SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to What Would Amber Do with your host, Amber Howard. Each week, Amber dances in conversation with inspirational leaders how to make a difference for what matters most to people. She brings you incredible guests who share their real life experiences of being a leader and what it looks like to live a truly created life of service to others. And now, here is your host.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

Welcome back, everyone. Welcome back to What Would Amber Do? It is my privilege and honor this morning to be speaking with Gail Ellen, Candace Shivers, and Liz Dietz. I hope I said that right, Liz. Normally I check. These extraordinary leaders are out to shift the narrative for aging such that older adults are valued, appreciated, and engaged till the end. Each has had incredible careers in public speaking, the law, as a radio host, training people in leadership and communication as well as software and technology. Candace and Liz, with their good friend Maureen Charles, are the creative force between the love of aging movement and Gail works closely with them as an ambassador inside this movement. It is such a gift to have each of you on the show this morning. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. So, how did this all come to be? How did you what is you know share what and and anyone can jump in and what is the love of aging movement and how did it get created? And yeah, I'm really excited to have this conversation with all of you.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Okay, well, I'll start. Okay. I this is Candace, by the way. Um, I'm um Liz Moe and I, and actually Gail also have been friends for decades. But Liz Mo and I are the Maureen Charles is Mo, who's not with us this morning, but uh the are the founders, co-founders of Love of Aging. And uh a couple years back, Liz lives up in Napa and Mo and I live in the um Los Angeles area. Liz was in town and we got together for lunch, and we're sitting around and talking about our lives. And um I was excitedly sharing with them as I at that point had um was approaching or just turned 70. I'm 75 now, by the way. I just turned 70, and I was sharing with them all the work I was doing with older adults and how excited I was about aging. And at that point, Liz was her approaching her retirement, which I think happens in a couple of weeks, Liz. Yep, yep. A couple of weeks from now, and her trepidation and excitement and Mo was at the point of reinventing herself. Mo's our uh eld, uh our youngest, she's 61, and she was reinventing herself as a uh children's writer, a whole new career for her. And um, you know, sort of that unknown and aging was in front of all of us. So what we uh we started talking about it, and I shared with them that I had done focus groups and really been working with uh older adults, and I had discovered this amazing thing that there were most people, a lot of the people our age and older were enjoying life, and they were finding it a uh sort of a renaissance, a a new era. And uh, although all the greetings cards say you're now uh you know over the hill, we actually were enjoying the view from the hill. And we uh started sharing our shared experiences and decided that we were going to use our lives as a laboratory to explore aging and to add with it the research that I've been doing about the huge impact that attitude makes on aging, which I hope we get a chance to share later. And then Liz said, I've got an idea. Why don't we put together a whole platform where we share this and include others? Because I think others will have the same experience we are, and thus love of aging was born.

SPEAKER_04 4:26

Beautiful. I would I have some things I'd like to say, but before I do that, Liz, Gail, is there anything else that you would like to add?

SPEAKER_03 4:36

Well, you know, I'll just jump in. This is Liz. And uh so I've always been in the software technology era world. And, you know, I had sort of tried to retire a couple of times, which usually it meant I took a little break because I'd been working so hard. But I was looking at like, well, wow, I think at the time I was 65 and I'm 68 now, or I was about to turn 65, and I thought, well, you know, and everyone who knew me said, come on, you're never retiring. I had a really bad history of retiring because I like to stay engaged and active and creating things and doing things. And I honestly didn't know how I would do it. I just knew that, okay, I'm complete over here, you know, after 35 years in doing software, various publicly traded companies. I mean, I just said I got there's got to be something new. And it was this conversation with Candace, you know, because that got me thinking we could really make a difference for people. And while we're doing that, we could make a difference for ourselves. Because I didn't buy into the you're over the hill kind of thing. And I've faced stereotypes before, being a uh an ex a female executive starting in the tech world from the mid-80s. I mean, it was not always an easy road. And so I was sort of used to trailblazing. And I said, no, we need to start a movement and shift this conversation, shift that narrative for aging. And so that's just, and so in doing that, it gave me a purpose as well, so that I wouldn't uh fail at retiring this time.

