Speaker 1: I get a team. It's Jumbo, it's Fatty Harps, It's
Speaker 1: Tiffany and Cook. The box of the pugilistic thug, the
Speaker 1: one of the rapidly expanding profile. I was going to
Speaker 1: say ego, but I went profile. She's just a quite
Speaker 1: achieve it, just chipping away, just posting thirty photos of
Speaker 1: herself a day, just chipping away quietly in the back. Well,
Speaker 1: It's true. If I was in the shape you're in,
Speaker 1: I'd post like a motherfucker as well. I only post
Speaker 1: buttos of me in a dressing gown now and in
Speaker 1: a kubra.
Speaker 2: Juicing gown and in a kubra.
Speaker 1: That's there's a picture. Nobody needs.
Speaker 2: Hi tip, My heart's reporting in for Judy. How are you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Look never better? Never better. I'm I've got a
Speaker 1: busy week. It's two eight Tuesday. Lots of work on
Speaker 1: this week, bit of interstate travel, bit of talking to
Speaker 1: humans about the human experience, and I wanted to talk today,
Speaker 1: though this won't be super long. I put up a
Speaker 1: post this morning which a few people have sent me.
Speaker 1: I've got quite a few comments on and a few
Speaker 1: people sent me messages about and I'm just fascinated with this,
Speaker 1: and some people will think, well, you're fascinated with this
Speaker 1: topic because you are old, And while that is true
Speaker 1: that I am old, that is not the reason I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated with it. I'm fascinated with this topic because I
Speaker 1: think it plays a it's going to say massive, Well,
Speaker 1: let's just go with significant role in the way that
Speaker 1: we age, the quality of our lifespan and health span,
Speaker 1: and some of the interesting good and bad conversations that
Speaker 1: had around the way that we age. And so this
Speaker 1: is probably going to be called something like the Psychology
Speaker 1: of aging this podcast. But so here's what he's what
Speaker 1: I writ Here's what I writ and this is on Instagram,
Speaker 1: Facebook and all that if you want to find it
Speaker 1: and you want to refer to it or showbody or
Speaker 1: show somebody it because it's broadly relevant the psychologist. So
Speaker 1: this is the whiteboard post part the Psychology of aging.
Speaker 1: There's what you're actually capable of doing, creating, learning, and becoming,
Speaker 1: and then there's the story of what you should at
Speaker 1: and shouldn't be doing at your age. One is an
Speaker 1: ocean of possibilities, one a self created prison, and here's
Speaker 1: the words around it. Of course, we need to navigate
Speaker 1: the inevitability of chronological aging. But the way that you
Speaker 1: and I age mentally, emotionally, and physically is a variable
Speaker 1: that we can manipulate via our choices, behaviors and atypical thinking.
Speaker 1: Eat well, move well, set goals, learn new things, have
Speaker 1: new experiences. Have a bigger purpose than you laugh at
Speaker 1: silly shit. Can control your controllables, do everything, and I
Speaker 1: mean everything in your capacity to optimize your potential for long,
Speaker 1: healthy and happy life. And before anyone asks. While we
Speaker 1: can't change our genetics that is the DNA sequence of
Speaker 1: our genes, we can influence genetic expression through various factors
Speaker 1: such as lifestyle, environment, diet, attitude, and behavior. These changes
Speaker 1: in gene expression can impact various aspects of our health,
Speaker 1: including a imne function, energy levels, health span over a
Speaker 1: longevity and more So, there's the practical reality of aging,
Speaker 1: which is like chronological inevitability, a chronological constant. That is, tomorrow,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be sixty years and two hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty seven, not two hundred and thirty six days, and
Speaker 1: the next day two hundred and thirty eight days or
Speaker 1: whatever the number is for me, and that number is
Speaker 1: never going down. The only thing that will happen is
Speaker 1: we'll stop going forward one day when I when I
Speaker 1: fucking bite the bullet, no pun intended, Sorry Donald, when
Speaker 1: I die, let's just go with that. But for the moment,
Speaker 1: hopefully in my day numbers, my chronology keeps kind of
Speaker 1: moving in that forward direction, and I keep getting chronologically
Speaker 1: chronologically older. But the way that we age, and the
Speaker 1: way that we talk about aging, and the way that
Speaker 1: we think about aging, and the way that we limit
Speaker 1: ourselves and others by virtue of the stories that we
Speaker 1: tell ourselves about what is normal in inverted commas, what
Speaker 1: is you know at your age? What is one of
Speaker 1: my least favorite terms in the world. Is age appropriate
Speaker 1: If you're talking about very young people, perhaps, But if
Speaker 1: you're talking about old people, to me, age appropriate is
Speaker 1: just another way of saying self limiting, or you know,
Speaker 1: it's some kind of barrier. Now. Of course, there is
Speaker 1: the practical reality that as we get older, of course,
Speaker 1: there are physiological limitations. But the rate at which those
Speaker 1: limitations come into existence, or the way they do, is
Speaker 1: to an extent, as I said in my whiteboard post, controllable,
Speaker 1: So I remember, and I'll shut up after this tiff
Speaker 1: and then you can jump in. But I remember when
Speaker 1: I started my PhD, there was more than a couple
Speaker 1: of people who said to me, because I started my
Speaker 1: PhD fifty six, how long will it take? I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know, four or five six, I don't know
Speaker 1: however long it takes maybe five years, which looks like
Speaker 1: it's going to be around five years. And a bunch
Speaker 1: of people said to me, when I say, a bunch
Speaker 1: somewhere between five and ten, people said, oh, so you're
Speaker 1: going to be like sixty one when you finish, and
Speaker 1: I went, yes, yes I will. And I said, but
Speaker 1: here's the thing. I'm going to be sixty one anyway.
