Living a Longer And More Fulfilling Life – Episode 268

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[00:04] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast, fresh alternative personal finance talk for independent thinkers who prosper outside of Wall Street. Here’s your host, best-selling author, Kim D.H. Butler. Welcome to another episode of the Prosperity Podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about living longer, living more vibrant and healthy, and hopefully to pass that 100-year mark and much, much more, Kim Butler is going to talk with us and explain some new technology and some new thoughts around that. Kim, are you there? I am. Thank you, Spencer, for letting me share this with our listeners because some of them are going to just be like, yeah, whatever, and others are going to be really curious about it, but I think it can benefit everyone, especially if they’re dealing with maybe

[00:54] aging parents or if they’re just curious themselves. A little bit of background, I had shared on a previous podcast probably a year or more ago about a website called livingto100.com, and it’s free. Anybody can get on there. It’s livingto100.com, and you put in some information. It takes maybe five, 10 minutes. You answer a whole bunch of questions and they give you a life expectancy number just like, boom, right there, ready to go. And of course, because it’s just you putting in information, you can even trick it. I’m not sure what good that does you, but it’s just taking the data that you would fill in on a web form. There’s nothing else. Well, I loved that. I thought that was super cool, and I had fun, and of course, it came out

[01:46] like age 99, and I said, no, no, no, no, that’s way too young. I’m going to live much longer than that, et cetera, and kind of went on about my day, but I did occasionally share it with clients here and there if it was something that was helpful. Well, just recently, I was introduced to a much more robust and does cost profile that, of course, because it costs, it provides a lot more information, and this particular one, I’ll give the website here in a minute, is one that also utilizes the physical examining companies that life insurance companies also use to do your physical exam when you’re getting approved for life insurance. Isn’t that interesting? Yeah, that really is. So they’re actually integrating that data.

[02:34] Yes, absolutely, which is just fascinating to me, and at the same time, I mean, sort of obvious, like, of course, why wouldn’t they do this? And so what’s happened, and you can read about this, at MyLongevityQuest.com. So, Spencer, I trust we can put a link there in the show notes? You know it. It’ll be in there. Sweet. So, you know, if you’re driving, all you got to do is just go back to this podcast, and the link will be in there, but it’s MyLongevityQuest.com. I should say, if you’re out on your bicycle or you’re going for a walk or doing something else while you’re listening to podcasts, in addition to driving, but it’s so fun, because even if you choose not to pay the, it’s either $350 or $399, I can’t remember,

[03:21] somewhere in there, even if you choose not to pay that, it’s just kind of fun to poke around on the website. And essentially, what takes place if you choose to do this, and by the way, the maximum age is 79. They don’t want you doing this if you’re over 79 years old, which I think is kind of interesting. But if you choose to go forward with this, you do, of course, fill out a profile on the web, and they say that it takes about 30 minutes, so it’s obviously a very thorough profile, much more than a living to 100.com, but then you also set up a physical exam that’s done by Exam One, which is one of the companies that works nationwide for life insurance companies all over this country and comes to your home or office to do a physical exam.

[04:07] And we’re talking a blood draw, urine sample, height and weight, medical questions, of course, an EKG, depending on age and on the life insurance side, how much life insurance you’re getting approved for on the MyLongevityQuest side, I’m not sure, actually, what determines how much of a physical exam they’re going to do. But the point is, it’s much more thorough, much more in-depth. And if you were doing some serious number crunching around how much longer you were going to live and accordingly how you could spend the money that you have, this is a way that would really give you a lot of data. I think better even than your typical doctor’s office would, because they’re specifically looking at longevity.

[04:58] They’re specifically looking at all your vitals and making decisions based on what they know. And I’m sure there is some AI involved in all of this that helps them use the data that they have already and all the statistics around various biomarkers to then give you, you know, still guess and I’m sure it’s a time frame, not an exact date, but it’s something that would enable you to get a lot more specific guidance about how long you’re going to live. Isn’t that fun? Yeah, that’s amazing that we have that technology. And so where I start to think is, OK, so where is that marriage of AI and optimization and what is it going to do for us? Now that we have the life insurance side planned out and we have a good picture

[05:54] of our finances, now we can get a better picture of our health. How can we get those two to marry up? And it would make sense that the life insurance companies would say, hey, you know, it benefits us to make you healthier because then you’ll cost us less. And then health insurance companies will come in and do the same. So overall, it’s a win, win, win for everyone. Absolutely. And I do need to admit, I haven’t done it myself. I just found out about it. And I don’t know whether I will. I mean, I’m in my early 50s. I’m not super concerned about this issue yet. And yet I think for many people, it would be a way to do a check in on things. You know, some people don’t like to go to doctors and yet they sort of wish

[06:37] they could have a doctor’s opinion on some things. So, again, from a longevity standpoint, they’re not going to identify health issues per se, like, oh, you know, are you pre-diabetic or something like that? Though they may. Frankly, I’m not sure. I’ve not seen a report. But holy cow, if I was in my mid to late 70s and had to really start to do some thinking about how I was going to spend my money for the remainder of my life, I would think it would be super helpful to know, you know, was I looking at five or 10 years or am I looking at 20 or 30 years? Because that’s a big difference. And it’s going to make you act differently. And then, like you said, the bringing in of the life insurance, holy cow, that’s one of the things life insurance does so well,

