Aging With GRACE & PURPOSE: How To Prioritize QUALITY Over QUANTITY Of Life (And What Matters MOST In Your Last Decade)! | Peter Attia EP 640

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11How old are you now? 50. What's your vision for your lifespan? How long, if you could predict the year and live as long as you wanted to be, how long would that be? I can't even fashion it. I think the most important thing to me is to live long enough that my kids are fine without me. I mean, that's, so that, believe it or not, is not very long, right? I mean, my kids are almost six, almost nine, almost 15. So if my youngest kid is, I don't know, 30, and that, what does that put me? That puts me in my 70s. You know, I will have done the most important thing I was put on this earth to do. Wow. Yeah.

0:55And really, I'm less concerned with how long I live, which I'd be lying if I said I want to live. I don't want to live a long time. Of course I do. But I'm much more concerned with that quality of life. I'm much more concerned with what am I able to do. And I would happily compromise length of life in favor of quality of life. And I define quality of life maybe different from how you would or maybe different from how someone watching us would. So I do think it's important that everybody have a very honest discussion with themselves about what constitutes quality of life. What do you want to be able to do in your last decade?

1:29We all have a last decade and none of us know the day we enter it, but most of us know when we're in it. So what do you want to be able to do in that decade? And I have very clear metrics of what I want to be able to do. And that's what I focus on. What are those main things you want to do in the last decade? So for planning purposes, I'm assuming that's my late 80s, maybe even early 90s. And I want to be as functional in that period of time as an otherwise very healthy fit 70-year-old would be. Which means I want to be able to exercise every day. I want to be able to play with small children.

2:08I want to be able to do archery. I would like to even be able to drive a race car still. By the way, Paul Newman was still driving his race car up until about six months before he died. and still driving some pretty quick laps. How old was he? I think late 80s. Wow. Yeah. I want to be able to hike on uneven surfaces. I want to be able to swim every day. I want to be able to have sex. I want to be able to travel and do so in a manner that's, like, real. Like, you know, not just get wheeled around and go from place to place, but, like, actually get onto the train. Uh-huh. actually carry my suitcase onto a train, take my suitcase off the train.

2:53You know, I want to be able to play with great grandkids, or probably not great grandkids, but probably grandkids, on the floor, like play Lego. That's beautiful vision. And I'm curious, I just turned 40, and... When's your birthday? March 16. Oh, I'm March 19. 1983. I'm 73. Yeah, so 10 years. Almost, exactly. I've never put emphasis on my age or the number. Yep. Because I've never wanted to limit myself. And that was something my dad taught me early on. We never really celebrated birthdays. It's benefited me in believing in myself, you know, being younger, starting the game when everyone else was older, being the age I am now, just not, just always believe in myself no matter the age.

3:36It hasn't really hit me that soon, you know, if I'm able to live as, you know, in my 90s or whatever, soon, essentially in the next decade, I will have been on this earth longer than I will be still on this earth, right? Like, my first half will be longer than where I'm ending up. Have you thought about that, being 50 now? They're like, okay, maybe you have 50 years. Probably not, yeah. No, no, no. I've almost assuredly spent more time on this earth than I have left. Right. How does that hit you? How does that feel mentally, emotionally, so I don't think of it that way and maybe this is just a coping mechanism so it's possible I'm just delusional but the way I think about it is more in terms of the quality of that life so I would say that we all have different seasons and I don't think for example the first 45 years of my life were a great season really sure I mean I think that physically everything was great but I don't think emotionally everything was great and therefore in some ways I'm still an infant in terms of kind of a level of emotional maturity and level of connection and better relationship with myself and better relationship with others.

4:56So in some ways I think well I'm a five year old who still has 35 years to live maybe. So you know the good news is when you think of all of these things that determine quality of life or healthspan, you're thinking of cognitive, physical, and emotional, well, there's no denying the gravitational pull on the first two. They're going to go down. Your cognitive and physical performance have already peaked. Mine long ago peaked. I'm on the downslide. I mean, that's just reality. You can't deny it. Especially people like us who weren't doing horribly when we were younger. In other words, you're never going to be physically the guy you were when you were 20.

5:35Not a chance. And nor will I, because I was already at such a high level. I'm not cognitively ever going to be what I was when I was 20. But the good news is that... But you're wiser when you were 20. Exactly. And this is what... I don't know if you... Have you interviewed Arthur Brooks? No, I haven't. Okay. So Arthur Brooks talks about these different types of intelligence, crystallized versus fluid intelligence. And yes, the people who age gracefully are able to transition and accept that different type of intelligence. And you go from that more computational, you know, what's called fluid intelligence into a more crystallized intelligence that is more about wisdom.

6:15But the good news is that last bucket of emotional health is not tethered to age at all, not tethered to biological age. So in many ways, I accept the decline of these first two knowing that this last one is going to get better. Interesting.

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7:30Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.