#220 – The Secret to Happy Aging With Alan Castel

Alan Castel [00:00:45]:
Yeah, for sure. Well, I’m not a clinical psychologist, and then I don’t see patients, but I do interact a lot with older adults, middle aged adults, even undergraduate students who are interested and concerned about what happens as we get older. So I think it’s always good to start thinking about this at an early age. There’s no better time to cultivate lifestyles, habits, even have mentors for aging. And so a lot of us, when I was growing up, I spent a lot of time in Florida with grandparents, and then condominium was full of older adults, and I saw a variety of patterns of aging, and I really enjoyed interacting with older adults. So I think that’s what brought this interest into how we age, how we can age well, how does that change with our habits that we develop when we’re younger?

Wes Moss [00:01:35]:
I’d love to circle back to the mentor question. I don’t know if I’ve heard of it put that way, but I think right off the bat of somebody who is 75 can be kind of a super old 75 year old, and then you can find a super young 75 year old. And I want to get to that, but I wanted to start with something fun, which I do love, kind of some of your commentary around names. You’ve already given us something around to remember. Tell us about names and why are we so bad at remembering names? And then maybe the trick to kind of get better at it.Alan Castel [00:02:12]:
Well, it’s pretty much the first thing you notice as you get older. You say, why can’t I remember names as well as I used to? And names are a tough one to begin with because our names are arbitrary. Right. There’s no good reason my name is Alan, other than my parents last names can maybe have some meaning or history. So I tell people, usually we don’t remember names because we don’t do anything with them. You introduce someone and you quickly are interested in their family and their job and where they live, and the name is just gone. So the first thing is attention. We don’t put a lot of attention into trying to grab the name and do something with it and use it.

Alan Castel [00:02:47]:
It’s called retrieval practice when you use it several times in conversation. So if you want to remember a name, I tell people my name is Alan Castell. It rhymes with pastel. My grandfather was a painter. He used pastels, let’s say. Or it’s like castle, but it’s a castle illusion. You switch the e and the l, and now people are doing something with the name and you’re more likely to remember it, but you’re also more likely to misremember it, saying, that was doctor Pastel, or he said his name was Castle. So memory is a function of what we do with information.

Alan Castel [00:03:18]:
So I think names are just a good illustration of that.

Wes Moss [00:03:21]:
Well, I think a good point. If back, I don’t know, go back 50 years, go back 80 years, I don’t know, or go back a couple hundred years, you would call people, I guess, by their profession to some extent, right?

Alan Castel [00:03:36]:
Yeah. And that’s why people are still Mister Barber or baker. But, you know, those things are long gone. And sure, a castle. Castell probably meant a spanish castle back in the day. I don’t live in a castle at all. But I also tell people that as we get older, there’s just more information in your brain. So you’ve met so many Brians and Alan’s and people named Smith, that there’s a lot of interference.

Alan Castel [00:04:00]:
And so that’s another problem with names are accessibility. You know, you know the name, you just can’t retrieve it at a specific time. And so that’s another theory of memory. As we get older, there’s just more going on, and at any given time it’s hard to access it. But I also remind people that forgetting names is very common, and it’s not something necessarily to be worried about. And I think our memory is somewhat adaptive in that what you want to remember is if you like the person or if you had an interesting conversation, or if you can trust them. Those are probably more important things to know about a person than remembering their name, but not knowing anything else about them.

Wes Moss [00:04:37]:
By the way, was your grandfather actually a painter?

Alan Castel [00:04:40]:
He was a painter. I don’t think Pascal’s was his main medium, but it makes for a good story.

Wes Moss [00:04:47]:
It does. Okay, next question that I think is kind of a fun topic. And I don’t know the real answer to this, but I call this kind of just the age freeze phenomenon, where as we, as our brains inform us of what we think, kind of how old we feel. And is that something that’s just kind of set? Do we all feel naturally a little younger inside? Producer Mallory, who is, I don’t know, 38, thinks she says she’s 32 in her brain. I’ve got folks that I’ve worked with for many years that are 70 that say, hey, I still feel like I’m 27. What is that phenomenon about?