Speaker 1: Like let's hope I make it, but let's assume that
Speaker 1: I'm still alive in five years. Then I'm going to
Speaker 1: be sixty one with a PhD or sixty one without
Speaker 1: a PhD. So if that's my choice, I'm choosing the PhD.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much, you know. But if I was starting
Speaker 1: that PhD at twenty six, nobody would talk about my age,
Speaker 1: or thirty six, nobody would talk about my age. Nobody
Speaker 1: would go, oh, hang on right, And if for example,
Speaker 1: I had some significant I mean with this with respects,
Speaker 1: say intellectual disability or some extreme limiting factor that meant
Speaker 1: it was very, very, very difficult or almost impossible for
Speaker 1: me to then I would understand that. But most people's
Speaker 1: curiosity was just around. But you'll be so old, you know,
Speaker 1: and that, and I understand that, by the way. I'm
Speaker 1: not one bit offended by that at all. What I
Speaker 1: am is I'm curious. I'm curious that we have these stories.
Speaker 1: I know I said it shut up, but I will
Speaker 1: I'm curious that we have I'm very aware of that
Speaker 1: because I'm doing it. P Hdan awareness, did you know?
Speaker 1: But I'm very cognizant that we all have these stories.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying there that I don't understand them.
Speaker 1: I'm just leaning into it and saying are these stories
Speaker 1: helpful or hurtful? Like when we go, oh, well, you're
Speaker 1: this age, therefore you probably should be thinking about these things.
Speaker 1: I looked at a guy this morning, Tiff, and he
Speaker 1: came through on my feed on Insta, and he's eighty
Speaker 1: three and he bench presses three hundred and sixty pounds,
Speaker 1: which is about what one hundred and seventy or seventy
Speaker 1: five k's. But my dad so he's two years younger
Speaker 1: than my dad. Yeah, and he's a fucking mom and
Speaker 1: he's just this big, strong Now, a lot of people
Speaker 1: would think, oh, that's that's too much like the dude.
Speaker 1: I looked at the dude. You know, I don't have
Speaker 1: a crystal ball. But while he's eighty three and he's
Speaker 1: doing it right. So he's outlived the average Australian male
Speaker 1: by three years already, So very strong, very functional and
Speaker 1: not following the script, you know, and I just think
Speaker 1: that it's really I mean, you're still young. But as
Speaker 1: we spoke the other day, we're talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: between now and death. You and I did a podcast,
Speaker 1: but just the stories that we tell ourselves, and you know,
Speaker 1: we don't want to be unrealistic and we don't want
Speaker 1: to be reckless. But at the same time, from an
Speaker 1: experiential perspective, like how we age, is one really up
Speaker 1: to us to a point, like we can manipulate food
Speaker 1: and exercise and attitude and sleep and to an extent,
Speaker 1: stress and cortisol and all of those things. We can
Speaker 1: at least work on those things. Lifestyle behaviors, habits, you know, situation, circumstance, environments,
Speaker 1: work life balance, a work life relationship. All of those
Speaker 1: things we can at least influence, if not completely control.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll be quiet now.
Speaker 3: The thing that's more powerful than the things we're controlling, though,
Speaker 3: is the story that we develop behind the control. So
Speaker 3: when people talk about someone who's young and fit and
Speaker 3: they just they collapsed and had a heart attack and
Speaker 3: their life and they were only whatever, and they ran
Speaker 3: marathons and they were they never ate junk and they
Speaker 3: never drank, and we list all of these these material
Speaker 3: reasons why they're fit and healthy, but we don't think
Speaker 3: about what's driving them to run every day while you know,
Speaker 3: how much are they stressing and obsessing over all of
Speaker 3: those other things to control their health outcome and what
Speaker 3: what neurochemistry is getting pumped into their mind as they're
Speaker 3: stressed about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also one hundred percent like the external appearance
Speaker 1: of fitness and function doesn't always accurately reflect the underlying stuff,
Speaker 1: which is what you're kind of saying. And you know,
Speaker 1: when we just extrapolate all that psychology across the lifespan.
