Steven Kotler: The Psychology of Aging Well and Why Your Best Years May Still Be Ahead of You | Health and Wellness | YAPClassic

24:48Hala Taha:Just amazing, really cool stuff. And nobody has talked about this on the podcast yet. So it's very exciting.

24:57Hala Taha:Yeah, fam, when I started my business as a side hustle, I was working full time at Disney. But once I started bringing consistent revenue, and I had retainer clients, I knew it was time to go full swing into entrepreneurship. But nobody warns you about all the unsexy and complicated stuff you need to start a business. But luckily, this is exactly what Northwest Registered Agent is built for. They are the largest registered agent and LLC service in the US. And they've been helping entrepreneurs launch and grow legit protected businesses for nearly 30 years. When you form with Northwest, you get a complete business identity that includes a business address, a registered agent service, which by the way, is really important and make sure that you know if you're getting sued and things like that, an operating agreement, professional email, domain, website, phone number, and built-in privacy.

25:45Hala Taha:All in one place, all handled in-house. And the best part is you get thousands of free guides, tools, and attorney-drafted documents to help you run your business with confidence. Don't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for what you can get from Northwest for free. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com slash yapfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com slash yapfree.

26:13Hala Taha:Yeah, fam, I'll admit it. The first time I heard somebody explain Bitcoin, I felt like I had accidentally walked into a finance bro TED Talk. Charts everywhere, acronyms flying around, one guy saying decentralized, like it was a personality trait. I nodded along and understood absolutely nothing. And then I just didn't touch it. I didn't invest in Bitcoin for years. But here's what I've learned in business. Sometimes things are not actually complicated. They're just explained in the most complicated way possible. If you've been curious about Bitcoin but haven't made the jump yet, Cash App makes it easy.

26:47Hala Taha:You can set up automatic purchases with zero fees or buy larger amounts also with zero fees. Start small or go bigger. It's designed to be simple either way. For a limited time, new customers can get$10 added to their balance. Just use code CASHAPP10 when you sign up. And don't forget this part. Send at least$5 to a friend in the first two weeks. Terms apply. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner. Bitcoin services provided by Block Incorporated Brand. For additional information, see the Bitcoin disclosures at cash.app.legal.podcast.

27:27Hala Taha:Yap gang, do you want to look and feel your best this summer? And I don't just mean looking good on the outside. I mean feeling amazing from the inside all the way down to your cells. Yep, your cells. If you do, I'm going to put you on to a reset that I've been absolutely obsessed with. It's Prolon's five-day fasting mimicking diet. Prolon is a plant-based nutrition program with soups, snacks, and beverages that keep your body in a fasting state while still nourishing you. It is the only nutrition program clinically proven to trigger autophagy, your body's natural cellular cleanup mechanism. And autophagy can support longevity and it can even reverse your biological age.

28:06Hala Taha:For the last couple of years, I've known about it, but I was always scared to actually do a fast because I work out a lot. I didn't want to lose muscle. And honestly, not eating for days sounds way too hard. But then with my birthday coming up, I wanted a Risa. I wanted to lose like five pounds. I wanted more energy and to look my best. And that's how I came across Prolon. And everything comes prepackaged, labeled day by day. There's no prep, no planning, no guessing. And I loved it so much that now I'm planning to do it three times a year. With Prolon, I'll be young and profiting forever because with three resets, you can actually reverse your age by 2.5 years, which is just insane.

28:43Hala Taha:That means every year I'll basically be getting younger. If you're ready for your own reset for a limited time, Prolon is offering young and profiting listeners 15 % off site-wide plus a$40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their five-day program. Just visit prolonlife.com slash profiting. That's P-R-O-L-O-N-L-I-F.com slash profiting. Prolonlife.com slash profiting. To claim your 15 % off discount and your bonus gift. Prolonlife.com slash profiting. So sticking on this point of mindset, I'd love to talk about this concept of dirty old shame. I know that you had to get over some internal traumas.

29:23Hala Taha:From my understanding, when you were growing up, you know, you weren't always this sporty. You were sort of the last kid picked on the team at school. And you mentioned in your book that part of you kind of overcoming and taking on this challenge was you getting over these past traumas. So talk to us about that and how we need to do that as well. This is another reason peak performance aging sort of starts young. First, we start with the good news. One of the reasons old dogs can learn new tricks that we haven't talked about yet is as we enter our 50s, it's really in our late 40s. there are a bunch of really profound changes in how the brain processes information.

30:01One, certain genes only turn on with experience. They'll only flip these switches later in life. Two, in our 50s, the two hemispheres of the brain, which essentially function in opposition to each other along the way, they start working together like never before. And finally, the brain starts to recruit underutilized resources in our 50s. So as a result, we gain access to whole new levels of intelligence, creativity, empathy, and wisdom. And it's, I go on and on and on about those benefits. There's a lot that comes with that, but these are not guaranteed. So psychologists talk about moderators, the technical term, it's an if then condition.

30:40You get this only if you do this, right? And if you want the access to these cognitive superpowers in our fifties, and And we'll come back to it. But from a profit perspective, we really want to talk about those superpowers in a second. But let me finish this point. There are a number of gateways of adult development that you have to pass through. So by the age, age 30, you sort of, you really just want to enjoy and kick ass beyond 30. You have to have solved the crisis of identity, which sort of shows up around age 12. if you haven't solved it by 30 you have a problem the reason is by 40 you have you need match fit match fit is an economics term means there's a tight link between who i am and what i do in the world right if you just if you don't know who you are you can't get match fit um because there's no if you don't know your strengths your values all that stuff so that has to be by 30 by 40 we need to be we have enough match fit and then by 50 we need forgiveness we got to forgive ourselves for like past embarrassments and past shames.