Alan Castel [00:05:29]:
No, it’s a great question. It’s something called subjective age. It’s how old you feel, and often it doesn’t match up with our biological age. And research shows that kind of after the age of 40, people tend to feel, report feeling about 20% younger than their actual age. So the observations you say, make sense, and we don’t really know why that is. It’s not that we’re deceiving ourselves, but we sometimes look in the mirror and be like, wow, I look older than I feel. But maybe that gives you that sense of vitality or being able to do things. On the other hand, there’s some days where you wake up and you certainly feel your age when your back seizes up or one knee locks up or you’re running around grandchildren, you’re like, they have so much energy.

Alan Castel [00:06:12]:
I feel my age now. I think it can work both ways, but I think it is interesting that we tend to feel younger. And I share this story that my son and I, we were getting during COVID getting haircuts at home, and we were cutting each other’s hair, and he said, I want my hair cut like daddy’s with the hole on top. I never even noticed that so much. But to him, that’s a cool thing. So I think genetically, he’ll probably get it at some point. I think there’s signs of aging that we don’t always pay attention to or that we try and hide. We dye our hair or wear hats because we don’t want to be reminded that we might be older than we feel.

Wes Moss [00:06:52]:
But is it kind of a natural, almost survival skill to place ourselves at a younger.

Alan Castel [00:06:58]:
Well, it could be. And in terms of retirement and financial planning, that’s actually an important question, because it’s sometimes hard to imagine our future self if we constantly think we’re 20% younger. So what we want to do is sometimes project ourselves in the future and say, hey, when I’m 60, 70, 80, what sorts of activities do I want to do? What do I want to be able. Where do I want to be? And so there’s apps and technology that can age your face to make you look older, and that might make you make more adaptive decisions about retirement. So it’s kind of an interesting phenomenon that we should be thinking about aging, and yet sometimes we want to, we feel younger, so we act younger.

Wes Moss [00:07:39]:
You know, I remember when face app, I think it’s called faceapp, that kind of went viral, and everybody was sending around. It was such an amazingly accurate, or it was so well done. And I haven’t seen that recently, but I suspect it’s just as prevalent. And it’s very easy to upload a picture if you’re 40 and say, hey, what am I gonna look like when I’m 80? I don’t know if people really want to see that, but it is kind of fascinating.

Alan Castel [00:08:05]:
No, no. But coming back to the mentors of aging, you mentioned it. I think that’s where we can see. Look at your parents or your grandparents. How did they age? And you’ll notice either physically or emotionally or mentally, how they age. And I think, so that’s something we think about. Or when we look at photos of us when we were younger, like 1020 years ago, you might say, wow, I looked so much different. Or you might think, oh, something haven’t really changed.

Alan Castel [00:08:29]:
So we do notice people who have kind of aged well physically. And that was kind of inspiration for my book a little bit, because our age stereotypes about aging are usually negative. We want to avoid it. We want to hide signs of aging. And yet there’s all sorts of people out there who are really amazing, people who’ve aged well in different ways.

Wes Moss [00:08:51]:
Yeah, maybe give me an example of that.

Alan Castel [00:08:54]:
Well, that was part of when I teach my class at UCLA. That’s how we start. I say, give me five examples of people who you think have aged well or you admire. I, and a lot of it’s like a grandparent or a mother, someone you’re related to, which I think is important because there’s some genetic overlap. But then some people will say things. There’s people like Jack Lalanne, who I got to interview for this book, or some people, there’s Betty White. But as you get younger, people will say things like J. Lo, who I wouldn’t think is an aging figure, but I guess we’re getting older.

Alan Castel [00:09:30]:
The point is, people see people like, hey, I’d like to be like that in 1020, 30, 40 years. How do I get to that point? And so when you have that positive stereotype about aging. And you realize it’s not all about genetics, because a lot of these people, it’s not like they had the family that lived a long time. They’ve engaged in lifestyles that can promote healthy aging. So I think it’s a good place to start, is to think of case studies, and sometimes it’s a, a coach they had or a teacher. But I think it’s important to cultivate these ideas that, yes, there’s a lot of challenges that happen as we get older. And we can also think of the negatives, like people who’ve struggled with aging or unfortunately passed away too early, and what can we do to ensure that we live a long life?