SPEAKER_04 6:20

Something I hear, I love that, Liz. Something I hear in common between both what you and Candace said is like these cultural norms or ideas, the network of conversations around what it is to age, this idea of being over the hill. I wonder if perhaps some people avoid retirement because for so many people, their purpose is so, and Gail's waving her hand, their purpose is so defined by the work that they do. And there might be this fear that, like, given the current network of conversations about what it is to age, that if I retire somehow, like my life is gonna be, I'm not gonna have a purpose or my life is gonna be used up, or or all of these different things. So, one of the things that I'm hearing and what you're sharing that I love so much is that we get to keep creating newly from wherever we are, what it is that we want our contribution and our purpose to be in life. And and my book club just finished it, reading um Victor Frankel's Man's Search for Meaning. And I'm just really present to that in this conversation, this idea that, like of the importance for human beings, regardless of the age that they're at, to feel like they're making a meaningful contribution to whatever matters to them in their lives.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Absolutely. And it wasn't easy for me to sort of shift my mind from owning teams, owning budgets, making all the decisions. I had to go through a journey as I prepared, uh, because I stopped owning everything and started mentoring people, which is really something that elders are so good at. I started mentoring people, and I had it took me a couple of years to really find my way in feeling like I still had a purpose and recreating it. And Candace talks a lot about the work that Dan Butner has done with the blue zones and something called an iki guy. You want to share a little bit about that, Candace, because that really was the thing that helped me with that transition.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Well, um uh Dan Butner is uh uh has done a lot of research. He worked for the National Uh National Geographic, and they studied the areas around the world where the largest concentration of centenarians are. And what they found in healthy centenarians, what they found was that there's certain elements that all these locations, whether it be Okinawa or it should be if it's in um Costa Rica or Loma Linda, California, uh, Denmark, wherever the location was, that there were certain elements in common. And one of which was if the people all had a purpose for their life. And in Japan, they call it having an ikigai.

SPEAKER_04 9:03

Yes, I'm familiar with that concept. I didn't know the relationship between like this work by Dan Buner. That's amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Anyway, so the point of an ikigai is a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And uh uh, you know, and it could be something noble and mighty, like, you know, ending world hunger, or it could be something as simple as tending for your garden. The point is it gives you a reason. And that and research has found that that adds maybe something like four years to people's lives. I want uh uh I saw Gail Ellen raise her hand about the retirement. You want to say something about that?

SPEAKER_04 9:43

Yeah, I'd love to hear from you, Gail, please.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

You know, I I really do. I excuse me, retirement really wasn't a word uh in my vocabulary, and it wasn't something that I saw was even in my future. And for me, um it it it really I've been in corporate for a long, long, long, long time. And really what it is is for me wanting to be complete with corporate, but looking at what's next, what's my reset? Okay, now what? And and I think it's kind of a very exciting time, and you know it's a new world. And um Candace gave a quote uh to us this morning. Uh, I wonder if she'll repeat it about aging, and then I'll I'll complete my thought here. But Candace, give us the quote that you gave.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

Oh, I saw a wonderful button someone had said, aging is really cool. Everyone is doing it.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yeah, so you know, we can't get away from it, but in my heart and in my mind, I'm still, you know, uh kind of ageless. So that was the thing uh when this new conversation started with Candace and Liz and Mo. Um, I wanted to really be part of it. And so I work with them as an ambassador for Love of Aging, and these are conversations that uh we have once a month in communities, and we uh have a call once a month and we engage in conversation, and they're lively and rich, and we learn from each other, and uh it just is a real, real inspiring time, and and people are loving it. And Maria Shriver was on uh the Today Show yesterday, and she just completed something called the Radically, Radically Reforming Aging Summit. And I think Candace has watched it and I'm in the midst of watching it. So this is a real present live conversation now, and uh it just is generating. We're all about we're all about um the creating possibility, you know, and and creating um uh an expansion of aliveness for all of us.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