31:48And we've got to figure those who have done us harm. And as you pointed out, I spent most of my childhood losing fights to jocks. I was a punk rocker. The jocks didn't like us. I didn't like them. And this was back in, you know, in the 70s and 80s. And like, you got to understand, like cars of football players would pull up on the side of the road and they'd see a guy with a mohawk and they'd jump out to beat you up. And it was like five against one always. And, you know, it was not a great situation. So I had a lot of anger and I knew peak performance aging. You've got to put that shit down. You cannot thrive in your 50s.

32:25You don't get these superpowers, which is why old dogs can learn new tricks better than young dogs. It's why one of the reasons I learned park skiing so fast is I have more intelligence. I've got more creativity. I've got the stuff I need. And they've got even more wisdom, which means I can keep myself safer than when I was making better decisions along the way. That stuff is great, but I don't get it if I can't forgive those who have done me wrong. So the standard best way to do that, and there's tons of research, is love and kindness meditation and passion meditation. It's an incredibly potent tool.

32:59It's amazing for a ton of different stuff. It's been studied for probably longer than any other meditation style. and we understand all the neuroscience. But when it came to people who I got in fistfights with and worse for 10 years, it wasn't enough. I could like all the loving guidance meditation of the world. Like I could forgive a lot of stuff and clean out a lot. I was left with like, it just like wasn't going away. So I decided one of the reasons I took on an incredibly difficult physical jockey challenge is, okay, I'm going to go like, this is my problem. let's go walk a mile in their moccasins right let's take this on and and it turns out it worked by the way i didn't think it was gonna work i just knew i needed to do this to thrive and i was like well i'm out of any other ideas loving kindness meditation which is what everybody right is not getting it done and um there's still anger there there's still resentment there there's still there's still stuff there so let me see if taking on you know this kind of putting myself on a physical mission could clear that out.

34:07And it, and it did. And, uh, you know, the story is sort of in the end of the book and I won't, I won't sort of ruin it as spoiler alert, right. I'd be giving away sort of that, that one, and I'm not going to, but that was what it was. Um, it was one of the neater things that happened along the way as I got to put down like a bunch of sort of shame and embarrassment and like stuff that I, you know, I've carried since I was probably 10 or 12, definitely 12.

34:32Hala Taha:That's amazing. Do you feel like much lighter now and that you just can approach things differently? Like how did that impact you getting over that trauma like that after so many years of having the same issue? I don't know if it felt, I always say this is one of the myths that I think a lot of people have about their life is that people think it's going to get easier. Like you think, oh, I'm going to get older. I'm going to get better at this. I'm going to be able to sort of like, oh, I know exactly what I like and I can manicure my life. And it just doesn't get easier. It just doesn't. What it gets is more meaningful and more in like life satisfaction, overall well-being.

35:20And that's what this really impacted. Somehow, like it made life more meaningful, like in those ways. Like, I don't know, I, do I feel lighter perhaps? Um, but what it, it just, it just sort of, it closed that loop. You know what I mean? Like, okay, done check. I don't have to like, I don't have to worry about that anymore. And literally what it really does is when certain memories just like pop into my head, now they just last a half second. And I'm like, oh yeah, there's that thing. And it goes away. Whereas before, no, I could start to think on it and dwell on it. and then I'd have a problem.

35:59Hala Taha:So I want to talk about our brain biology. Have you ever heard of Arthur Brooks? I think so. Arthur Brooks? Okay. He's somebody that I think you should definitely look into. So I had Arthur Brooks on the podcast in 2021, sorry, 2022. And he was like one of my favorite interviews. And he wrote this book called Cracking the Code to Happiness. He's a Harvard professor, social scientist. And basically he talks about how your brain biologically is different before 40 and after 40. And he talks about fluid intelligence versus crystallized intelligence. And so this was like a big conversation that we had on the podcast and something that made us think a lot.

36:39Hala Taha:I had a lot of feedback from my listeners. And I feel like what you say is pretty different from what he says. There are some similarities. But basically what he's saying is that you have a biological clock ticking, your ability to reason, think flexibly, learn new things, problem solve, be innovative. That starts to decline in your 40s and 50s. And that doesn't mean that your brain starts to go bad. You just start to have crystallized intelligence or you accumulate knowledge, facts, skills, and you can use that throughout your career as a way to teach other people. And essentially what he's saying is like, you've got to like be ready for the second half of your career and not miss that and be like trying to chase your younger self and your younger brain, essentially.

37:19Hala Taha:So for example, the professional athlete becomes the coach, the star litigator becomes a partner, the singer becomes an A &R exec, and you're basically teaching younger people your knowledge and taking on that second wave of your career. So I know that was a handful, but I just wanted you to understand. No, no, it's great. So he is right, he is right, and he is wrong, as far as I could tell. where he's really right is passing along knowledge is absolutely key to peak performance aging. It's key to like, so in fact, the societies where people age the best, two things are very true. One, they don't have negative stereotypes towards aging.