[07:22] is to help somebody in those longer, later years. If somebody’s 80 and easy going to live another 20 years, then having life insurance already, which so for all of our listeners, it’s why you want to buy it in your 40s, 50s, 60s and maybe even 70s. But having life insurance in place can really help with that longevity standpoint in terms of continuing some income at a decent level into those 90 and 100 and 110, 120. All life insurance companies today are using 120 or 121 as their mortality table maximum. And so us consumers need to pay attention to that. You know, it used to be age 100. And I don’t know, five, six, ten years ago, I don’t remember, they switched it to age 120 and 121. So that right there is a wake up call that we need to be planning

[08:17] our finances much, much longer than age 100. You know, I agree. So I want to play in the sandbox for just a moment. And let’s think about this. If we have a listener that’s 40 years old and we’re just going off of the life insurance, the maturity table of being 120. So let’s say they have at 40 years old now, let’s say they got another 60 years of working. What would that look like? What should they be doing different now to prepare for that? Save as much as you can. Number one, find work that you love to do. Number two, so important because the absolute number one recommendation that I give is please keep working, please keep working. And also work to make your life more elegant. And I need to give credit to Arianna Huffington for this.

[09:15] And not that I agree with all the things that she talks about, but she made a very arresting statement to me and not to me, sorry, to an audience that I was in at the Abundance 360 event that Peter Diamandis focuses on and supports in early January of the year. And that was stop talking about slowing down. Nobody wants to slow down. That’s not a good thing. Instead, think and talk and strategize around how to make your life more elegant. So whatever that looks like to you, that’s what you want to be doing. And it’s interesting, my husband just found an article on the web about the number one retirement danger that nobody warns you about. Oh, what is it? Let’s hear it. Boredom. You know, I totally agree with that.

[10:10] Yes, being bored. Now, it’s funny, when my kids were younger and they would say, like on a Saturday or in the summertime, I’m bored. My first reaction was to sit them down at the table, put a blank piece of paper in front of them and a pen or a pencil or a crayon or whatever. In fact, I highly recommend a crayon. And say, OK, time for a gratitude list. You’ve got to put 10 things down there that you’re grateful for. And if you can get 20, then you get an extra popsicle or something. Because it’s so easy to fall into that. And yet, if we can find things to be grateful for, then obviously if we do more of those things, then life becomes good and happy again. But I’ll send you the link so you can include this in the show notes too.

[10:57] This is a critical issue. And my friend, Julianne, has a great question. And somebody says, well, then I’m going to think about retirement. And then what? Like, OK, so then what are you going to do? How are you going to spend your time? How are you going to spend your days? And it’s a fabulous thing for us to be on the lookout for. Yes. So I think all of us realistically should be planning to live a lot longer. And for any of us that step into the trap or if our kids step into the trap of I’m bored, I love the advice. Let’s all pull out that paper, write down the things that we’re grateful for, and it will help us live a more fulfilling life. Ken, what else do you have for our listeners? And we asked the sandbox question, but I want to flip it one more time.

[11:49] If we have listeners that are in their 70s, what should they be doing differently than someone that was in their 40s? And then we’ll wrap up. Yeah. So I’m going to say just about the same thing. Keep working if you are. And if you aren’t, maybe finding some work that you can do. And I’m going to put work in quotes because, of course, some people are able financially to retire. And yet the biggest risk that they’re going to have is what inflation does to their money. And so if you’re in your 70s and you’re healthy, seriously, you should be finding work. Because if you do a little bit of part-time work, not only will it keep you engaged and mentally strong, et cetera, but it’s that much less time that you can spend money, literally,

[12:33] like travel, shopping, other things that take money away. You should be putting money into the pot, so to speak. And if for whatever reason you can’t, physically or mentally or socially or emotionally or whatever, work, absolutely, you could still find things to be grateful for and still work on yourself and be growth-oriented. And like I was saying earlier, define what it takes to make your life more elegant and make that happen. And if you don’t have enough money for it, then figure out a way to go get that money, which means you need to be looking at how you can provide value out in the marketplace or to another family that might actually pay you for that value. I’m not saying people have to go get 40 to 60-hour a week

[13:15] career-oriented jobs. I’m just encouraging them to continue to provide value to the marketplace so that they get paid so that that good continues to go in a circle. You provide value, you get paid. Now, you can do more of what you wanna do, which then enables you to provide more value, which then you can get paid more, which enables you to do more of what you wanna do, et cetera, et cetera. And who knows, maybe what you wanna do can actually get paid for, which then, of course, that’s the perfect definition of work, because then work isn’t really work. It’s just play. Yes, it is. So I think for all of our listeners, right now is the prime of your life, regardless of how old you are. Don’t stop having some serious momentum in doing things.

[13:59] What book would you suggest our listeners to read that they can get more information? Ah, now that’s a good question. Well, I do have a favorite, but it’s mine, and it’s called Busting the Retirement Lies. And the reason that I like it is because it has examples and stories of people that are overturning the typical definition of retirement. There’s another website resource out there that’s not mine, and I don’t know that they have a book per se, but I’ve mentioned this before. It’s a super helpful website called Growing Bolder, B-O-L-D-E-R, growingbolder.com. And again, lots of stories and examples of things that people are doing in their 80s and 90s. And what that can do is provide you some ideas

[14:45] if you are at that phase of life or if you have parents that are at that phase of life or even grandparents or friends or what have you, so that you could be inspired by what some of these people are doing with their lives as they continue to make them more elegant. Wonderful. So for listeners, again, as a recap, check out Kim’s book. You can get that on Amazon, Busting the Retirement Lies. You can get that in the form of a Kindle or you can get it inside of your palm of your hand so you can read it on the beach while you’re thinking about retirement and then you get excited and you go back to work and do something you enjoy. So thanks for spending more time with us today. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast.

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