Speaker 1: And I've told this story of probably three times, but
Speaker 1: I'll tell it once again quickly. I remember backing out
Speaker 1: of my driveway which is onto a main street, and
Speaker 1: I can't see and I nearly, very nearly backed into
Speaker 1: a bloke on a skateboard. Do you remember that, right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I felt terrible and anyway, it was fine.
Speaker 1: It was a near miss. He stopped, he picked up
Speaker 1: his skateboard. I got out and I went round and
Speaker 1: say sorry, I nearly killed you. And to my complete
Speaker 1: fucking surprise, I was about fifty then, so ten years ago,
Speaker 1: and he was in his sixties, and he was fucking
Speaker 1: scorching along the footpath like a Tino, and I was
Speaker 1: fascinated with him, and you know, I just spoke to him.
Speaker 1: I said, how long have you been skateboarding? He said,
Speaker 1: basically since they got to Australia, So he'd been skateboarding
Speaker 1: since he was ten or twelve years old, you know,
Speaker 1: since the seventies, had never stopped, and you know, he
Speaker 1: had a car, he said, but when I've got to
Speaker 1: go anywhere that's just within a few k's I skate.
Speaker 1: It's like it's not and he doesn't do it because
Speaker 1: it's trendy or it's hip, or but to look at
Speaker 1: this motherfucker move I'm like, oh, yeah, like this guy
Speaker 1: has not stopped right. And I looked at him anyway,
Speaker 1: we said goodbye, and he headed off, you know, in
Speaker 1: the other direction. And I watched him get on his
Speaker 1: board and he stood on his board, he jumped on
Speaker 1: his board, and he pushed off down the road like literally,
Speaker 1: like from the back, you would think it was an
Speaker 1: athletic twenty five or thirty year old, like the way
Speaker 1: that he moved. And I'm like, well, he moves like
Speaker 1: that because he's just always done it, you know, like
Speaker 1: there's nothing somebody else would say, what the fuck are
Speaker 1: you doing? You're in your sixties, your bone density is low,
Speaker 1: this yere pretty. Oh you're just you're putting yourself at
Speaker 1: risk of injury. And like this guy and yeah, like
Speaker 1: I said, he wasn't able to prove anything. He wasn't
Speaker 1: on a mission. He didn't think he was a big deal.
Speaker 1: He was like, well why wouldn't I This is convenient,
Speaker 1: Like it's just it's it's way better than walking. I
Speaker 1: get everywhere four times quicker, and it's fun and he
Speaker 1: loves it. And yeah, I just think that that for me,
Speaker 1: that that kind of just turned on a light bulb
Speaker 1: in my head because even I was surprised, and I'm
Speaker 1: the optimist in this, I'm like, for a moment, I'm like, fuck,
Speaker 1: how old you? When I saw him, and even I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: even though I didn't think it was inappropriate, I thought
Speaker 1: it's unusual, and what a pity that it's unusual.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I reckon our environment, and who's around us plays
Speaker 3: a mass part. If I go back to Tazzy, all
Speaker 3: my Tazzy friends have grown up kids, a fit pretty
Speaker 3: grown up kids now. But the friends that I hang
Speaker 3: around here. I had always had this theory based on
Speaker 3: my first boss, who when I left Tazzy, she was
Speaker 3: sixty three, and I was like, well, you're not leaving
Speaker 3: this business anytime soon, and there's no room for any
Speaker 3: progression until you do. And she's still working full time
Speaker 3: now at eighty three. Because she was always around young girls.
Speaker 3: She would always had this team of young girls.
Speaker 2: And she was like a kid.
Speaker 3: So I spent so much time saying that along the
Speaker 3: way going you hang out with young people. And then
Speaker 3: I looked around my tribe lately and they're all sixty
Speaker 3: year olds, and I go, hang on, I'm doing the opposite,
Speaker 3: but they're sixty year olds that think, behave and have
Speaker 3: fun like they're twenty My PT group swim well, that
Speaker 3: got me in the cold water this week. Charlie and
Speaker 3: his wife Jane, and they're all then they're sick is
Speaker 3: and above and it's a lot. And I call them
Speaker 3: my kindergartens. It's like a pack of kindergarten kids. And
Speaker 3: that is contagious and we have to be careful of it.
Speaker 3: And I think workplaces and the places where we're spending
Speaker 3: the most of our time with the people that we
Speaker 3: may not necessarily be choosing, that's who's influencing our mindset
Speaker 3: around this stuff.
Speaker 1: I think it's really I mean, you know, we need
Speaker 1: to be intelligent and we're not talking like I said,
Speaker 1: we're not talking about being reckless or silly. But you know,
Speaker 1: somebody sent me a video the other day and it
Speaker 1: had this side by side. I feel bad saying this,
Speaker 1: but it's just true. So I'm just going to fuck it.
