations of people with no resources, people who had been exploited by family members and you know, predators.
• 36:57
  And, and then I thought, okay, now how can we try to fortify people, to give people information in a trajectory to avoid these situations?
• 37:06
  And so Joyspan, great.
• 37:08
  But now I'm at this crossroads of the next step.
• 37:11
  So I feel so grateful that I'm going to be going back to UCI in public health.
• 37:17
  And it is so critical, as you said, for us to recognize that we already had a big challenge with 10,000 more of us turning 65 every single day in the United States.
• 37:30
  But then on top of that to be decimating.
• 37:33
  So for example, Medicaid funding, skilled nursing facilities has been an important safety net and now that's going to be going away.
• 37:42
  So there's going to be disadvantaged seniors who are no longer able to be housed.
• 37:48
  What?
• 37:49
  So I think it is more critical than ever that we absolutely, on an individual basis, yes, we want to fortify ourselves.
• 37:58
  I've certainly all of these principles apply and you know, I see people in really disadvantaged situations who have incredible connection, adapting, giving and growing, but also a societal recognition that we all connected and we are all in some
• 38:17
  stage of becoming frail older adults.
• 38:21
  And how can we proactively like lean into the fact that it is critical that we have access to healthcare, that we have housing, that we recognize that we don't even wanna live in a society that doesn't address these
• 38:36
  important issues and from all angles.
• 38:40
  So some things I'm getting involved in now is non profits and private sector solutions, but then also not giving up and speaking about, you know, we must have science to explore these topics.
• 38:55
  We must have people who can speak truths that may be different from what other people think you have to as a policymaker.
• 39:06
  And a book I'd like to point your listeners to is a book called the Measure of our Age.
• 39:13
  This is a book by Mt Connolly who I think 10 or 15 years ago won the MacArthur foundation genius award in order to write about these policy issues.
• 39:24
  And the book came out, I think really it took her many years to write because it's just that good.
• 39:30
  And it really digs into the policy issues and ramifications and what we can do about it and how it ties to the macro issues, to the micro issues.
• 39:40
  And she's absolutely brilliant attorney who's doing a lot of great work.
• 39:45
  So I would love to point people to that book.
• 39:47
  I wanted to building on what both of you saying, that this big beautiful bill, the really draconian cuts in Medicaid don't happen until after the next midterm.
• 39:58
  I mean, this is so calculatedly just, can I say evil, you know, and my other home where I live is in a very rural place in southern Utah.
• 40:10
  And I know that the clinic's gonna go away and I've really known these people and they, the work there that are so good.
• 40:15
  It's one of the, some of the best healthcare I've ever gotten.
• 40:17
  And that's gonna just go away.
• 40:20
  I'm watching it.
• 40:21
  I mean, like you said, the real draconian part isn't yet.
• 40:26
  And it was intentionally like that.
• 40:28
  But then already, you know, a lot of the, for example, the elder abuse forensic center that we built that was really working now is defunded.
• 40:37
  And a lot of the research projects that, you know, were supporting that also defunded.
• 40:44
  And the society that doesn't value education and free speech is one that is not going to thrive.
• 40:53
  Yeah.
• 40:54
  And it's often said that the sign of the maturity or benevolence of the society is how well the society looks after those who can't look after themselves.
• 41:05
  And we are just going downhill.
• 41:08
  I mean, we're becoming inhuman in that way.
• 41:11
  And I want to just expand this to the, from the national to the global perspective.
• 41:18
  And I was looking up the figures from the World bank yesterday on poverty last year, 2024.
• 41:23
  And it blew me away to realize that the World bank said, oh, more than 690 million people were living in what's called extreme poverty, defined as less than $2.15 a day.
• 41:35
  I mean, that's pretty amazing.
• 41:40
  So that's extreme poverty then poverty.
• 41:43
  It's a couple of billion people.
• 41:45
  So.
• 41:45
  And presumably a lot of those are elder and more of them are going to become, wow, Roger.
• 41:52
  And then, you know, we have this, you know, with billionaires who can never get through the money that they have it objectively just go, this makes no sense.