38:05So ageism is the most common and socially accepted stereotype in the world. It's the only stereotype in the world. I go out in the public these days with any stereotype, somebody's going to punch me in the mouth and cancel me, except for ageism. Ageism, you can, like, people are like, oh, you're too old to do that shit. Like, we geezer each other right in the, and it's crazy. Becca Levy at Yale has done tons of work on ageism and the stereotype of aging, and it's incredibly detrimental. In fact, I would, you could go so far as literally we are killing older adults with how we talk about them. So that is really, really clear.

38:47Societies where there's no ageism, there's also cross-generational friendships. So the old are passed along knowledge, the young, this is really, this is a natural part of brain development. So he is not wrong. We do shift from fluid intelligence into crystallized intelligence. That transition does happen. But, but, but, but, but a bunch of the skills that we thought declined over time, like the fluid intelligence skills that we thought went away. No, it turns out that's not true at all. We get actually new levels of intelligence and creativity in our 50s, right? So that's not actually true. There's certain things.

39:22The article I like best, Martin Seligman from Penn and Scott Barry Kaufman wrote a great article on creativity over time, where they talk about what goes away from creativity and what stays or comes on. And the list of like what comes on and stays is much longer than what goes away. Now there's stuff that does go away. So the question you've got to now ask is, is it permanent? Is this real? Or have we just not figured out how to train it? So let me give you an example. Adam Ghazali is a friend of mine. He's on my board. We do a lot of research together. He's at UCSF. And he had these neuroscientists seen on the cover of Nature a bunch of years ago for a video game he designed.

40:07It's the very first video game to be approved by the FDA. It treats cognitive decline in older adults. And what it specifically focuses on is task switching. So if you go back to fluid intelligence, one of the things that declines over time is task switching, our ability to focus on this and then focus on this, right? And that's a real problem. He's got a video game that will take your brain, If you're 60, you play it literally, I think it's three hours a week or three 20 minute sessions a week for six weeks is the standard doctor prescription for this video game. And it will reset your 60 year old brain back to 20.

40:43So there's a bunch of stuff like that where it's use it or lose it. We just have to figure out how do you train it up? The other side of it is, so let's talk about the other weird, one of the things he said, one of the reasons we, uh, our brain performance declines over time is, uh, white matter density decreases over time and we lose certain neurochemicals. So what he's not telling you is, well, you can replace those neurochemicals. In fact, SSRIs, which actually suck for depression turn out to be great for older adults, low level SSRIs because serotonin levels decline over time and SSRIs can boost them.

41:20If you don't want to take a drug, hike with a weight vest. Most of your serotonin is manufactured in your bones. And one of the reasons the brain has less is because you're making less in your bones. And if you increase bone density, you get the serotonin back and get a bunch of those neurochemicals back. So he's not wrong in what he's presenting. He's wrong. Like some of this stuff has changed since then. The general thinking is sort of true, but a lot of those skills are use it or lose it. And either we've already figured out how to fix them or this stuff is also progressing really, really, really quickly.

41:54That's the whole other side of this is regenerative medicine, longevity, science, all that stuff is moving at exponential rates. So, you know, for example, five years ago, we could not deal with most tendon, bone, and ligament problems. Like we are good at that stuff now. It's advanced really far. Now, if anybody's making you promises about stem cells that go like beyond bones, ligaments, and tendons, no, no, they're lying and they're exaggerating what's real right now. But up to that point, no, no, we've sort of got to dial. So technology is advancing and it's going to solve a lot of those issues, right?

42:37A lot of those issues are not what we thought they were in the week. And you can train a lot of that stuff in unusual ways. We're just figuring out. And some of the early ways, like all the brain games, those they're worthless, totally worthless. They train nothing other than the ability to play that game. That's not how this works. But learning a foreign language, learning to play a musical instrument, learning a challenging dynamic activity, like all that stuff. No, no, that's the real medicine. And that really actually does work. Yeah.

43:11Hala Taha:I mean, I love what you're saying because I remember leaving that conversation with Arthur Brooks, although it was really enlightening and he said a lot of smart things. I felt depressed. I was like, oh man, I got like, you know, less than 10 years to figure like to do all my innovative stuff. And it's good to know what you're saying that we are actually in control. Like, of course you can be passive and the inevitable will happen with your cognitive decline. But if we're proactive and kind of fight that natural tendency that's going to happen, plus with modern medicine, like you said, there's a lot that we can do to slow it down, reverse it.

43:43Hala Taha:So that's amazing.

43:47Hala Taha:Yeah, fam, in business, communication is part of the client experience. Think about it. When you need to buy something or book a service urgently and the first business doesn't answer, do you sit around and wait? Of course not. You call the next business on your list. And that's exactly what your potential clients and customers are doing when you miss their calls. And by the way, your voicemail is not a sales strategy. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the business communication system built so you can never miss a call. With Quo, your team can manage calls and texts from one shared business number, so every customer conversation lives in one place.

44:23Hala Taha:The full thread, voicemail, transcript, and contact details are all there for you, which means no more, wait, who talked to this client last? There'll be no more confusion. Your team is on the same page. And Quo's AI makes it even easier by logging calls, creating summaries, and flagging next steps automatically so your team can move fast without losing context. Because to your clients, fast, organized communication doesn't just feel convenient. It feels professional. Money is on the line. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free, plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash profiting.

44:55Hala Taha:That's Q-U-O dot com slash profiting. Quo dot com slash profiting.