Wes Moss [00:10:16]:
I think of the two great Olympic hosts, Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart, over the last, over the Paris Olympics. Martha Stewart is, well, she’s in her eighties, and just her vibrancy just doesn’t add up to that at all. So I don’t think she’ll be my age mentor, but she’s a pretty amazing example of that.

Alan Castel [00:10:42]:
Yeah, I think there’s definitely celebrities and public figures. In some ways they’re unique because they might not want to retire or they get opportunities in older age that most people wouldn’t get. You know, it’s hard to get a job when you’re 80, but if you’re.

Wes Moss [00:10:56]:
A celebrity commentating the Olympics, when I’m 80, I want to.

Alan Castel [00:10:59]:
Well, yeah, but I think it makes us think, hey, when I’m 80 or 70 or retire, you know, what sorts of things can I do? And by seeing older people do these things, it means I could, you know, you don’t necessarily need to be a tv commentator, but I could do things that I might not think a 70 or 80 year old would be necessarily doing.

Wes Moss [00:11:16]:
When you talk about an age mentor, is that something where you’re just kind of, you’re thinking that through and identifying what, let’s say a handful of people are like, and you benchmark in your mind, gosh, I’d like to be similar to that as I age. Or do you actually engage with somebody and talk to them about that?

Alan Castel [00:11:36]:
I think it’s a little bit of both. I’ve had informal age mentors, grandparents who had great sense of humor, who I still follow patterns that I think I remember from them with my own children. But then I have professional colleagues who I’m like, wow, look what they’re doing at 70, 80, 90. And so I spend time with them, and I think we pick and choose, like, wow, I hope I can do that. But maybe I won’t be that way. Or, oh, they’re not interacting with technology the way I do. I wonder how technology will be different in 50 years, and how would I engage that way so, or even with retirement? Some people fight it and some people embrace it. And, you know, I’m at an age, a lot of people, where it’s like, what parts would you choose to follow? And so I think it’s an informal observation.

Alan Castel [00:12:22]:
Sometimes you’re not picking one person saying, that’s what I’m going to do. You’re looking at all the things people encounter and say, how will I deal with that challenge or opportunity at that age?

Wes Moss [00:12:36]:
When do we see is the decline? Well, I’d like you talk through how you think through memory decline or kind of a new level of, maybe you call it selectivity, or you distill what you remember. And is memory decline, is it just a natural lower with memory, or is there an inflection point? Typically, yeah.

Alan Castel [00:12:58]:
I like to think of memory as changing with age, not necessarily just starting off as a decline because it actually changes from infancy. And what changes is, yes, there’s certainly some things that tend to decline, but there’s some things that remain stable or even get better with age. Vocabulary knowledge, sometimes remembering to do things in the future. Prospective memory. Grandparents and parents who remember birthdays better than I do. So I think there’s different types of memory that change in different ways. And my research at UCLA for the last 20 years has really looked at memory selectivity, that if we know our memory is changing in some ways, not so good, how do we selectively focus on remembering what’s important and that can be different for different people. Sure, we want to remember names, but maybe you need to remember your granddaughter’s allergy.

Alan Castel [00:13:52]:
That’s more important than remembering their teacher’s name, let’s say. And so as we get older, we might know, like, I’m not good at remembering this. I’m going to write it down, or I need to set this reminder, or I’m going to ask someone else to remember this. So I think memory selectivity could actually improve with age because we’re more aware of what we’ll forget. We’ve had more instances of forgetting. We’ve seen how our memory has changed. And so I think older adults might actually be in some ways better because they’ve had more experience with how memory changes. And of course, there’s things that can happen biologically, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, that really change the game.