Speaker 1: But it had Joe Biden right on the stage, and
Speaker 1: you know, and like with complete respect, I think when
Speaker 1: you know, it's not a revelation to say there's like
Speaker 1: there's some real cognitive decline and physiological decline and full
Speaker 1: respect for him and all of that, but you know,
Speaker 1: there's stuff going on there. And then in the parallel
Speaker 1: video was Mick Jagger, right from a concert like two
Speaker 1: weeks ago, fucking sprinting across this stage like forty meters
Speaker 1: to one side, rocking out, then sprinting, I mean sprinting right,
Speaker 1: and then dancing and rocking on. And I looked up
Speaker 1: how old he is just before we went live on
Speaker 1: the twenty six of this month, which is ten days
Speaker 1: as we record, he's eighty one eighty one, So he's
Speaker 1: running round and I mean, again, you know, you would
Speaker 1: think that that's not possible, but and this is the
Speaker 1: whole of course, there's a physiological limit, and there's a
Speaker 1: physiological kind of reality, of course, But I don't think
Speaker 1: virtually any of us are anywhere near our threshold, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I know that, and I'm not the role model
Speaker 1: or the high watermark for anything. But you know, our
Speaker 1: brain is a physical organ, right, just like you're living,
Speaker 1: your heart, your kidneys, all physical organs. Your brain. Your
Speaker 1: brain is not your mind, right, your mind is not.
Speaker 1: But your brain is a physiological organ. It's organic. And
Speaker 1: how well it works, how well your brain works has
Speaker 1: got a bit to do with genetics. We don't know exactly.
Speaker 1: Everybody goes, oh it's fifteen percent. We really don't fucking know.
Speaker 1: But my guess is that it's a bit somewhere around
Speaker 1: twenty percent. That's my guess. But I'm we don't know,
Speaker 1: but I reckon it's about eighty percent about behavior and
Speaker 1: lifestyle and choices and nutrition and sleep and thinking and stories.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm sixty one this year. I'm sixty
Speaker 1: one at the end of September. September twenty eight. Put
Speaker 1: in your diary. Don't get any trouble tip just something
Speaker 1: big and expensive. But did you just write that down?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm pretty sure it Joready and maccoul that's hilarious, But.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that from a physiological point of view
Speaker 1: that I'm definitely from a cognitive point of view, I'm
Speaker 1: as good as I was when I was forty. I
Speaker 1: definitely have more knowledge. I would say I have more understanding.
Speaker 1: I'd say I have more patience. I'm not smarter in
Speaker 1: inverted commas, but I know more. And my ability to
Speaker 1: function and operate and navigate life, and my recall and
Speaker 1: my creativity and my problem solving and my attention. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm delusional. I don't think I am, but I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure they're is good or better than twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: Now that shouldn't happen, or that doesn't typically happen, I
Speaker 1: should say. But what we can do is we can
Speaker 1: either wind back the clock, a metaphoric clock, doing all
Speaker 1: of the things that improve cognitive function, that improved physiology,
Speaker 1: that improve immune system function, strength and power and speed
Speaker 1: and balance and agility and range of movement and flexibility,
Speaker 1: all of these things that at any age we can manipulate.
Speaker 1: My dad at eighty five, as everyone knows because I've
Speaker 1: been banging on about him. You know, he's gone from
Speaker 1: four months ago not working out at all. So now
Speaker 1: he's working out three days a week, and like, honestly
Speaker 1: almost by the week. I can see improvement in this
Speaker 1: eighty five year old body. Now he can three months later,
Speaker 1: he can do stuff now that three months earlier he
Speaker 1: couldn't do. So from a functional perspective, he is lowering
Speaker 1: his biological age at the chronological age of eighty five.
Speaker 1: And another thing that's worth mentioning here, And I want
Speaker 1: your thoughts on this is the high regard, the ridiculous
Speaker 1: high regard that we hold in our culture, that we
Speaker 1: hold retirement like it's some something to celebrate and to
Speaker 1: look forward to. When we turned down the emotion and
Speaker 1: we get away from the story of how amazing retirement
Speaker 1: will be, the reality, the psychological, emotional, sociological, physiological reality
Speaker 1: of retirement for many people is catastrophic and what we
Speaker 1: see with many people. So think about this, you know, Friday,
Speaker 1: and this is my dad's story. My dad was running
Speaker 1: a multimillion dollar shopping center on a Friday. He had purpose,
Speaker 1: He had lots of connection, He had responsibility. He was
Speaker 1: using his brain all day every day. He was solving problems,
Speaker 1: he was being challenged, negotiating deals, he was having meaningful
Speaker 1: dialogues with interesting people. He was working forty to fifty
Speaker 1: hours a week. And then the following Monday, all of
Speaker 1: that was gone forever. All of that was gone forever.