45:04Hala Taha:What's up, young and profiters? when you start a business, nobody warns you that you're about to become the creator, the marketer, the finance team, the customer support team, and the person who's chat GBT-ing why checkout is not working. That's exactly why I always say start with Shopify. Shopify has been a real business partner for me as I've grown Yap Academy and launched products like my LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass. It powers millions of businesses worldwide and 10 % of all e-commerce in the US. Whether you're a household name or just getting started, Shopify has got you covered. Because let's be real, your business should not require 17 tabs, five logins, and a minor emotional breakdown just to sell a product.

45:44Hala Taha:Shopify lets you build your store, market your products, manage payments, track analytics, and handle shipping returns and inventory all in one place. Shopify does this all so you don't have to do it alone. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing. Sign up for your$1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash profiting. Go to shopify.com slash profiting. That's shopify.com slash profiting.

46:15Hala Taha:Yeah, fam, as my business keeps growing, I feel like I'm always hiring. I recently added two new video editors and a producer to my team. And I can tell you from experience, the right hire can give you leverage. The wrong hire gives you a second job. And that's the last thing you need. So when I need the right person, I go to Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Indeed Sponsored Jobs boost your job posts and search results so you can reach candidates who meet your specific criteria, like skills, certifications, location, and more. Because the goal is not more resumes. The goal is better matches. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes.

46:52Hala Taha:Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. So let's dig deep on these three types of thinking. You alluded to them at a high level that we get better at as we're 50 and beyond.

47:30Hala Taha:So you say it's relevistic thinking, non-dualistic thinking, and systematic thinking. Yeah. So short version, our ego quiets down and our perspective widens, right? So essentially, we learn to see things from multiple perspectives. We learn that there are very few black and white truths. And most things are gray. That's relativistic thinking and probabilistic thinking. Then the last category, we learn to see the forest through the trees. We get good, better at systems thinking and seeing the big picture. And because of these skills, this is where that extra intelligence, creativity, empathy and wisdom comes from and builds out of this intelligence.

48:14let's talk about for a second because the name of the podcast and so many so many people care here because we are there's a huge business opportunity here and nobody's paying attention to it so that little backstory when i wrote uh bold which is a book about like entrepreneurship and people like larry page and jeff bezos and elon musk and and how to really use exponential technology and some human capability flow science stuff to really level up organizations. I spent so much years talking to CEOs. And a lot of the time in a lot of those discussions, we would talk about hiring. Who are the ideal employees?

48:54How do you find them? What do you need for the 21st century? And over and over again, thousands of times, I heard the same two things from CEOs, which was I need employees who are really intelligent and really creative and really innovative because the rate of change is really fast and I got to keep pace and stay ahead of it. Otherwise, I don't have a company. I don't have a business. I can't do any of that. The other thing I need is I need employees who are empathetic and wise because if I don't have psychological safety, nobody can do their job. If I don't have psychological safety, I don't have great team performance.

49:29Without team performance, you can't be a company. You can't do those things without empathy and wisdom. Most importantly, the mantra of 21st century business, and maybe we thank Jeff Bezos for this, but it's always been, it's customer-centric thinking, right? And if you're not empathetic or you're not wise, nobody's thinking like a customer, right? At all, at all. So it turns out a well-trained 50-year-old and well-trained is key, right? There's a whole bunch, we have like, you want those gateways of adult development, And then I've turned about these. It should be a hiring checklist. And in your 50s, you want access to these superpowers.

50:07You need to engage in creative activities that sort of unlocks these new thinking styles. That's another reason why challenging creative and social activities matter. And you need to fight off risk aversion and train down physical fragility. Because if your body is rotting, what good is all this new mental skills? You can't use it. And risk aversion, which increases over time, this is why challenging activities matter so much. Risk aversion increases over time. It has a lot to do with like literally a white banner volume in the brain. We have to train back because the more risk averse you are, the more afraid you are, the more norepinephrine you're producing.

50:44That will block creativity. It blocks empathy and it blocks wisdom. So like you have to train back risk aversion to really flower in your 50s, 60s and 70s. But if you get it right and you've got all that stuff, these are dream employees. This is a business revolution waiting to happen. The very people that are getting forced out of companies. No, no, no, no. They're the very people we need in our companies most overall. And in fact, you know, this is not my line. I think it's Daniel Levitin might have said it is the first person I heard say it this bluntly. But Daniel Levitin is a neuroscientist who wrote, just wrote a book called Successful Aging, where if you want.

51:27In my book, my book, sort of a fun adventure story, the sciences and the footnotes and sort of at the end, if you really want every itch of the science, you can either take my peak performance aging training or you can read Successful Aging. And like he goes through all of it. We came to all the same conclusions, though. I think I took my conclusions farther because I ran a bunch of weird ass experiments along the way. But he said flat out, he's like, the best advice I can give you on retirement is don't retire. Don't ever retire if you want. If you're interested in peak performance aging, retirement is a bad idea.

52:01Reinvention, maybe, right? Maybe I don't want to do the same thing I've been doing my whole life and I want to do something new. Great. Fantastic. Retirement, death sentence.