Alan Castel [00:14:30]:
But I think if you’re still healthy, and active. You’re using your memory in a fairly adaptive way.

Wes Moss [00:14:36]:
You know, I know that you’ve written about kind of happier aging, where as we age, we can to some extent have a, maybe it’s a more, I don’t know if it’s a more positive outlook or we just report higher levels of satisfaction relative to being younger. Tell us about that. Can we look forward to just gradually getting a little happier with age, just biologically?

Alan Castel [00:15:01]:
Yeah. I mean, there’s interesting research that looks, you know, it’s hard to rate happiness, but if you just ask people at momentarily, how happy are you? There’s this u shaped function where it’s not a linear decline that actually people in middle age report the least amount of happiness. But what’s interesting is it tends to increase as we get older and approach older age. So something’s happening. It’s not just biological change that might make older adults more, have greater life satisfaction, maybe worry less, maybe have more appreciation for having good health. And it’s not like college is the best time in your life, and it just gets worse from there. In fact, rates of clinical depression are, in fact, now higher in college age students than they are at healthy older adults. So there’s something going on that might be causing older adults or even people who are entering old age to appreciate life in a way that makes you happier.

Wes Moss [00:15:57]:
When is the bottom of the year? What’s the max? Unhappiness. Age?

Alan Castel [00:16:01]:
Well, this research is really hard to do. You’re asking people a very, you know, difficult question. How do you summarize happiness? But when you look at the bottom of the curve, I like to point out, when I’m teaching at UCLA, it’s pretty much exactly my age. You know, it’s between 45 and 50 often, and nobody really knows why. It’s not necessarily, you know, you find this in people who have children. You find this in people who don’t have children. It’s. There’s cultural similarities.

Alan Castel [00:16:28]:
You know, you could just be busy. Maybe you’re not spending as much time on activities that maybe a lot of responsibility, maybe there’s financial challenges, but that tends to be about the bottom of the curve. And of course, it’s different for different people. But I do remind people that in some ways, that’s uplifting to know that if you’re around that age, you can get better. And so I think there’s something interesting to understand why that’s the case. But I think in terms of talking about successful aging, part of it is.

Wes Moss [00:17:00]:
Just reaching older age, just getting there is successful, right?

Alan Castel [00:17:04]:
Sure.

Wes Moss [00:17:05]:
So for those 45, so the listeners at age 45 to 50, do not worry. According to a professor at UCLA, it’s gonna get better. Life will just naturally get a little bit better year after year after year. So it’s a lot to look forward to. There’s some hopefulness there. Alan, if you’ve ever done a Jane Fonda workout or if you remember as a kid rocky running the steps, and if Michael Keaton is still Mister mom to you, then guess what? It’s officially time to do some retirement planning. It’s Wes Moss. Weren’t those the good old days? Well, with a little bit of retirement planning, there are plenty of good days ahead.

Wes Moss [00:17:48]:
Schedule an appointment with our team today@yourwealth.com. dot that’s your, yourwealth.com dot. I wanted to ask about curiosity because, so let’s say that we naturally, we get more selective with our memory. You say it changes more than it just maybe doesn’t decline, but it morphs and changes. But what is the impact of curiosity? A, I’m a big believer in it. I think that in my, I’ve written that curiosity may have killed the cat, but a lack of curiosity kills the happy retiree. But more, I think, more importantly, can you get more curious?

Alan Castel [00:18:32]:
Yeah. Curiosity is just another one of these things that’s so important across the lifespan. Kids start asking questions like why is the sky blue? Or why can’t I have dessert for breakfast? And all of a sudden you have to answer. And I think as we get older, curiosity is important, but I think there’s also a selectivity to it as well that a lot of older adults will say, I remain curious or interested, but more in the things that interests me the most. So if you’re curious in everything, you’re going to get distracted. You’re not going to get anything done. And so I think there’s a selectivity component as well, that as you get older, you might get more into bird watching or maybe you’ll pick up a new hobby that you’re like, I’ve never even thought about this. And now I’m so curious about how this works.