I want to say something about retirement, Gail, that you brought up and um Amber. The um there's a study done by AARP that I read that said that since the beginning of time up to 1900, the average age expectancy expanded by three days every year. Since 1900 to current time, the average age expectancy expands by 110 days every year. So as recent as 1900, the average age expectancy was 49. Today it's 78. And people believe that you know, if you make it to your 60s, you could easily add another 20, 30 years to that. I certainly hope so, given I'm 75 and have a lot to do. Now, here's the neck, the next part about retirement. There was there wasn't anything, there was no such thing as retirement for the 1950s, because all of a sudden, with this new life expectancy, they had people living longer. So they made up this thing called retirement, and it was considered when people were too old to work but too young to die. Now, how's that for a context for your life? How's that for an icky guy? Well, I can't work and I can't die. So uh it's like some kind of horrible purgatory. It is really, really, and needs to say, boomers one more time, are shaking things up and redefining aging.

SPEAKER_04 14:05

Well, and I mean it's appropriate, right? Because I think the boomers have redefined almost everything. I mean, it's uh it's the nature of that generation um to just turn everything up on its end and say, no, we're not gonna accept, you know, the old narrative or the way things have always been done. We're gonna look to see how we can create something newly, which I think is um like I like just so blessed, right? As the generations to come after the baby boomer boomers. I remember when I was in my 20s. So I was a young mom, and I every week I lived in this housing co-op downtown Toronto, and every week I'd have coffee with these three other women. One was in her 50s at the time, one was in her 40s, and one was in her 30s, and I was in my 20s. And we called it the agent agent club. So it's like agent 50, agent 40. And and um, I just remember being like so blessed, and they would always joke, oh, you're gonna go further than all of us, Amber, because the student always excels the teacher, but like just so blessed to have that wisdom and be in a conversation. Each of them was a mom, and I was a young mom, and I had this opportunity to learn from them. And and I think older adults, and I want to talk about that term because I think you're I believe you intentionally use the term older adults, and I want to because we know from the studies that we've done in personal development and in our lives that like language really does matter. So, but um, older adults have so much wisdom and knowledge and experience to teach us. And and so I'm I I can I can only think how much we're going to um by shifting this narrative about what it means to be an older adult and and that life could begin at 70. Like the benefit to everyone coming down the path after you all is just, you know, thank you. I just really acknowledge you for having the courage and to to to to start saying new things about what it is to age.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Well, there's benefits for both, Amber. There's benefits for the older generation, and there's definitely benefits for the younger generation. We learn from each other. We can definitely learn from each other. You know, like uh I, if I'm in business with my son, you know, I learn what's happening, what's in, what's out, new technology, you know, and he learns from me uh some other things that wisdom kind of brings.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

I would love to piggyback on that. You know, as I mentioned earlier, what I've been doing the last couple years is instead of managing and running a bunch of things, I'm now mentoring leaders that we've turned things that I've turned things over to. And I meet with them every week for an hour. We have mentoring conversations, and sometimes I mentor them on career development, where should my career go? Sometimes I mentor them on some operational kinds of things. But um often it's more of they show me an approach they're about to take, maybe they're briefing an analyst or uh some other sort of uh direction that they're taking things in, and then they bounce their ideas off of me because as a mentor, it's not for me to tell them what to do, it's for me to develop them in their thinking and you know, teaching them how to fish, you know, as the proverb goes. So, what I find though is this other element that us as the elder generation have to provide is wisdom. It's not just it, it's experience combined with time and uh what we've done, and you get this wisdom that elder people are known to have. And there's also a movement in the business world where many, many, many people are retiring, and then with COVID, that's only accelerated, but they're bringing back people that are more in our generation to help mentor and guide because you can have the smartest and most technical people on the planet, but they don't have wisdom. They can read a book, they've gone to B school, they know what all that's doing, but they don't have that on the ground. How do you work with people? It's hard to put a label on it, other than we're providing something. We make there's science that shows our brains have sort of changed a bit and we make better decisions, we spend more time in our brains, pattern matching, because we have this whole pool of data to pull from. So we can easily, without even realizing it, see patterns where things are going to go and guide people. So it's really been, you know, I've built products, launched products, did all kinds of rewarding things. The mentoring piece, sharing wisdom and developing people has turned out to be one of the most rewarding things I've done.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