52:11Hala Taha:Yeah. So I have a couple follow-ups to this. A lot of my listeners are young entrepreneurs, business owners. So if we're going to take your advice, give older people a chance when it comes to hiring. I mean, I know there's a big ageism issue, especially in the tech world. I used to work at Disney Streaming Services. Like you were old over 40, you know, and like people looked at you sideways, you know, and didn't trust you to do your job, essentially, if you were older than 40, 45. So if you were to interview somebody in their 50s, what questions would you ask them to make sure that they've been training their brain?

52:43So I would ask one question, how physically active you are, right? If you're not dealing with somebody who has been regularly exercising for a while and hitting all five dynamic categories, you don't want to go near them. The number one correlate with health and longevity over time is leg strength, believe it or not.

53:04Hala Taha:I know, I was going to ask that. It's wild. That's one of my favorite facts. Yeah, it's wild. And we can talk about why and whatever. And I don't think you can ask incoming employees, hey, what do you squat? Maybe you can. But it actually like if we're going to ask, put politicians in office in their 80s, those questions become really freaking relevant. Like that's the those are things you really want to know. Are you engaging in challenging creative social activity? Like are you that those things become a checklist? Right. For folks over 50 identity, match fit, self-forgiveness, forgiveness of others.

53:39You don't get access to the cognitive superpowers without those things. So those are the kinds of questions you want to poke at to make sure, you know, are being checked off. Right. Those those those sorts of things. Are you engaging in, you know, challenging creative social activities that demand dynamic, deliberate play and take place in novel outdoor like that? Those things not they become a checklist and they become if you want to work here and you're over this age, you got to do this because we need you. but we need this version of you. And the most important thing is, um, I look for older adults with much younger friends.

54:19I want to see those cross generational friendships. Um, because older adults over 40, 50, one of the reasons they're not to be trusted is because they don't get the job because they're just too out of touch. Right. And things have changed. and you know, there's, there's a lot of stuff that changes and stays the same. Right. And you sort of want the older adults around for that reason, but you also, you know, being old is not an excuse for not keeping up. Right. Either. Like what I'm telling you is you've got access to more brain power. So like, you know, it's, it's, it's really not an excuse as far as I'm concerned.

55:00So I think it's gotta be mutual. And I think the benefits are going to be amazing if it can be mutual.

55:06Hala Taha:Yeah. I want to get into authentic learning and how older people can learn new skills, but let's go on the tangent of why we should never skip leg day. It turns out that both preserving physical abilities and cognitive function, leg strength is the single largest factor. Now, cognitive function is weird. Some of it has to do with bone density. Again, we're back to the bones and big bones in your legs. And if they're dense, they're not losing their minerals, their nutrients. They can feed the brain. The second part is that if you're not mobile, you don't have a social life. It's a lot harder to have a social life.

55:47If you don't have a social life, you are not going to age successfully. And in fact, if you don't have a social life, peak performance, you just sort of lock out to peak performance because you social support for a lot of different psychological safety reasons and just performance reasons it's really important to have social support and part of that like you can get really great social support on the telephone on zoom we all learned that during covid but there is something to be said for in-person oxytocin right i always tell people if you if for whatever reason you're like stuck with the phone and and uh um zoom make sure you pet a dog for at least eight minutes a day, a dog or a cat.

56:27Petting an animal for about five to eight minutes also releases oxytocin and some of those other pro-social chemicals. So like if you're stuck on, like if we need social support for performance, we definitely need for peak performance aging, right? Animals are our friends here.

56:42Hala Taha:Yeah. So I love that. I feel like you're giving us so much great tips in terms of how we can age gracefully and, you know, be impactful at an older age and still innovative and creative. So this is such a meaningful episode to me because honestly, we don't talk about this enough on the podcast. So we do need to learn as we're older. Obviously it's possible. You learned how to park ski at 53. So let's talk about how we can learn and embrace authentic learning. So let's back up one step and talk about learning like where you started. I just want to start where you started, which is, so if you want to stave off Alzheimer's, dementia, cognitive decline, right?

57:26Fluid intelligence, what matters? Lifelong learning. Why is that? Expertise and wisdom are the two most important things we can do to develop what's known as cognitive reserve. So if you have a high cognitive reserve, you could even have advanced Alzheimer's. I mean, you die, they autopsy your brain. You've got tangles and plaques everywhere. and it just looks like your brain's mush and you're still nobody would notice if you're alive this was so some of the early research that happened they started autopsying brains and being like whoa this person had advanced alzheimer's how the hell did they function so well up till age 100 right what is it it's expertise in learning and or to expertise in wisdom actually which are two different things but important thing here is they're big broad networks and they're in the prefrontal cortex.

58:12The prefrontal cortex is where it's most vulnerable to cognitive decline. It's the newest brain structure from an evolutionary perspective, and it's the most vulnerable. You don't suffer cognitive decline like deep in your brainstem, right? It's impervious, but the prefrontal cortex is where it shows up. Expertise and wisdom live in the prefrontal cortex and there's these diverse networks, lots of redundancy, lots of backup.

58:39So So that's where you have to start with lifelong learning. And you want to do everything you can to maximize learning for that very reason. So what do we know about learning? One of the best ways to maximize learning is authentic learning. This is a big movement in education right now. And it's based on a whole bunch of different stuff. But let me just talk about one thing. Attention. You can't learn anything, obviously, without focus or attention, right? Like paying attention is the gateway for learning. Attention is a coupled system. It's linked to autonomy. And autonomy means we like driving the bus.