• 42:03
  And then also that we're glamorizing this and thinking, oh, how wonderful that these certain people have all these resources where other people are like, I have patients, they literally are deciding, shall I eat or shall I take life
• 42:19
  saving medication?
• 42:20
  And how is this possible?
• 42:23
  And I sometimes it, the problem feels so big.
• 42:27
  But if all of us lean into it, we can make a difference.
• 42:31
  And we mustn't shut down and we mustn't.
• 42:35
  Every once in a while I think, well, maybe I just need to leave.
• 42:38
  No, no, we need to dig in even more to try to.
• 42:43
  Because if you can impact one life, if you know your next door neighbor is struggling, go to that one.
• 42:48
  Because if we were all to do that, we could address the issue.
• 42:52
  But if we all put our head in the sand, which I understand, sometimes we want to, nothing gets done.
• 42:58
  We're really going to be called on to speak up and act, maybe act out into new degrees and levels as the threats to the collective, as inequality grows, as free speech is even threatened.
• 43:16
  So there are going to be a lot of challenges, and the elderly and the poor are the people who are going to be most impacted, unfortunately.
• 43:23
  So that's why I'm so grateful for your podcast, because I will be tuning in, because how to navigate this world with love, you know, to maintain our love for all.
• 43:35
  That's.
• 43:35
  I mean, I think that's what I get from listening to your podcast.
• 43:38
  Given the dark times that we're in and moving into, how do we maintain that connection to compassion, to wisdom, to hope, joy of life, creativity?
• 43:49
  It's.
• 43:50
  Yeah, it's what we're doing here.
• 43:51
  So that's just it.
• 43:53
  And what you are doing is contributing to that.
• 43:55
  You are going deep and helping those of us, myself included, as your listeners, to do just that.
• 44:03
  I wanted to share one little thing.
• 44:04
  I know we're about running out of time, but I've been involved in recording an album.
• 44:08
  I'm a singer, songwriter, and guitarist.
• 44:11
  And from the first part of the album, I think I was trying to sing like I used to sing.
• 44:16
  I used to have a very, very powerful voice.
• 44:19
  So the last time.
• 44:19
  And then I was thinking of Johnny Cash, and he did some of his best work as an old band right before he died.
• 44:25
  I mean, there was so much soul in the last couple of albums.
• 44:28
  I have that album.
• 44:29
  Yeah, why don't I sing from that place?
• 44:32
  And the last song I recorded was just one of the best things I've ever done, because I wasn't trying to sing like Neil Young or get it real high and everything, and just I said, okay, think of Johnny
• 44:41
  Cash.
• 44:42
  And I sang with that voice and I had this deep bass vibrato.
• 44:46
  Soul.
• 44:48
  Stop.
• 44:48
  That came out and it was like, wow.
• 44:50
  It's like, oh, my music's over.
• 44:52
  I'm too old.
• 44:53
  Not at all.
• 44:54
  I'm entering a creative Period.
• 44:56
  By allowing that to be what it is.
• 44:58
  And I still have to practice and I still have to prepare, but that's part of the joy of it.
• 45:03
  Yes, absolutely.
• 45:04
  And, yeah, just think of if all of us would stop censoring ourself and lean into this older version of ourselves.
• 45:12
  One of the things about being a gerontologist, you get the privilege of going to a lot of funerals, and I go to a lot.
• 45:19
  And I was just at 12 days ago, and a person got up on the stage or kind of on the pulpit area and sang a song.
• 45:30
  And what struck me and why every one of us just was wet with tears was there was nothing like, look at me.
• 45:37
  There was nothing like, how am I sounding?
• 45:40
  There was nothing that pointed at them at all.
• 45:43
  It was this.
• 45:45
  As if she was just singing by herself.
• 45:49
  And it didn't matter anything except that offering.
• 45:52
  And, I mean, I can cry thinking about it right now.
• 45:54
  It was so beautiful.
• 45:56
  So I think we just keep on keeping on and offering what we can offer.
• 46:03
  Beautiful.
• 46:04
  And, Kerry, is there anything else you'd like to offer?
• 46:07
  You know, there's so much more we could have touched on in your book and in your work and your life and all the contributions you're making.