I am add to the can I say something, Anne? Yes, please, Ken, go ahead. I want to add something to um, you know, the aspect you said about languaging. Um there have been studies, and this is a couple of things I want to say. One is there have been studies, scientific uh longitudinal studies, that show that people have a positive attitude toward language. I mean, excuse me, a positive attitude toward aging, have a positive attitude toward aging, live on average 7.5 years longer than people who don't. Over and over again, this has been uh uh documented. People who uh don't smoke add uh you know maybe four years to their lives, people who don't uh you know keep their cholesterol low, their blood pressure low, they add maybe four years to their life. So those are two great things one should do. But aging, but having an attitude toward aging trumps both of those. So that's why we created love of aging. And I don't think we've actually said what our mission, our vision is. I just want to say it so everybody knows. Yes, please. We want to engage communities in creating a new narrative for aging. And I want to say something about that in a second. And our vision is older adults love their lives and are valued, empowered, and engaged to the end. Older age is seen by people of all generations as a celebration of cumulative wisdom, life experiences, and the freedom to go for it. Now, about this attitude toward aging, a study was done in uh 72 countries around the world, and they asked older people to look back over the span of their lives and say, What was the happiest year of your life? And they expected, you know, people to come up with the age they maybe had their family or they started in their career. Overwhelmingly, the age that people say was the happiest year of their life was, are you ready? 82. And scientists say we can push that back another nine years if we embrace modern medical technology and combat ageism. And so, as far as this older adults, you know, one of the things that I've observed because I work with so many older adults is there's some people to say, for example, in their 70s, that are thriving, they their lives are expanding, they're Taking on new adventures, they're socializing, you know, they're they're enjoying life. There's some people the same age who are starting to close up shop. They're getting smaller. They're starting to say, Oh, I'm too old for that. And it's all this attitude, this language toward aging. So that's the flag we're waving. That's the movement we're starting with, love of aging.

SPEAKER_04 22:29

I am, I mean, thank you for presencing your mission and vision. I'm just really moved. You know, I think it makes sense to me given the work I've done in neurolinguistic programming and the training I've done and mindset and it absolutely that our attitude towards anything, like really, and how we frame something, impacts like on every level, even at our physiological level. So I can totally, you know, without without knowing the science of it or being an expert in the the biology of it, I can, I, I just know from my ex my lived experience that the conversation I am about something really impacts uh how I show up, the actions I take or don't take. And there is, I think you get to a point in life, and I've noticed it as I've gotten a little bit older. I'll be 44 this year. And um, I think there is a point where you start to really, I think when we're younger, we care a lot about what other people think and about, you know, other people's perceptions of the choices we make or not. And I do sense, even in myself, and I see it in in other older adults, that you get to a little bit of a point where you kind of give yourself permission to not care quite so much what other people, because it's kind of like, well, you know, I've I've done the the mom thing, I've done the whatever, however your life was constructed, right? And whatever the the circumstances of your life. But I think there's this sense at which you get to a point um where you're kind of freed up in in a different way to explore life on your own terms. And I think that like you could really embrace that. Like we could really like even more fully embrace that.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Yeah, absolutely. And in all kinds of different ways too, Amber. Excuse me. I just want to uh actually present the link to Love of Aging. It's www.loveofaging.com. And I'm gonna ask uh our listeners to go on and look at the site, look at the glimpses, look at the stories, um, see about uh Candace and Liz and Mo, and uh just kind of get inspired and and join the movement of love of aging.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