59:19We like being in charge of our own lives, right? We can't pay maximum attention to something if it's not sort of by choice. Authentic learning means we learn based basically exactly on who we are. So it got a bad name early on because people started talking about learning styles. Are you a visual learner and auditory learner? And that's absolute nonsense. Like that's actually not true. No, we're all those things. It depends on what we're learning. Right. And and how we're wired. And it changes over time. And that's not actually. But what is true is everybody shows up somewhere on the introversion, extroversion scale.

59:53Right. Introverts need to learn in private. Extroverts want to learn in public. we're somewhere on the risk aversion scale, right? Like we have all have, I'm this fearful, I'm right. And you can only be pushed so far. And like, so those authentic learning is about like those kinds of questions, the questions that really matter. And so, you know, one of the most important things for me is I'm an introvert. I don't mind being bad at stuff, but I don't like being bad in public. So we, and most terrain parks are actually under chairlifts and very, very visible so i would take these park tricks into the side country in the back country in the woods and i'd learn them out of sight with my friends and then i could go back like and try to do it the other way was impossible for me i don't don't work that way um and you can keep there's a lot more to authentic learning but the big point here is also taking on these kind of nar style challenges late in life um like learning how to park ski or whatever it's phenomenal for peak performance aging, but you need a lot of motivation.

1:00:57And it turns out we have like, we are driven towards authenticity. Carl Rogers argued that it functions as a fundamental drive and a fundamental drive meaning it's got as much power as our drive for sex or food or, you know, shelter. You have a drive to be yourself, your authentic self. And if you get it right, you get a huge boost in motivation, which is crucial for all this stuff. So you learn better on the back end and you're more motivated to learn on the front end. And being that there's a lot to do in peak performance aging and it can be challenging, you want all the help you can get. Right?

1:01:38In Art and Impossible, I talk about one of the things peak performers are really good at is they never meet a challenge on a single field source. We know this food-wise, right? Like you want carbs, protein, and fats before you're going into workout, right? Same thing with motivation. You want authenticity. You want autonomy. You want passion, purpose, all these big intrinsic motivators, curiosity. You want to stack them on top of each other because it maximizes our motivation.

1:02:08Hala Taha:I love that. So to wrap up this part of the interview, I'd love for you to just sort of summarize what skills generally do you think older people are better at than younger people? And older people, I guess, who have trained their brain properly. Well, any anything that requires seeing things from other people's perspectives and multi-perspectival thinking, you're just better at. It's harder to do when you're younger because of how the ego functions and how the brain functions. You're just better at it when you're older. A lot of people you can you can meditate a lot to sort of lower cognitive bias and do those things.

1:02:45But it's going to start to happen naturally when you're older. So that's that's really important. I, um, to me, the big one, the cool one is the systems thinking part. Cause like, you know, one of the commonalities among all the biggest brains I've ever met, all the real, the people really can affect change in the world. Um, they're all systems thinkers and it's really hard to train to people how to be systems thinkers. It's a tough skill to bring on. Certain careers force you to learn it in different ways. Writing, especially if you write books, because you have to hold 400 pages in your head and move it around and be able to do stuff like that.

1:03:34You have to be able to hold the big picture. It's sort of built into the job and it's trained up over time, but it's not trained up in a lot of jobs. Mostly we specialize, right? Especially in the modern world, we specialize, we specialize, we specialize. One of the things that I want to point out here is, and anybody who's ever worked in entrepreneurship, innovation, like, you know, all the big innovations are in the cracks between disciplines, right? They're not in the specialized. It's very hard to innovate inside that same funnel that everybody's been in for 50 years, but you move adjacent to where that funnel touches something, right?

1:04:09And suddenly there's a revolution waiting to happen. And that's how you build companies and world changing companies, everything else. You can't see that shit if you're not a systems thinker. It's completely invisible to you. And that, so the thing that I think is the most exciting over is that.

1:04:28Hala Taha:Yeah, that was really inspiring to me. I'm actually writing a book with Penguin Random House coming out in 2025. And that little bit of information was really inspiring. I'm going to include it in my book and credit you. So, okay. So, Steven, I want to wrap up this interview talking about your research about the Blue Zones, these long-lived communities around the world. You alluded to some of it, but I'd love for you to sort of dive deeper on what you found in terms of why these people were more and happier. Yeah, I got it. So, let me back this story up a little bit to tell you a story that's not in the book.

1:05:01Hala Taha:Yeah. That is where this actually starts. Sure. People may know this or not know this. For almost the past two decades, my wife and I run a hospice care dog sanctuary. So for two decades, we've done hospice work with dogs. we have a healing methodology that's based on it's very low tech it's flows it's like lifestyle interventions in a sense some flow science evolutionary psychology nothing really fancy our dogs all get checked out by vets when they come to us before they come to us they come from shelters but we i mean we specialize in the worst of the worst so if you are a geriatric chihuahua with an abusive past, three legs, one eye, cancer, heart disease, mange, and flatulence, you're our guy.

1:05:51That's who we work with. And the vets would be like, we'd get these dogs and be like, don't get attached. This dog is going to live a month, month and a half at most. This is about a provider of very good death. And we'd bring the dogs in. and mind you we've over 700 dogs have passed through our facility and over 5 000 are our program so big sample size and on average our dogs wouldn't live another month or six weeks they would live another three four five years and you translate into that human numbers that's right you get seven years for every year so like the top end of that you're getting an extra like 28 years 30, like what the fuck is going on?