• 46:13
  But is there anything in particular that you would like to add?
• 46:18
  Or is there a particular idea and.
• 46:22
  I want to add to.
• 46:23
  Everybody's listening to this.
• 46:24
  We had to cut this short because she has to go be with an old person.
• 46:27
  You know, I get to.
• 46:29
  I'm so lucky that I get to be infused most every day by people who are ahead of me on the journey, one being my mom, who is 96, but also all other kinds of people.
• 46:42
  And I think we don't think of aging as successful or not successful or even aging, quote well, or, you know, a person who is even necessarily some kind of super ager.
• 46:57
  Right.
• 46:58
  We all are going to have tough, tough stuff in this journey, and it doesn't mean that we're doing it wrong.
• 47:05
  And ultimately, yes, we're all going to die.
• 47:08
  And that's how I start my undergraduate lectures.
• 47:10
  I put a pie chart behind me that's just a red circle, and I say, this is the mortality rate.
• 47:16
  It's 100%.
• 47:17
  And in that time, let's use it.
• 47:21
  So I think I would leave your brilliant, accomplished listeners with this.
• 47:29
  When thoughts come into your mind that are unkind to yourself about aging, when you say, oh, I'm having a senior moment, or am I really losing it?
• 47:40
  Or, oh, my Gosh, I have 12,000 chin.
• 47:43
  Wow.
• 47:43
  My stomach is hanging over my pants.
• 47:46
  To counter those thoughts.
• 47:49
  To counter those thoughts with like, yes, there will be changes.
• 47:54
  And also there are these things that I, like Roger said, my emotional stability, my way of navigating my interest in other people's over my own interest.
• 48:05
  I wouldn't trade that for the world.
• 48:08
  So to counter these internalized ageist thoughts that older is not good or that you are somehow less than.
• 48:16
  Because when you step into your power, we can revolutionize longevity.
• 48:24
  Beautiful.
• 48:25
  Wow.
• 48:25
  Well, Kerry, thank you.
• 48:27
  And so doing revolutionizing humanity, I mean, it's the huge carryover here.
• 48:33
  Absolutely.
• 48:35
  And, Kerry, thank you so much for both being with us today and even more for your beautiful work you're doing.
• 48:42
  And I'm very happy to hear you're going back to a home University of California at Irvine.
• 48:48
  I'm so excited, and I have so much to learn in the public health area, but the dean of public health there has such a rich passion for improving lives, and I.
• 49:01
  I'm really honored.
• 49:02
  I don't exactly know the details or exactly when I start, but I sure will be listening to you and learning from both of you and hope to continue this conversation and maybe we can do this again.
• 49:13
  Or I could support what you all are doing and also share so that more people can listen to this incredible podcast.
• 49:20
  Wonderful.
• 49:21
  Thank you, Kerry.
• 49:22
  Thank you for your good work.
• 49:23
  And, yeah, just.
• 49:24
  It's beautiful thinking of all the lives you've touched on.
• 49:27
  Thanks.
• 49:28
  Yeah, God bless you.
• 49:29
  It's been a joy.
• 49:29
  Kerry.
• 49:30
  Oh, thanks very much, John.
• 49:32
  I feel the same way.
• 49:33
  So this is not goodbye.
• 49:34
  This is just for now.
• 49:36
  And then we'll keep learning from one another.
• 49:39
  Very good.
• 49:41
  Thank you very much for being a part of this conversation.
• 49:44
  We hope that you were moved, as we are moved, being part of it ourselves.
• 49:48
  We'd also like to say that this is being funded by Roger and myself.
• 49:52
  It comes out of our pockets.
• 49:53
  So if you would like to help us to.
• 49:55
  Mainly to get this podcast out to more people, because the bigger audience, which is steadily growing, but the more people we can reach and the more marketing we can do, the more positive effect we can have on the
• 50:05
  world.
• 50:06
  So we've done a couple of ways, but we'd like you to buy us a cup of coffee.
• 50:09
  Very simple.
• 50:10
  And I do that with podcasts that I support, and I find it's very satisfying.
• 50:15
  So thank you for your help, thank you for your presence and thank you for all you are and all you do.
• 50:20
  We love you.