And in one of the stories there, there's uh one of the astronauts came back from his flight to the uh to the moon, and it he was like your age, and it was like okay, I've been to the moon now what I I believe you've gonna have to leave us uh soon, Gail. I know you had something else you had to go this morning, but I I just wanted to say I actually attended one of your circles a few weeks ago. And I I was just um because I I kind of had a sense that we were gonna be having this conversation and I wanted to have an experience of what it was like and and beyond feeling a little awkward because I was like really young, and it's like, you know, like it's always interesting when you go into a community that's like and you're not quite sure how what your role is, you know, how to participate in the community. Should you just be an observer or whatever? You were all extraordinarily welcoming. And and and but what I was present to and being with all of you was like, wow, like this could have been a group of 20-year-olds, like everyone was up to so many different things, writing books, like planning trap, like it was like, wow, that like um, like there's just a real sense of aliveness and and connection. And um, so I I just, you know, I thank you for the role that you play in in being an ambassador for the love of aging and and and also being an example of it in your life, because I think as as leaders, it's really important that there's congruence, right? That people see as being a demonstration of the things that we say. And uh so just thank you for being someone who's really taking on actively in your life, redefining what aging is, you know, in every moment of now.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Thank you, Amber. And uh I'm just gonna say uh our founders, uh Candace and Liz, uh really inspire that and they inspire that in others. And I've just uh entered the very prestigious club of being a grandparent.

SPEAKER_04 27:06

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Yeah, so there's a whole other new area there that I'm gonna be stepping into and certainly wanting to inspire and uh and give some of that uh wisdom, you know, and share some of that wisdom that I've acquired. And and I think like you said, Amber, it it's really all about um, you know, expression and aliveness and and being in gratitude, being in gratitude for every single moment. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 27:43

Yeah, you're so welcome. Thank you for being on the show. We're gonna continue this conversation with Candace and Liz, but just uh, you know, from my heart to yours, Gail, thank you for everything you're doing to make a difference and be a contribution to other people. All right. So perhaps, Candace and Liz, we could talk a little bit about the platform itself. So, you know, Gail mentioned that there are the circles that happen every month, but how else can people get involved? What are some of the other things that you're doing inside of this movement and how might people engage with with you and the the difference that you're making?

SPEAKER_03 28:20

Well, I mean, uh there's a number of ways, and I'm sure I'll forget some, and Candace will fill them in. So uh, you know, on our website, we have lots and lots and lots of blogs from um Yolders, we like to call ourselves, young older people, yelders. So there's lots of blogs from Yolders talking about their experiences in transitioning. We have um uh a number of blogs from uh Ed Lopez, who happens to be my husband, um, and but he's you know more degrees than any doc, you know, Dr. Ed Lopez, but he's sort of our senior science editor, and he talks about some of the more research-oriented angles around aging and how to age helpfully. Uh, we have um these little short blogs Gail referenced called Glimpses about people that we yolders that we find especially inspiring, and they're done in kind of that uh Proost questionnaire. You know, we give them 10 questions and they answer them. We also have the community circles, as Gail mentioned, and we've got a list of them in different regions. And of course, you know, at first with um COVID, we thought, well, how are people going to get together? Well, everyone got together on Zoom, and what that did is open the door for people like Gail to have people in her circle that she's known forever, but they live in Hawaii or Seattle or wherever. So we have people that join these sort of multi-location sorts of circles. Um and uh we also do speaking, and we're launching, you know, in a couple of weeks, our first destination workshop. And my favorite town that I've had homes in over the years many times is San Miguel de Allende in Central Mexico. And it's one of those what you call a Pueblo México, uh, the colonial jewel cities, cobblestone streets. And that particular city is fitting for the conversation because it's one of those places that a lot of retirees or even not retirees go to reinvent themselves. Expats, Canadians, Americans, people from Europe, and they go when they're ready to do, change the backdrop of everything. It's almost like you recognize things, but it's not what you're used to. So it's very good for the brain. So we're doing a destination workshop, and people like Doc Severinson retired there, and still playing music with local younger people and taking them on tour. So we have artists, musicians, um, writers, it goes on and on. The early beat generation used to hang out there back in the day, Jack Kerouac and all those people. So we're doing a workshop on um sort of your next chapter. What are you inventing next? And we've got our own, like a curriculum that uses Candace, Maureen, and I as the leaders, and Sam Miguel is the fourth leader because we take them on these sort of peeling back the onion, curated experiences to look at opening their creativity. So, since my gardener's making noise in the background, I might let Candace talk a little bit more about these.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