Speaker 1: Now he had fifty years of that or a version
Speaker 1: of that, you know, meaning focus, per purpose, skill development,
Speaker 1: acquiring knowledge, understanding, resolving conflicts, solving problems, dealing with people
Speaker 1: and personalities, you know, navigating the career that we all have.
Speaker 1: And then boom, none of it. Him and Mary looking
Speaker 1: at each other, going, what do we do now? It's
Speaker 1: one o'clock. Now, that's fucking terrible for you. Now that's
Speaker 1: not to say we should all work to wear one hundred,
Speaker 1: but it is. It is to say that working or not,
Speaker 1: we need engagement, We need connection, We need to solve problems.
Speaker 1: We need to use our brain, we need cognitive stimulation,
Speaker 1: We need to be challenged, like because the moment that
Speaker 1: we stop using our body and brain, that shit goes
Speaker 1: into free fall.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent, My pop, who is one hundred.
Speaker 1: Now when you say that, I think you're fucking around
Speaker 1: because I always say I'm a hundred. But he actually
Speaker 1: is one hundred, isn't he? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And he looks so young, like he looks eighty and
Speaker 2: he he's now in a home.
Speaker 3: And when my nan went into that home, he moved
Speaker 3: on side into a self contained unit. But up until
Speaker 3: that point he lived in this enormous two story house
Speaker 3: with so he was out gardening and chopping wood all
Speaker 3: this he was playing golf, chopping wood, trimming the head
Speaker 3: these massive hedges around the property like he was because
Speaker 3: he was a farmer. He was a farmer and I
Speaker 3: think of that. I always think of why did my
Speaker 3: nan live to ninety five and my grandfather is one
Speaker 3: hundred and still going strong and he eats chocolates every day?
Speaker 3: And what are the traits and the lifestyle things, because
Speaker 3: they weren't you know, he played sport. But it's community
Speaker 3: and connection, it's personality, it's mindset, it's thoughts, and I
Speaker 3: just try and take so much about what I can
Speaker 3: observe from them and embody it.
Speaker 1: And you think about the mindset that goes with the
Speaker 1: way that he has aged. I bet he never got
Speaker 1: up and when Oh, I don't know if chopping wood
Speaker 1: is age appropriate? Right?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Should I be doing this at my age? He's like, well,
Speaker 1: who the fuck else is going to do it? No
Speaker 1: one's here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well what else am I going to do? I'm
Speaker 2: going to sit on the couch? Yeah, what I'm I
Speaker 2: going to do?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Because like for better or worse, well for better,
Speaker 1: Fortunately for him, it doesn't appear that he had any
Speaker 1: dumb fucker in his ear going what's your dad's granddad's
Speaker 1: first name, Frank, Frank. I don't think you should be
Speaker 1: doing that, Frank, that's age inappropriate. What you should be
Speaker 1: on the couch. Let me get a fucking cushion. He'd
Speaker 1: be like, fuck your cushion, where's my axe? You know?
Speaker 1: And so much of what is consequential physiology, in other words,
Speaker 1: how well his body and brain worked. Not all of it,
Speaker 1: but a lot of it is just probably to do
Speaker 1: with one obviously, his lifestyle and behavior and how much
Speaker 1: he moved and how much he used his body and
Speaker 1: how well, but also the fact that he didn't have
Speaker 1: a story right, he didn't have an underlying psychology that
Speaker 1: said you shouldn't do this and what do you go on?
Speaker 2: No, I was going to say, what's your advice?
Speaker 3: Like people listening, it's easy when you're in the middle
Speaker 3: of an environment like we've landed in. I guess where
Speaker 3: you have developed this and can appreciate and have awareness
Speaker 3: and be in the middle of it and go yeah.
Speaker 2: I think like I think. I think I'm not.
Speaker 3: Boxed in by any idea of how old I am.
Speaker 3: What about people who are thinking, oh do it?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: How do people become aware? Where would you suggest someone
Speaker 3: starts if they want to get aware of this?
Speaker 1: So I think we change our thinking. I think we
Speaker 1: change our thinking by our doing right, Like sitting on
Speaker 1: the couch going, oh, I need to change my attitude
Speaker 1: about aging. I need to change the way that I
Speaker 1: think about aging, my underlying psychology, my underlying stories about aging.
