We’re all going to live a lot longer, and that changes everything with Dr Andrew J. Scott
We’re all going to live a lot longer, and that changes everything with Dr Andrew J. Scott
“We have an opportunity to improve our lives significantly, simply by recognising that longevity is not about older people, it’s about how we adapt to living longer lives.”
This week on Prime Time, we have much to be excited about. Firstly, I had the privilege of interviewing one of the foremost global authorities on longevity, Dr. Andrew J. Scott. This was a personal highlight for me, as I've followed his research and writings for quite some time. I hope you find his insights into our evolving life expectancies and the changes we need to make because of them, as enlightening as I did.
Secondly, I'm thrilled to announce that today’s episode of Prime Time is brought to you by Aware Super! They’re joining us as a sponsor of the podcast! So keep a listen out for them.
Our life expectancies are growing, and it's likely we'll all live much longer. This means we need to make changes to the way we live long before we reach old age so we can enjoy a better quality of life.
This week, I had a chat with Dr. Andrew J. Scott, author of The 100-Year Life. He's just released a new book, The Longevity Imperative, which will be hitting Australian bookstores on April 23rd.
He is a professor of economics at London Business School and he has previously taught at both Oxford and Harvard Universities. And his perspective on longevity is simple, logical and sensible.
“We have an opportunity to improve our lives significantly, simply by recognising that longevity is not about older people, it’s about how we adapt to living longer lives,” he said.
I really enjoyed this conversation, weaving our way through all the impacts of longer lives, and hearing his very esteemed opinions on what we should do to make the most of them.
Listen now
LISTEN HERE - LATEST EDITION (E20)
Visit the show on APPLE PODCASTS
Here’s some highlights:
Longevity has become a buzzword - the Blue Zones, billionaires hunting for the way to turn back the clock and science looking at ways to slow or even reverse ageing. But some of this misses the point of how longevity will really impact us all.
We now have longer lives, more time and we need to change what we do as a consequence. We need to adapt to having longer lives.
One of the big mistakes is to think that longevity is about older people. Longevity is about young people becoming old.
What is the secret to a better quality of life in the second half? What can we do differently? Don’t follow existing patterns and behaviours is the only thing we do know.
Finances matter. But saving money won’t solve our longevity challenges directly. We really need to look at how we work longer to give ourselves greater financial security. And if we want to keep working we have to keep working on our skills - because having the ability to do some kind of work is important. We may also want to consider ‘living insurance’ in the future.
Health is critical. One of the problems of the 20th century is that we medicalised old age. The most underused person in the health system is the patient. In a world of prevention, you need to take a greater responsibility for your own health. What’s really changes is the incentive to look after our health. The incentive is the reality that 50% of us might live beyond 90 years of age, and we want to do it well.
Curiosity is so important. We’ve become increasingly hard wired to think of ageing in terms of decline, but everything doesn't decline. There’s a sense of becoming who you are that really grows with you. As life gets longer, we get to develop as adults for longer.
We need a lot of social innovation to create ways we can be engaged for longer and to feel we have a purpose. The biggest challenge we have is underestimating the capacity of older people. And worse than that, underestimating the capacity of our own older years and stopping ourselves before we reach our potential.
In the 20th century we retired and took our leisure after retirement. But in the 21st century, we are increasingly looking to take our leisure before retirement - which marks an exciting shift in mindset.
Ageism is a problem. But, there’s also a good story here - 80% of employment growth in the last 10 years, is in people over 50.
Longevity is as important as AI and climate change. We’ve got to adapt to longer lives. What’s the point of a longer life? The most interesting thing about ageing makes us focus on what matters and that’s relationships. You have to be in good relationships.
Realise that you need to make a friend of your future self. Start thinking about how you can help your future self, and how can they help you. Being more forward looking - preparing for the future because you have more future.
Dr Andrew Scott’s book, The Longevity Imperative is available now for pre-order here.