Alan Castel [00:19:17]:
Having a sense of awe is also something that seems to enhance aging, that especially during COVID people would all of a sudden walk around their neighborhood and be like, wow, there are these beautiful trees. I’ve never noticed. You know, things that we take for granted can engage our curiosity, and I think that’s important. As we get older, you can also just, it’s amazing that you can pick up a phone and talk to someone on the other side of the world now for free? Pretty much. And so that, how does that work? So that engages curiosity and awe. But I also say there can be a dark side to curiosity and that there’s a lot of scams and fraud. Clickbait or getting some great offer on the phone or investing in bitcoin, well, that can engage your curiosity, and financially that can be quite dangerous. So I’ve written a little bit about we have to engage our curiosity in a responsible manner because we don’t want to get caught in rabbit holes or engaging with fraudsters.

Alan Castel [00:20:15]:
So it’s really an important concept to understand.

Wes Moss [00:20:19]:
I think about this one item that I’ve researched as part of the lifestyle habits of happy versus unhappy retirees is they do engage. I call these core pursuits or hobbies on steroids. And again, to your point, there’s no exact way to measure this, the way I communicate. A core pursuit is something that you think about a lot and you really look forward to. It’s not just a hobby you do once in a while, but it’s one that you really like to pursue. It’s really a life pursuit and you want to get better at doing it. You want to do it often. And there’s just something about it that kind of raises it to the level that I think of it as these hobbies on steroids.

Wes Moss [00:21:00]:
When it comes to curiosity, do you encourage folks to go out and say, look, if you only have one or two hobbies, it’s just not enough. You should really think about cultivating a couple of new things or one new thing per year. And have you seen correlations between those two and happiness?

Alan Castel [00:21:20]:
Well, pursuing novelty really can be important, but sometimes you can get these things by pursuing things you find interesting, like traveling. Let’s say a lot of people as they retire, say they want to travel more. So now you get to go on that trip to Italy, or maybe you’ll go to a destination you’ve been to many times, but discover something new. So that’s, I think, like in terms of stimulating our brain, being around different people, doing new things can be great. On the other hand, sometimes it’s playing more golf or a bridge club or exercise class. But again, picking up new activities within that you’re going to interact with new people, maybe do different exercises. Things like bird watching are surprisingly one of the most, the largest growing hobby. And when you’re younger, you might not think much about it, but you get to be in nature.

Alan Castel [00:22:10]:
You can be around other people, you’re gaining new knowledge, you’re seeing new things. So it can be a really rewarding experience, even if it just gets you out. Right, like it gets you or gets you looking at birds online or interacting with other people who have this expertise. Musical instrument, too, sometimes. I’ve picked up piano again. You know, I’ve seen my daughters play music and really get engaged. And, you know, it’s not to become a concert pianist. It allows you to maybe return to it when you’re 40, 50, 60, play in a trio, appreciate music.

Alan Castel [00:22:43]:
So I think these are things our brain needs. Being around people can be really important. So if you have a hobby that can engage a community, a hobby that can engage your brain musically, socially, these are just as important as people say. To keep your brain sharp, I need to do crossword puzzles or sudoku. I almost tell them that’s like strengthening a strength. That’s one thing. Vocabulary tends to get better with age. If you’re doing crosswords, great.

Alan Castel [00:23:11]:
But you might not be stimulating your brain in a way that engages things that might be requiring a little extra.

Wes Moss [00:23:19]:
Well, let’s talk about socialization for a minute, because, again, as you go through, all of these are examples of core pursuits where I guess I understand how people could get birdwatching. If you would ask me at 30, I would have said, that’s going to be out of my top 100 list. It’s like number 99. The older I’ve gotten, I kind of get it. I can see how, to your point, it’s new knowledge. It’s nature, which I guess I kind of took nature for granted because I grew up in a very rural setting, and then I’ve lived in the city for a couple of decades now. But then the return to nature is kind of, that is, there’s something magical about that. But then you also mentioned that it’s social.