Speaker 1: I don't think for the most part that works. That
Speaker 1: may have a minor influence, but what really has an
Speaker 1: influence is when you go and do something, and then
Speaker 1: you progress and you evolve and you get stronger, or
Speaker 1: you go from being able to walk slow to walk medium,
Speaker 1: to walk fast and then a bit of jogging, and
Speaker 1: then you see some and you're like in your fifties,
Speaker 1: sixty seventies or beyond, and you start seeing improvement and
Speaker 1: function and so you've done something, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, your thinking changes, your self belief, your expectation,
Speaker 1: changes your stories, your standards. You create a new normal,
Speaker 1: Like what was normal is now you look back on
Speaker 1: it and you're like, what the fuck was I thinking
Speaker 1: and doing? You know, it's it's I think the way
Speaker 1: that I think, primarily because I have a way of
Speaker 1: living and being and operating, and nothing in my head thinks, oh,
Speaker 1: like we're recording now at two thirty two, and you
Speaker 1: and the Crab and Chris and Odco and all these
Speaker 1: people that we know a meeting in fifty eight minutes
Speaker 1: to train at the gym, right, And I don't think, oh, geez,
Speaker 1: I'm good at sixty to go to the gym. What
Speaker 1: a fucking achievement for me? Just Chandy, look at me,
Speaker 1: at my age doing it like there's nothing in me
Speaker 1: that thinks it's a big deal or that it's an accomplishment.
Speaker 1: Because to me, it's cleaning my teeth. To me, it's
Speaker 1: putting on my socks. To me, it's getting out of bed.
Speaker 1: To me, it's fucking reading the newspaper. It's just a
Speaker 1: thing that I do. Right. But when your psychology is ah,
Speaker 1: and this is one of the other problems, is AH,
Speaker 1: I went for a walk. You know, I'm amazing. When
Speaker 1: you're telling yourself that you're amazing because you walked a
Speaker 1: kilometer or you ate a salad, it's going to be
Speaker 1: a fucking battle, you know. So we need to question
Speaker 1: one question all the self limiting bullshit and all the
Speaker 1: age based storytelling, self limiting fucking garbage that we tell
Speaker 1: ourselves and then go do. Now, the doing doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be joining a gym or becoming a crossfitter. The
Speaker 1: doing might be you might in your fifties or sixties
Speaker 1: going you know what, I'm going to go to university. Cool.
Speaker 1: I read an article the other day about a lady
Speaker 1: who went back. I think I spoke about this once recently,
Speaker 1: and she really trained as a nurse in her sixties
Speaker 1: and she just graduated. Now she's starting as an rin
Speaker 1: a registered nurse at seventy. She's seventy and she's just
Speaker 1: starting her nursing career and she looks like a fit, healthy,
Speaker 1: bright eyed fifty five year old, right, and she's fucking
Speaker 1: loving it. I'm like, so good for her now, apart
Speaker 1: from the good that she's going to do the world,
Speaker 1: because she's going to be so great with patients, right,
Speaker 1: because she's not you know, she's done a lot, she's
Speaker 1: seen the world, and clearly she's not driven by money
Speaker 1: or she would have done something because it's not like
Speaker 1: being a nurse's the high watermark for fucking income. Love
Speaker 1: you nurses, you know, Like, for me, what excites me
Speaker 1: is the benefit people are going to get from her,
Speaker 1: but also the benefit that she gets in not putting
Speaker 1: herself in some sign of kind of psychological or emotional
Speaker 1: box that says, oh this is inappropriate, or this is unlikely,
Speaker 1: or this is irresponsible, or this is reckless at your age?
Speaker 1: Like the problem. Yes, of course there is a reality
Speaker 1: of what the body and the brain can and can't do,
Speaker 1: but for most of us that is not the limitation.
Speaker 1: This is my point today, is like, what's the space
Speaker 1: between what your body can do and your story about
Speaker 1: what your body can do? You know, what's the reality
Speaker 1: of human potential? Your human potential? Take age off the table,
Speaker 1: rip the calendar off the wall, throw it in the bin,
Speaker 1: and just think about not what's possible at your age,
Speaker 1: but just what's possible for you. Imagine if imagine if
Speaker 1: we didn't record birth dates. Imagine if no one knew
Speaker 1: how anyone was. Imagine if you met a person and
Speaker 1: they didn't know if they were forty or sixty. Imagine
Speaker 1: if there was no record. You would just have to
Speaker 1: treat people based on who they are and how they are,
Speaker 1: because we couldn't judge them. But what we do is
Speaker 1: we like, for example, I did an interview the other
Speaker 1: day on ticket TV and there's no there's not a
Speaker 1: bad thing at all. I did it with Kate save
Speaker 1: right and Kate God bless Kate. She's great, and I
Speaker 1: understand why she did this, and I'm completely fine with it.
Speaker 1: But she put up a picture of me and her
Speaker 1: doing this thing, and she went, you know, Craig in
Speaker 1: great shape, bloody jacked and all this stuff into his sixties,
Speaker 1: right now, that's what we do. And I understand why
Speaker 1: she did that, not at all bothered by that, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of good pr and marketing. I get it.