Well, um, I just want to tell you the intent. So we're we're gonna start having destination workshops. And um, I won't tell you the purpose of a destination workshop. Love of aging takes curious explorers on journeys to magical locations, journeys of personal discovery, creativity, and renewal. Our destination workshop explores a new narrative for aging and are a celebration of cumulative wisdom, life experiences, and the freedom to go for it. So, our workshops right now, um, Amber, you wouldn't qualify, you gotta be Oh no. But we'll be around. Uh in uh this particular workshop we're doing is called My Time Is Now. And the intention for this particular workshop that we're taking place in San Miguel de Allende is we will immerse our explorers in the magic of San Miguel de Allende. We'll provide curated sensory experiences and coursework that free up your imagination, open up your perspective, and shake up your view of aging. And we'll take you on journeys in which you will discover and design an unparalleled next life chapter. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 33:00

Come on, and I don't qualify. Come on, Candace. That's unfair. So, how old do you need to be in order to qualify for coming on this extraordinary adventure with you all? 50. 50.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

All right, I got a few years. Bravo, you got a few years. We'll be doing one then.

SPEAKER_04 33:20

I love it. I am huh. You know, I had this amazing opportunity on this trip to California. I've been here since February 13th. And uh, we were driving up the 111 near the Sultan Sea on our way to kind of Palm Springs. We'd been out to Salvation Mountain. I'm not sure if you've it's this beautiful, massive art installation at Slab City for those of you who may or may not be familiar with it. And um, I had always I when I started coming to California last fall, I'd been looking at like, what do you? I'd never even thought about coming to California. So look, what do you do here? And I found Salvation Mountain and I love love. Just like I've got to go see this like monument to love. And we went out there and we were driving up the 111 and we were looking for somewhere to stay, and we stumbled across this incredible community called Bashfords. Uh, they're a hot it's a hot spring. And I, you know, I would say the average people who and it's like literally, um, you know, I didn't know this, but I guess snowbirds on the east coast of Canada go to Florida and snowbirds on the on the the west coast go to California. And so there's this beautiful community of older adults who um, oh man, they just have so much fun together. You know, they're having dances every week and they're hanging out in the hot springs and they're doing poker runs through everyone's RV to, you know, and cooking for each other. And and um, there's just like such a space of generosity and uh, you know, and and and creation as they keep looking at, you know, they they come together. Some of them have been coming together for 20 years, 30 years to this location. Um, and they share, you know, it's like this moment in time. They come from like November to April, and then they head back to wherever. And and uh it was just such a beautiful experience. And I and I was just so present to the generosity. And I am actually present to your both of your generosity right now. This like this idea of like I get to keep, you know, giving back, whether it's through the mentoring Liz. And you know, I'd love to have another, I've worked in software and technology for much of my career as well, doing consulting work as a business analyst, project manager, and change manager. And um, you know, I actually when I was preparing for the episode, I checked out your each of your like LinkedIns and stuff like that, and I saw like mentor at this company that you work for. And I was like, I've never seen that job title before. What is that? And so even this idea that you could create, you know, like creating within the corporate world ways in which to continue giving back and reinventing, um, you know, because I've never seen mentor inside of a corporate environment like that. So I'm just really I clear that when we keep like, and I I think it's being responsible. Like when it we keep being responsible for that we have the tools of creation, no matter what age we're at, like something else becomes available. And and you really are both living that and being a demonstration of that in the world. And I think it's like it's inspirational. Uh, it makes me want to look newly at my own life, regardless, you know, being 43, like what could I create newly now? How could I go for it now? Why do I have to wait? What do I have to wait till I'm an older adult or in my 70s to go for it? Like, what would it look like to bring that now? And I think that is just uh such a contribution. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 36:54