Wes Moss [00:24:02]:
So a good portion of core pursuits I can come up with, and I’ve got a list of, you know, my hundred favorite, but a lot of them really are social. So what is the talk about the importance of socialization? Maybe the effort we should be looking at towards social core pursuits, and why is it so good for us?

Alan Castel [00:24:23]:
Yeah, I think it’s something that’s often forgotten. We take it for granted because you might be in school, there’s a lot of structures set up. You’re around people all the time. But especially as we contemplate retirement, we realize that there is a social scene built into our workplace. This is actually somewhat more specific to people who might not have a large social circle, and sometimes men especially, who take for granted that at their workplace or their environment, that’s where they get a lot of social interaction. And it’s not necessarily with their best friends and so on, but it’s that just checking in or talking about something that happened. And so when you retire, you might lose a big chunk of that, and you realize that. I think, again, Covid was a good test of this, where we still had a job and we’re, you know, but we weren’t coming in.

Alan Castel [00:25:12]:
We weren’t seeing people face to face. And people all of a sudden realize something’s really missing here. I miss coming in at least one day a week or just having those social interactions. So you can imagine in retirement, how would that change, you know? So I think it’s really important. As we get older, our social circle does tend to shrink, but the quality of those relationships can actually increase. So I think, again, it’s, it’s not just like things get worse with age, things change in different ways. So I think it’s important to cultivate those relationships, but also important to make new ones. You know, if you’re joining a new club or exercise, a lot of sometimes people relocate.

Alan Castel [00:25:52]:
And that’s kind of the big thing in the first few months is how am I going to meet people who I can interact with? So, again, if there’s groups or organizations or hobbies that you can use to meet other people, that can be incredibly.

Wes Moss [00:26:04]:
Important, you know, and I have found that, I think about the folks that, let’s say I’ve worked with for 20 years that have moved and done really geographic moves, can even be small. I mean, you can move from the middle of midtown Atlanta. If you move 40 minutes north, you really are. You might as well move to Texas. It’s because it’s just as hard to get into an urban area with traffic, et cetera, and the folks that I’ve seen that have done the best at it. So it doesn’t always work. One, it’s usually getting closer to their kids. So they’re adult children, number one.

Wes Moss [00:26:40]:
Number two, they have some sort of, whether it’s an active adult community or it’s just a 55 plus, the folks that have really integrated into the new location, particularly when you’re going to another state, they’re so intent in that first year reviving and cultivating a new social group, which is hard. I mean, I think about, I’ve had, I have one of my kids is at a kind of really a new school, and just seeing them go, seeing him go through kind of starting over socially, it’s hard, and I don’t think it’s, you know, I think it’s just as hard at any age. If you’re starting from scratch, you really have to put in a lot of effort in the beginning to get some social momentum because once you have a couple of people you’re close with, I think it gets a lot easier. That initial momentum can be really tough, and I think it’s important for people to understand that if they’re moving.

Alan Castel [00:27:36]:
Yeah, no, it takes a lot of effort, and I think that’s what you, again, see in retirement. There’s different ways people engage with others in retirement. And it’s very easy just to be at home and sit on the couch or feel like you’re getting your social interactions online, you know, but it’s so much, it’s very different. And I think David Letterman, the comedian, once said that before you retire, to spend more time with your family, check with your family, because your family aren’t your friends always. You want to be around family and be available and be there, but it’s the friendships that you have that take you out of the house and allow you to pursue interests and pursuits that your family might not be as engaged in. So I think that’s overlooked sometimes.

Wes Moss [00:28:27]:
So you’ve studied successful aging. You’ve studied how people kind of the habits of folks. You mentioned Jack Lalanne. I think of him swimming across the ocean with like a chain on his back. I don’t know how old he was when he did that, but tell our listeners what you see that the happiest people have in common as they age.