Speaker 1: I would have done the same. But imagine if we
Speaker 1: lived in a world where we could only understand people
Speaker 1: or perceive and process and experience people just on how
Speaker 1: they show up. We didn't know anyone's age, because like
Speaker 1: it or not, all of us, including me. You know,
Speaker 1: if I know someone's eighty, I automatically will have even
Speaker 1: though I don't want to be judgmental, I'll all already
Speaker 1: have an expectation, I guess, right, And that's why so
Speaker 1: many peopleeople, I guess, are somewhat surprised of how functional
Speaker 1: and operational I am at a time when many people
Speaker 1: are really beginning to slide. And it's not because I'm
Speaker 1: genetically gifted or because I'm special, or better, because I'm
Speaker 1: not genetically gifted. I'm not special I'm not smarter, I'm
Speaker 1: not better. I just do things that create a certain outcome.
Speaker 1: But the other bit of the psychology of all of
Speaker 1: this is doing the things that create the outcome are uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: and as we've said one million times on this show,
Speaker 1: we don't like discomfort. So there's a certain acceptance that
Speaker 1: needs to happen with people if they want to optimize
Speaker 1: their genetic potential at any age, their health, their wellness,
Speaker 1: their performance, their nervous system, their endocrime system, their bone density,
Speaker 1: their muscular potential, their health span. There's a certain price
Speaker 1: that needs to be paid, and that is work and
Speaker 1: effort and courage.
Speaker 2: And you know that.
Speaker 1: Of course, a lot of people don't want to pay
Speaker 1: that price. And I get it, I get it.
Speaker 2: That's really that.
Speaker 3: That was really powerful what you said about not seeing
Speaker 3: people for age. And I think I myself fall into
Speaker 3: that a bit naturally, but as as a construct, I
Speaker 3: think that that is people should try that.
Speaker 2: Think about that.
Speaker 3: Even when someone mentions their age, I then it can shift,
Speaker 3: it can shift my I feel that shift. And that's
Speaker 3: not a conscious thing, that's not a deliberate idea. But yeah,
Speaker 3: we're driven by this stuff in our mind. That's so
Speaker 3: conditioned that we're not even aware of it, and it's dangerous.
Speaker 1: I was sitting with somebody the other day and not
Speaker 1: the other day, probably a couple of weeks ago, I
Speaker 1: from being honest and do I say this? Yere fuck it?
Speaker 1: But anyway, and they I pulled them up on and
Speaker 1: I do worse than this every day, right. But I
Speaker 1: was with this person and a lady walked into the
Speaker 1: Hamptons where we were having a chat. And this lady
Speaker 1: was wearing what the lady that I was talking to
Speaker 1: deemed to be inappropriate clothing for her age. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, what's age appropriate clothing? And she goes
Speaker 1: not that and I'm like, how come? Like who can
Speaker 1: wear that? And then we had this whole philosophical discussion
Speaker 1: about okay, well what's the age? You know? And I said,
Speaker 1: what about what about Sonya Krueger? Have you seen Sonya Krueger?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean is she the most and I mean this
Speaker 1: with respect spectacular looking in terms of healthy, fit, vibrant.
Speaker 1: That lady is nearly sixty. Did you know that? No?
Speaker 2: I was about to say, how no, she's nearly sixty.
Speaker 1: I saw her the other night, I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: how phenomenal. And I'm not talking about prettiness or Desira Bell.
Speaker 1: I'm just talking about she literally looks like a super fit,
Speaker 1: healthy forty year old, right, but she can wear whatever
Speaker 1: because she looks a certain way. But it's just, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just that. And have I ever done that or
Speaker 1: a version of that? Of course I have. Am I
Speaker 1: embarrassed that I do? Yeah, of course, of course, But
Speaker 1: that whole kind of age just thinking, it's just something
Speaker 1: that I think we need to become because I think
Speaker 1: we all do it, myself included. I think I do
Speaker 1: it less now than I ever have done. But you know,
Speaker 1: I know because for me, I understand the potential negative
Speaker 1: consequences of negative thinking and negative storytelling around age that
Speaker 1: I think you know so much in our culture and
Speaker 1: all the medical shows, and we've got stuff at the
Speaker 1: moment with Chris Hemsworth which is called I Can Live
Speaker 1: Forever or something, and you know, the vast majority of
Speaker 1: everything that we talk about is really about the physiology
Speaker 1: and the biology, and we talk about food, and we
Speaker 1: talk about micros and macros and sleep and sets and
Speaker 1: reps and volume and heart rate and supplements and all
Speaker 1: of those things which are crucial. But the way that
Speaker 1: we think about aging and the way that we talk
Speaker 1: about aging and the stories that we have in our
Speaker 1: society about aging are a big part of the problem
Speaker 1: as well. But it pretty much goes, you know, unnoticed
Speaker 1: and unaddressed.
Speaker 3: So does this mean you're going to hop in the
Speaker 3: ocean and get uncomfortable with your almost sixty one year old,
Speaker 3: vibrant bod Now you're cold water swimming?
