The Second Fifty: Empowering America’s Aging Population w/ Dr. Debra Whitman

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Speaker 1: There are few things that make people successful. Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some time to get there. How do you move forward to greet the success that awaits you? Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek. Each week, Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the next steps forward. Now here is Chris Meek. Hello.

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Speaker 2: You have to know this week's episode of Next Steps Forward, and I'm your host, Chris Meek. Our focus is on personal empowerment, a commitment to wellbeing, and the motivation to achieve more than you ever thought possible. As always, it's an honor to have you with us. Our guest this week is Dr. Deborah Whitman. As AARP's Chief Public Policy Officer, Dr. Whitman leads policy development, analysis, and research, as well as a global thought leadership to support and advance the interests of individuals 15 and older and their families, and unfortunately, that includes me. She also oversees AARP's Public Policy Institute, AARP's Research Office of Policy Development and Integration, Thought Leadership, and AARP International. Dr. Whitman is an authority on aging issues with extensive experience in national policymaking, domestic and international research, and the political process. An economist and former staff director for the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, she's a strategic thinker dedicated to solving problems affecting economic and health security and other issues related to population aging. Dr. Whitman holds master's and doctorate degrees in economics from my beloved alma mater, Syracuse University, and a bachelor's degree in economics, math, and yes, Italian from Gonzaga University. Dr. Deborah Whitman, welcome to Next Steps Forward.

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Speaker 3: Ciao, Chris.

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Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to have you here with us, and looking at all the jobs you have, I don't think I've met somebody with five degrees before, so I think you have one degree for each position at AARP. No, I know how busy your schedule is. It's great to have you here. Great to see you. You know, there's probably not a person in America who hasn't heard of AARP or seen one of its commercials on TV, but for people in our audience who are in other countries or are not familiar with AARP, would you describe what the organization is and what it does?

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Speaker 3: First of all, Chris, thanks for having me, and I'm really proud of the work that AARP does. So we are a membership organization that is nonpartisan, and it's one of the largest organizations in America. We represent people age 50 and over, but you can be any age if you want to join us. We work on things like Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, and we work to protect members from fraud and financial exploitation. We provide information and tools and resources, and we actually have a lot of veterans who are members of AARP, so we have a huge list of resources specifically tailored for veterans.

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Speaker 2: I was very impressed and also a little, I'll say, disappointed. You guys are very good at your marketing. You knew six months of the day when I was turning 50, and I got that first letter in the mail to get my 50 bucks a month, so your team is very good at that.

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Speaker 3: Veterans also get discounts, military members do.

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Speaker 2: Good sales blog, I appreciate that. AARP was originally named the American Association of Retired People and founded at a time when that generation of retired people had fewer resources. In many ways, today's Americans, 50 and older, are considered among the most financially secure and well-off people in the country. First, is that perception correct, and second, do they need an organization like AARP looking out for them, or has your organization's focus changed over time to reflect new financial realities?

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Speaker 3: We dropped the American Association for Retired Persons about 20 years ago, because not all people age 50 are retired yet, and so we just kept the AARP. It doesn't stand for anything anymore, except we fight for you. I think, yes, a lot of older people have resources, but because we have increasing life expectancy, we need more to live longer. Some people, in fact, about half of us when we retire have almost nothing saved for retirement, and so the programs that I was talking about that we fight for, like Social Security and Medicare, are extremely important as we age, and not everybody's rich when they retire. Many people have to work long into their retirement, and so we also provide tools and resources for older adults, and also try to fight against age discrimination so that people have jobs as they age.

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Speaker 2: You mentioned how people are living longer. We know that the COVID pandemic, well, we're assuming the COVID pandemic took a few years off of people's lives. That's what some of the research I saw was. Has AARP been involved in any research studies like that?

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Speaker 3: We have. If you look back at the 1900s, most people didn't even live until their second 50. Average life expectancy was around 49. Since then, we've gained 30 years of additional time, and most of it we've sort of tacked on to the end of our lives and not really thought through how we need to change our education systems or how we work with this extra longevity that we have. Even before the pandemic, though, pandemic, you're right, we saw life expectancy dropping dramatically. But even before that, US life expectancy as a whole was declining by a few months, and that's for a whole host of reasons, everything from the opioid epidemic to chronic diseases. One group of researchers called them deaths of despair, increase in suicides in midlife and other things. So that's a black eye on our whole country because other countries' life expectancies are still growing. Everybody took a hit during the pandemic, but there's a lot that we can do in order to make sure that everybody can live a long and healthy life.