Alan Castel [00:28:51]:
Yeah, I mean, I think some of these people are unique, like Jack Loyan, and they’re just great individual stories. But I think after interviewing a lot of older adults and looking at the research I talk about in terms of the abcs of successful aging, I think it’s an easy way to remember it with a standing for attitude. You have to have a positive attitude about getting older or at least knowing that there’s going to be challenges. So a could also be to adapt to all the challenges that are going to be put in front of you as you get older. But I think attitude is important, and a lot of the people I’ve talked to say that’s definitely, you’re going to have to have a sense of humorous, that sort of thing. The second one is balance. When I interviewed John Wooden, he said the two most important things in life were love and balance, and he was around the people he loved. He did the things he loved.

Alan Castel [00:29:41]:
But having a sense of balance is often overlooked. We’re very focused on a job or a career, but we need to have downtime or time with friends and physical balance. One in three people over the age of 65 are going to experience a fall, and a fall can lead to a broken hip, wrist, collarbone. Then you’re not mobile if you’re not walking. We know walking is one of the best things we can do to keep our memory sharp. So now your brain is changing in.

Wes Moss [00:30:11]:
Ways walking helps our memory. I don’t know if I’ve heard that.

Alan Castel [00:30:14]:
Yeah, that’s a whole interesting area of research that shows that as much as we think brain stimulation is important, physical exercise is probably getting blood flow to your brain. It allows you to sleep better. And so probably the best thing you can do to keep your memory sharp is to get exercise. And walking is kind of the most natural thing you can do, so. And it allows for balance. It’s the kind of thing you can also do balance training. You know, standing on one leg, you don’t need to do yoga, but if you fall, you’ve lost a lot of independence. So I think just staying on your 2ft is the second tip that balancing and then the last thing C is connection.

Alan Castel [00:30:53]:
And it’s what we just talked about, really, is staying connected to the things you love, the people you love. So there’s that big social component of having connection and also connection to life, right? Like feeling that you have some meaning or you’re connecting with the next generation. So a lot of people, as they contemplate retirement or get into older age, feel this need for generativity. You know, how are you contributing to the next generation? And it could be, you know, through writing books or teaching or interacting with grandchildren. So engaging with something that’s kind of bigger than yourself could be religion, something that keeps you connected, keeps you going.

Wes Moss [00:31:29]:
I really love the idea of an age mentor. I think that as I think this through, I’m thinking of a couple age mentors that I had. I’d never thought of them that way. I’ve never thought of them as, hey, you’re somebody who’s maybe two decades older than me, and I kind of want to be like you when I’m two decades older than today. And I think I’m going to talk to them about that, I’m going to bring it up.

Alan Castel [00:31:52]:
I think people appreciate that. I think as we get older, we realize, what can I contribute to the next generation? And I’ve had a few age mentors, and it’s not always as formal, but it’s clear that they’re doing things that are incredible or professionally. Sometimes it’s set up that way, but things change. The world’s different. So it’s not like, oh, they’re doing this, I want to do this in 20 years. Might not be a thing in 20 years. Even so, I think the more important thing is to look at their attitudes about, like, gosh, they’re open minded or they’re emotionally aware of things. Those skills are really important and might, you know, get better as we get older.

Wes Moss [00:32:30]:
Well, we’re going to get happier from 45, well, let’s call it mid forties, maybe 50 plus. It just gets better and better. I’m going to. I’m going to make it. The mnemonic part of remembering names is I’m going to try to remember, to try to remember dams and just do that, because I do love when I know somebody’s name, there’s some level of confidence in that. I love the idea that our memory really, now, of course, with dementia and certain cognitive diseases, it declines. But it doesn’t necessarily just decline. It changes over time, and we get more selective around that, which is kind of an encouraging way to think about it, too, I think, to your point around socialization and attitude and balance, that I think is such a good reminder for folks that those really are the keys.

Wes Moss [00:33:23]:
That is the key if you can do those three things. How old did John wooden live to?

Alan Castel [00:33:28]:
He lived in 99, and I interviewed him in his early nineties and again in his mid nineties. And just that level of positivity he had, even though his spouse had passed away, he was not afraid of dying. You know, he fell in his apartment and he had a life alert that he could press. He fell at night, but he didn’t press that life alert because he didn’t want to bother anybody. It was the middle of the night, so he waited until the morning, until his caretaker came and they rushed him to the hospital. He had a broken collarbone and wrist. He really should have pressed it. But again, this is another instance of, as we get older, you know, there’s this level of he didn’t want to be a burden.