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

I just want to say one uh I know we're getting toward the end of our time. I want to say something, you know, uh just about that thing about the mentorship, you know. A study was done in the United States alone, but the most productive age in human beings' life is between the ages of 60 and 70, the most productive, and the second most productive is 70 to 80. So this is a very rich time for us. And um, you know, if people are listening to this, a couple things. One is if you're uh an older adult and you want to participate with us, you know, reach out to us. And I think Amber, they'll be able to see our email address. Emails and yeah, all of that information will be in the show notes. So the website. You may want to have a community circle, and the people have them once a month, and they fall in love with the people in their circles, and they're having these positive conversations about aging that we provide the dialogue for, I mean, the questions for. And um, you know, it'll it'll contribute to your own aging and to the aging of your community. So I invite people to participate with us, and um, I want to remind younger people that uh the thing that I said uh in the beginning, the button I saw, aging's cool, everyone's doing it. And um, there's also another quote says that uh, you know, old age is a privilege, not everyone will get. Well, you want to make sure you get that privilege and uh take advantage of it because the people I know are having a blast.

SPEAKER_04 38:41

I love all of that. Thank you so much, Candace. Liz, is there anything you, you know, like what would you love for people to be left with in this conversation, you know?

SPEAKER_03 38:52

Well, I think that um, you know, that I hate to uh take the the carpenter's song and bring it forward, but you know, you've only just begun, really. You know, our theme song we have is your time, our time is now, and that really is the case. And um that we yes, are we aging? We are, we can age super healthfully or we can age in whatever fashion we want, but there is still that that physical and mental component, and the two of those things together with a positive attitude towards aging is really what makes the difference. You know, we have been begun working with uh a neurologist uh from UCLA. I won't throw his name out here right now, but he stumbled upon us because one of his patients is a community circle host. And his he was sharing how his own personal aging journey has dramatically shifted from the decline to the incline, you know. I mean, you know, from a declining health and mental attitude to in expanding. And what he said to us is that I have to have all my patients know about this. He's sending them to the website. We're about to create some circles group for his people to connect with each other because when you're left on your own, it you know, it it's it's like what is that saying? Going into a dark, into a bad neighborhood. You don't want to go there on your own. And um, so we we're starting to use qualitative data, not enough for a quantitative study, but qualitative data where we survey our hosts and our members. And what we're up to and what and really it's what they're up to as they engage with each other is really making a difference for their uh experience of aging.

SPEAKER_04 40:55

I am what I what I'm left with is like for both for both of you in this conversation is like, what if it only got better, right? I think there's this like the cultural norm or the cultural conversation is like we as you said, Liz, we decline over time. So it's like this until we kind of you know get thrown in the ground and they throw dirt on us and go out for coffee, as we like to say, right? But like, what if, what if it actually could just keep getting better and better and better? And and that, you know, like that saying age is just a number. No, but really, like age is just a number. And like it, uh I could keep reinventing and recreating my life and my experience of my life and what I want my life to be in the service of at any age and at any time. And I think that is a very powerful conversation. And and again, I just, you know, thank you for being on the show. Thank you for being human beings that are about that. Like, thank you, you know, like you could, like you could be like, oh, I'm just gonna go hang out on a golf course or sit on a beach somewhere. You know, you've both contributed extraordinary amounts in in various different ways um throughout your lives up until this point in time. And and what's typical would be you just be like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be have my life be about something, something else now. And and you're still out here saying no, like I have a powerful purpose and and I want to contribute. So just you know, from the bottom of my heart for all of us who benefit, because I think we all benefit from this, you know, this this this mission and vision that you're on. And I I'm I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have you on the show to share about it. And and of course, I'm sure this will not be the last time that we talk. So just thank you. Uh and uh really, yeah, I just I just want to keep saying thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

Back at you. Thank you, Amber. Thank you, Amber.

SPEAKER_04 42:48

Yeah, for everyone listening to the show. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. You will be able to check out everything that that Mo and Candice and Liz have been up to on their website in the show notes. And uh just have a great week, everyone.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode. For more information on the show and our extraordinary guests, check out what wouldamberdo.com