1:06:36Pardon my language. And so I started to ask questions like, what's going on? Why is this working? What are we doing? And will it work in humans? Like, would any of this stuff work in humans? Right. And it turns out almost everything I were doing with the dogs exists in these so-called blue zones, which is what led me to the blue zones in the early 2000s noticed that there were places on the planet where people lived on average 12 years longer than everybody else. And they're all over the place. And he wanted to know, well, what are the commonalities? And he did a whole bunch of research. The research is a little controversial.

1:07:22The controversy is not on the lifestyle stuff. It's on the, there's some stuff that has been turned into supplements and it's dietary. And those are the open, and those questions are open. There's no argument on sort of the lifestyle stuff with the blue zones. And the commonalities are really like move around a lot. Regular exercise, right? De-stress regularly. So have rituals, meditation, exercise, gratitude practices, breathing work, whatever it is, walking in nature. I don't like have rituals to de-stress regularly. A ton of stuff on social belonging and connection. This is why challenging social activities matter so much.

1:07:58This is built into blue zones. There's also this respect for the elders and these cross-generational friendships. They're built into blue zones. There's some evolution. I mean, they eat healthy, they eat less than most people and they eat very, very healthy diets, but like there's no one diet across the boards that like works for everybody. Um, and, but those are sort of the commonalities and they live with passion, purpose, and regular access to flow. Um, these were all things that we We were providing for our dogs in very like, for example, they get social belonging and connection. They really emphasize it.

1:08:34You're in the blue zones. Some of them, people spend six hours a day hanging out with friends or family. So a lot of it with our dogs, we had enforced petting time. So when you have a lot of dogs, like, you know, we, we had various times and we've had 40, 50 dogs. It's hard to individual petting time. You have to like, oh, I got to hang out with this dog, but we would do it because we wanted of these neurochemicals underneath that same thing with flow we'd find ways to put our dogs into flow flow is really important to peak performance aging for a lot of different reasons but the state is it's just a really positive powerful emotional state and some of the emotions that show up in flow stimulate the production of t-cells and natural killer cells so t-cells fight diseases and natural killer cells fight tumors and sick cells and other the diseases of aging so So when we get into flow, it lowers inflammation, which is tied to all the causes of aging.

1:09:31It peruses T cells, natural killer cells, a lot of benefits, and it boosts the immune system. So this was the stuff we were doing in our dogs. This is stuff that's going on in the blue zone. This is stuff we now widely know correlates to healthy longevity. This isn't really peak performance aging. It's sort of successful aging, healthy aging, right? At this point, it's like it should be common sense for everybody really is really what it should be. But one of the things that's interesting is you also see a high. A lot of the places where there are blue zones, you see a lot of action sport and outdoor athletes do.

1:10:08Summit, Colorado, Pitkin County, Colorado, Eagle County, Colorado and Loma Linda, California are the four places in America where people. These are the blue zones. summit pitkin and eagle this is colorado that's vale aspen beaver creek um all the big ski areas a lot of outdoor stuff um and in loma linda that's a seventh day advantage population and they're very very social very flowy good dietary stuff um a lot of belonging a lot of so like it's the same stuff um and a lot of outdoor activities surfing and and because it's california on the ocean, right? And they take advantage of that stuff too.

1:10:48Hala Taha:Yeah. So I'd love to get a couple examples here. First of all, what are examples of getting into flow aside from sports as an adult? That's number one. And then number two, like what are some examples of creative social activities as an adult? The most common flow state on earth is reading or interpersonal flow. Interpersonal flow is like the group flow. You and your best friend get into a great conversation and a whole hour goes by and you don't notice it's gone. That's interpersonal flow happens all the time. So one of the reasons you want to engage in challenging creative and social activities, they all trigger flow.

1:11:22So singing in a choir, very, very flowy group flow. Lots of research on that gardening, very flowy, long walks in nature, you know, nature, very, very flowy coding, architecture, drawing, drumming, dancing, you know, on and on and on. I mean, there's a ton of flow at work. In fact, flow is much more common at work than it is during leisure for a bunch of different reasons. But, you know, the list sort of goes on and on and on. And flow is really, if we want to enjoy the second half, if we want to enjoy our lives in general, but if we really want to thrive during our second half of our lives, you can't do it without flow.

1:12:02Flow is actually the engine of adult development. It's one of the, it's how we grow up. We grow up by getting into flow states, coming out the other side is more complex, more skillful, more adaptive, more empathetic, wiser. And so, and we move forward, like, so it plays a big role in adult development and successful in peak performance aging.

1:12:22Hala Taha:So Steven, I end the show with a couple of questions that I ask all my guests, and then we do some fun things at the end of the year. The first one is, what is one actionable thing that our young and profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? You can double down on your primary flow activity, which is whatever the thing you've done most of your life that just drops you into flow. For me, it's skiing, right? For my wife, it's long walks with dogs. My best friend is playing guitar. Whatever that thing that most likely drops you into flow. Flow massively amplifies, among other things, motivation, productivity, and creativity.

1:12:58And here's the cool thing. Even though a flow state lasts about 90 minutes sometimes they can stretch out for longer the heightened productivity and creativity will outlast the flow state by a day maybe two flow also resets the nervous system it calms you down flushes stress hormones out of your system so um it emotional regulation emotional management fear blocks performance on every level flow resets the nervous system. So really, and the thing is, it's most people, and especially all the people listening to this podcast are going to be like you, you got to your thirties and you stop skiing, you put down childish thing, right?