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Speaker 2: Now one thing we don't talk about on the show is politics, and we're not going to get into that. And at a very high level, just I want to talk about social security for a minute if that's okay without talking left, right, anyway. We hear so many different things about social security. It's going broke in eight years, 10 years, it's already broke. There's nothing to worry about because Congress will always fund it. What's the truth about social security's long-term sustainability and what reforms does AARP support to ensure its solvency, not just for people about to retire, but also for future generations?

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Speaker 3: So social security works because the money coming in has to be plus the money that people have put in in the past has to be as least as amount as is going out. That's required by federal law. It's the only program that we have in the United States where you have to balance the budget by that program. And in 2034, the money going out will be more than the money coming in. And so between now and 2034, Congress really needs to act to make sure that not just people have enough to live on, which is important in retirement, but that future generations also have enough to live on. So there's lots of different ways we can do that. We can get into political discussions about what your favorite ways or my favorite ways. I think I've looked at every proposal that are out there, but the key is we need action. We need action by Congress and by the president in order to say social security is a priority that most of us will need. And we need to make sure that it's solvent and adequate for the future.

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Speaker 2: So 2034.

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Speaker 3: 2034. The year I turned 64, so I actually am personally invested in this.

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Speaker 2: And so when you and I need it, we're not sure what's going to happen.

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Speaker 3: I am pretty sure that because it's extremely popular and extremely important to so many people, you know, if nothing happens whatsoever, it's not that people get nothing from social security. They get less than they were promised. So benefits, even for people that are currently retired in 2035, would have to be cut by over 20 percent. Nobody wants to see that happen. So I believe in political reality faced with emergency will mean that this program is going to be around not just for you and I, but for my kids and grandkids. But we need to do something. Inaction is not going to work in this case.

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Speaker 2: So we should just encourage people to have more kids so they can pay into the system for us?

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Speaker 3: Birth rates do help, but it takes a while before your baby becomes old enough to pay in. Mine are still in college. So that's part of the problem, is that we have this huge baby boom that is retiring and living longer. And then we've also seen, you know, social security taxes are capped at a certain amount. And most of the wage growth has been in upper incomes, the part that isn't taxed by social security. So that's also driving the long term solvency of the problem.

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Speaker 2: A few months ago, you mentioned the phrase the second 50. Let's talk about your book for a minute. What inspired you to write your book titled The Second 50, which outlines challenges and solutions both personal and policy focused to support America's aging population? Is there a particular gap in advice for adults? What was the motivation there?

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Speaker 3: So a couple of things. I've been working on aging, as you said, here at AARP, at the Senate Aging Committee, Social Security Administration. So for 25 years, I've been looking at different parts of the aging process and policy. But I was about to turn 50 and suddenly it got real. And I looked at my bookshelf and I was like, I see what to expect when you're expecting. As I said, my kids were about to go to college, so I had lots of books about that transition. But there wasn't really a what to expect when you're aging book out there. And so I wrote the questions that I wanted to know, basic things like, will it be a second 50? How long will I live? Will I be healthy? Because that matters a lot in our life. I wanted to have practical things like, how long are we going to work or will we have enough money? And then I also wrote down some scary things like, will I lose my memory or how will I die? And those questions, things that I wanted to know for myself became the chapters of the book. And so I dug into the research, I interviewed experts, I surveyed U.S. populations so I knew what people thought about aging and that pulled together. And I'll just tell you, Chris, the best part about writing it was I learned so much. Even though I'd been working on these issues, there was so much that I didn't know or even a few things that I thought I knew that were wrong when the experts finally told me.

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Speaker 2: And who's the ideal reader for the second 50? Was it retirees, people who are about to retire?