Alan Castel [00:34:11]:
He didn’t want to bother anyone. So I think this is also like with technology providing all these opportunities to help older adults, there’s a psychological barrier, too, that we need to be aware of.

Wes Moss [00:34:23]:
Besides Wooden, who’s kind of one of your favorite successful agers, you could share with our audience.

Alan Castel [00:34:30]:
I mean, Maya Angelou was really impressive. I got to interview her when she came to UCLA briefly. I reach out to a lot of people, some people who don’t have a lot of time, some people who really make time. I really do think wooden was when I got my job at UCLA, I grew up in Canada, so I heard probably another mentor of aging. My math teacher, who was also my basketball coach, would always quote wooden, and I always thought these quotes were kind of funny, but they made sense. And then it was a dream job to come to UCLA. And I thought, gosh, would I get a chance to meet coach Wooden? It was through. He actually came and lectured in a few classes.

Alan Castel [00:35:10]:
And one of the, you know, the professors said, alan, he’d be a great person to interview. And so it was thankfully that she put me in touch with him. And the funny thing is, one of the interviews, you know, the night before, he called my cell phone to remind me of the interview. And I thought, how is a 90 year old calling me to remind me in case I forgot? So I thought just another instance of a very humble, you know, person who is just revered but also in his prime. And while he was winning all those championships, a tough guy to work with, I think a micromanager. People said he was detail oriented. So people change as they get older, but I think he, by far, was an inspiration and a really unique experience for me to chat with him.

Wes Moss [00:35:59]:
So what’s next for you? What is the research that you’re most excited about now? What are you newly writing about now?

Alan Castel [00:36:06]:
Yeah, I’m still doing work on memory selectivity, trying to understand how that changes, how we kind of get more selective as we get older. I’m looking at, you know, some of the. Concerning things that happen as we get older because we’re targeted for scams and fraud that happens at any point in our life, but trying to understand how to avoid that and then things, you know, that I think are really engaging, like curiosity and awe. How do we appreciate these things, especially as we get older? So those are some of the directions that I’m going in, and it’s really exciting to chat with people like you who are applying this knowledge and getting the word out there.

Wes Moss [00:36:42]:
Yeah, we’re trying to do that in real life. And when it takes real research to be able to do that. So, Alan’s Professor Castell, it’s funny. You’re one of your mnemonic devices, I think you did in your TED talk. The castle one always makes me want to say castle.

Alan Castel [00:36:59]:
So I had to pause for just confusing. That’s fine.

Wes Moss [00:37:03]:
That’s actually a cool name too, Doctor Castle, but sure would have been easier.

Alan Castel [00:37:08]:
If that was my name, trust me.

Wes Moss [00:37:11]:
But Professor Alan Castell, thank you so much man.

Alan Castel [00:37:14]:
Thanks for having me on the show.

Mallory [00:37:17]:
Hey y’all. This is Mallory with the retire sooner team. Please be sure to rate and subscribe to this podcast and share it with a friend. If you have any questions, you can find us at. That’s wesmoss.com. you can also follow us on Instagram and YouTube. You’ll find us under the handle Retire Sooner podcast. And now for our show’s disclosure.

Mallory [00:37:37]:
This information is provided to you as a resource for informational purposes only and is not to be viewed as investment advice or recommendations. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. There is no guaranteed offer that investment return, yield, or performance will be achieved. Stock prices fluctuate, sometimes rapidly and dramatically, due to factors affecting individual companies, particularly industries or sectors, or general market conditions for stocks paying dividends. Dividends are not guaranteed and can increase, decrease, or be eliminated without notice. Fixed income securities involve interest rate, credit inflation and reinvestment risks and possible loss of principal. As interest rates rise, the value of fixed income securities falls. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Mallory [00:38:18]:
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