1:13:37Skis go away. The surfboard goes away. The skateboard goes away. You stop samba dancing and salsa dancing and all that stuff. And the research shows that's a disaster. It's a disaster. In fact, when we, uh, we, we work with tons of people all over the world and burnout is a real big issue. The first thing we do to treat burnout is have them double down on the primary flow activity. Research shows that if you want peak performance, you need to have like about three to four hours a week on your primary flow activity just to keep your nervous system where it needs to be.

1:14:08Hala Taha:Yeah, I'd love for you to tell everybody about the Flow Research Collective and all the trainings you guys have available. Flow Research Collective is my organization. We're a research and training organization. On the research side, I studied the neurobiology peak human performance, what's going on in the brain and the body when we're performing at our best. We did this work with scientists all over the world at Stanford and Imperial College London and UCSC and UCLA and UC Davis and USCSF and a whole bunch of other academics. And we take the science and we use it to train people. We train people in 130 countries and we train everybody from like professional athletes and members of the special forces to, you know, soccer moms.

1:14:49and insurance brokers and, you know, teachers and folks in the Air Force. And we work with a lot of companies in between. So I think now we're training Facebook or Meta, Accenture, Bain Capital, Audi, San Francisco Police Department, the Air Force, you know, wise watch people. And our trainings are for everybody. And if you're interested, if you go to getmoreflow.com, cheesiest URL in the world, but nobody was remembering any of the others. So I've given in and it's now getmoreflow.com, despite the fact that I'm embarrassed to say it out loud. But you can go there and sign up for a free hour-long coaching call with somebody on my staff.

1:15:28So you'll hear all about the trainings. You'll learn everything. Is it right for you? Is it wrong for you? Nobody on my staff gets every, I'll fire somebody if they try to sell you anything. It's just an informational conversation. So it's really mellow and most people get a lot out of it. And it's free, getmoreflow.com.

1:15:45Hala Taha:Amazing. I'll stick that link in the show notes to make it super easy for you guys. Okay. Last question of the episode. And this is where you can feel free to add something that we didn't get to talk about or just something that's on the top of your mind. Doesn't have to do with the topic of the episode. It's up to you. What is your secret to profiting in life?

1:16:06It's just hard work. You know what I mean? I just always go out of my way to figure out what, like, I'll give you an example. I came up as a journalist and I figured out very early on that most journalists hated rewriting. They'd write their story. They'd edit it. They'd turn it in. The editor would make changes and they'd rewrite it once and turn it back in. I found that out. I was like, okay, you guys are doing it three times. Clearly my job is to make my editor's job easier, right? Like my job editor has to like really comb through my articles and takes months. He hates me. That's not, I'm not being a, you know, I'm not a good employee.

1:16:42So I started editing my stories 12 times. I just figured out, I'd figure out what everybody else would do. And I'd triple it or quadruple it for really, I did that for years. So, I mean, it wasn't much of a secret. I just figured I wasn't as smart, as well connected, as handsome and all the other things as everybody else. But I just figured out how to work them. I mean, I, I, a lot of it is about smart, hard work, not just hard work, smart, hard, there's, there's better ways to do it. I talk a lot about that in our country about the advantages of smart, hard work and smart, hard play. Um, uh, and the difficulties with just hard work is the only tool you reach for, but really like there's no secret.

1:17:21I just put my butt in the chair and I did the work.

1:17:24Hala Taha:I love that answer. Thank you for sharing that. Where can everybody learn about you? Where can they get in our country and, uh, how can they find more about you, Stephen? Gnar Country. You can go to GnarCountry.com or Amazon or wherever books are sold. StephenCottler.com gets you to me. FlowResearchCollective.com gets you to the Flow Research Collective. GetMoreFlow.com gets you to our trainings. And I think that's it. Amazing. Always such a great conversation with you, Stephen. Thank you so much for your time. My pleasure. It was great hanging out with you again.

1:17:58Hala Taha:Hey, App Fam. We're about to launch something that might be my favorite thing we've ever done on the podcast, a brand new series called How We Profit. Now, I've been doing Young and Profiting podcast for eight years, and my listeners are successful. We are real entrepreneurs with real businesses, and a lot of you guys are crushing it behind the scenes. You may not be super famous. You may not be a billionaire yet, but you've got a business that you've learned how to scale. and we want to hear from you. One of the best ways to learn as an entrepreneur is from your peers. And I found it super helpful to be in these peer entrepreneurship groups and learn from other entrepreneurs who are at my level, but just in a different industry.

1:18:38Hala Taha:So that's what I want to bring to this podcast. I want this to be our own peer group, but on the podcast. And so I'm going to be interviewing people who are making anywhere from 500 ,000 to$10 million a year. They're not super famous. They're not the typical billionaires that are on my show. These are real entrepreneurs who are crushing it behind the scenes, and we're going to uncover what they do to sell, how they get their customers, what their profit margin looks like, how they market, and so much more. If this sounds like you and you want to be featured on Young and Profiting Podcast for our How We Profit series, just head to youngandprofiting.com slash apply and share your story.

1:19:13Hala Taha:Let me know why you think you should be featured on the show. Again, that's youngandprofiting.com slash apply. And who knows, maybe you'll be our next guest on Young and Profiting Podcast. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com.