Speaker 1: Now, It's funny you mentioned that because you and I
Speaker 1: spoke here state because you did it. And when you
Speaker 1: do something horrible, because you're a shit friend and a
Speaker 1: great friend, you also want your friends to suffer with you.
Speaker 1: I know this to be true about you. You're like, fuck,
Speaker 1: I did it. It was horrible. Oh on harps to
Speaker 1: go through the same pain. So firstly, fuck you in
Speaker 1: your ocean swimming. Secondly, last night last hates. So I'm running,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm fucking around with running right And by
Speaker 1: the way, like I really started running again. I ran
Speaker 1: a lot when I was a kid. I've run bits
Speaker 1: and pieces through my adult journey. But I'm really starting
Speaker 1: to run again. Not long, not far, but and I'm
Speaker 1: amazed that how quickly m and remember sixty. My fitness
Speaker 1: has improved. I'll probably run fifteen times now. And what
Speaker 1: I'm doing is I was doing every day short. Now
Speaker 1: I'm doing a bit longer. Two or three k's still
Speaker 1: not long, but long enough. But I run like you know,
Speaker 1: I run like I stole something, right, I run out
Speaker 1: the side gate like a crazy person. So last night
Speaker 1: was my running night, and I kept waiting for the
Speaker 1: rain to I like running in the rain, but it
Speaker 1: was fucking sideways rain. It was three degrees. I don't
Speaker 1: know what it was, but it felt like felt like
Speaker 1: zero degrees. It was sideways rain. It was windy, and
Speaker 1: I thought, if I run outside, everything that I wear
Speaker 1: is just going to be one I'm going to get
Speaker 1: hype thermia, and two I'm going to I'm going to
Speaker 1: everything's going to get soaked. So I went fuck it.
Speaker 1: And I've got you know that skinny red singlet that
Speaker 1: I trained in periodically, that it's about forty two years old, right,
Speaker 1: It's about as big as a postage stamp, and it's
Speaker 1: held together with fucking gaffer tape. So I put that
Speaker 1: motherfucker on, which covers my left nipple. And you know,
Speaker 1: four hairs around my belly button, nothing else, right, So
Speaker 1: I put that on and I went running and I
Speaker 1: ran for three k's which was or maybe just done.
Speaker 1: I was out for about quarter of an hour. Right,
Speaker 1: it was fucking freezing. I mean it was so cold,
Speaker 1: and also because and I was thinking of you, I
Speaker 1: was thinking, this is my ocean swim and the wind
Speaker 1: on top of that, and I'm sure it wasn't as
Speaker 1: painful or as cold as your ocean swim, but that
Speaker 1: was my little moment. But I got home yesterday and
Speaker 1: you know, when you're so cold, as you were talking
Speaker 1: about with your ocean swim, I was freezing, freezing, freezing.
Speaker 1: And then I got in the house downstairs upstairs as
Speaker 1: warm downstairs, not so warm downstairs, and like my whole
Speaker 1: body was tingling. My hands were like they were on fire.
Speaker 1: My whole body was tingling. And the room, even though
Speaker 1: the room wasn't downstairs wasn't warm, it felt real warm.
Speaker 1: And then I came upstairs. It felt like I'd just
Speaker 1: gone to fucking Darwin.
Speaker 3: Right, it was.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it was so hot, But what I loved
Speaker 1: was my body loved it. Yeah, my body fucking loved it.
Speaker 1: And I passed a few people who are out with
Speaker 1: dogs and umbrellas and seven raincoats who looked at me like,
Speaker 1: where the fuck did you escape from? You old silly motherfucker,
Speaker 1: go home, right, And I just I kind of, I'm
Speaker 1: not even lying. I did pass three people and they
Speaker 1: looked at me like I was unhinged, which I don't,
Speaker 1: and I will say they did move way out of
Speaker 1: the way. Nobody wanted to get close to me.
Speaker 2: Some criminal running up the road with his laps.
Speaker 1: Yeah, runlike he stole something exactly anyway, So everyone be encouraged.
Speaker 1: Be encouraged. Don't limit yourself, don't be crazy or reckless.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, don't live in fear, don't
Speaker 1: live in self limitation. Don't build an emotional, psychological, behavioral
Speaker 1: prison for yourself. Don't rationalize what you're not doing because
Speaker 1: you're too old. Don't do anything crazy to start, but
Speaker 1: just open the door. You might be surprised. Just fucking
Speaker 1: get the metaphoric wheels turning. You might surprise a few people,
Speaker 1: and most importantly, you might surprise yourself. Tiffany and Cook,
Speaker 1: as always for a woman in her you know you're
Speaker 1: in your fifth decade now, don't Yeah, you're in your
Speaker 1: fifth decade. You've been here for a minute.
Speaker 2: Too, been hanging out, I've been hanging out.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Forty two next birthday Yeah. OMG, Thanks Tiff, Thanks Harps.