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Speaker 3: I think that the best feedback I've gotten is actually from 40-year-olds who are both thinking, hadn't thought about this next phase of their lives at all, 40, 50, 60-year-olds, either hadn't thought about it or were searching for information for their parent or their loved one. The feedback I get from older adults, they're interested in different chapters, so you don't have to read it front from back. So I was talking to a senior center the other day and they were very interested in the will I lose my memory part and wanted to know how they could keep their brain health up as they age and what to look for, what were the signs of cognitive decline and dementia. They were less interested in how long will I work because many of them had already retired. So I think it's a book that can be read in different ways at different points in your life. And it's just been really fun for the last nine months or so to go around the country and to talk to people and hear what struck them. I'll give one story. I was doing a podcast a few weeks ago and the opening chapter opens with my husband having a major heart attack as a way of saying, we don't know how long. He was 46. He almost didn't make it to his second 50. And telling the story about him asking for help made the woman that I was interviewing, she said, I read your book. And then the other day I was feeling chest pains. And so I went to the hospital and got myself checked out. Luckily it was nothing. But sometimes there's a lot of issues in our latter life that we're afraid to talk about or just don't understand the mechanics of it. So I'm kind of trying to de-mystify and educate, including myself.

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Speaker 2: Well, I see the book on your bookshelf over your shoulder there, Annie right here, you're holding it up. Where can our listeners and viewers find a copy of that?

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Speaker 3: You can find it at your favorite bookstore, or if you go to aarp.org slash second 50, we have links to different bookstores that have it.

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Speaker 2: One more time. Where's the website?

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Speaker 3: aarp.org slash second 50. And I should say all the proceeds go to AARP Foundation to help lower income older adults as well.

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Speaker 2: Awesome. I love that. I don't know how much of it is driven by necessity and how much of it is 60 is the new 40, but more Americans are working past the traditional retirement age. What are the biggest factors driving that trend? Is it financial necessity, longer life expectancy, all the above, something else?

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Speaker 3: So we're seeing a huge increase in people working longer. In 1982, about one in nine workers were 55 and older. Now it's about one in four. So if you look, we have, for the first time in human history, up to five generations all working together, and people are working longer, I think, for two main reasons. The first is they love their jobs. I talk to a lot of people, I'm sure you're like this and I am, who love what they're doing that, you know, find purpose and meaning and passion from their work and they're healthy enough and so they work longer. The second group I worry a bit more about, and that is they're doing a job because they really need the money. And that's also, I think, a big push in the increase in the number of people who are working longer and they're doing it through gig jobs or they're, you know, working part-time. But it's hard. People think that they get to decide when they're going to stop working. And half of us will be pushed out of the workforce involuntarily in our 50s. So, you know, we do have to think about how we can help support people to work longer, either because they want to or need to. And we do have to think of how do we help the people that are pushed out by the workforce and still need to eat and still are able to contribute.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, you said half the people in their 50s?

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Speaker 3: Half of us in our 50s will, in the decade of our 50s, will lose our job involuntarily. And the worst part about that, Chris, is if we're one of those people just lose our jobs, only 10% of us will ever make what we did before. So there's this huge period in our 50s that nobody really thinks about or talks about where our careers may totally change.

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Speaker 2: Let's stick with that there for a minute because I think there's a theme here. Let's discuss the issue of ageism.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: How pervasive is ageism in society and specifically in the workplace today? I mean, you sound like it could be a thing.

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Speaker 3: I wish it wasn't. And it shouldn't be. In fact, I told you about the multi-generational workforce. If you employ people of diverse generations, your team is actually more productive than if you don't have diversity of age. So this mix of experience and maybe new ways of doing things is actually really, really good for business. But that said, over and over, we have surveyed people who have seen or experienced ageism in the workplace. The Supreme Court has made it harder to bring those cases. And so we are still trying to push for legal changes to help protect people. And then we're trying to change mindsets too by working with employers to see the value of a multi-generational workforce. And we need to do this because when economists have looked at the rate of HR response to resumes that are basically the same skill set, but just have a different age, the rate of response goes down significantly as the person's age goes up, and it's even worse for women, and it's even worse for people of color. And so as we think about increasing longevity, more people are going to need to work longer and more people have the talent and experience to do so. So we need to make sure that it's not employers' misperceptions of the value of older workers. We need to address that head on.

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Speaker 2: It's pretty ironic that the Supreme Court's making it difficult for these cases to come to them when they're guaranteed a job for life.

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Speaker 3: Well, and ageism costs our economy $850 billion a year. If we just let the people who wanted to work, work, we would have a much larger economy because we would have a bigger labor force.

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Speaker 2: And also there's the issue that say you look at when you're, I'm 54. You can't withdraw from your 401k without a penalty for 11 more years, so you're 65.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not an unemployment program. And many people do. They pay huge tax penalties and then they really have nothing later in life, so it's a huge problem.

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Speaker 2: A huge issue, unfortunately. So sticking with that, what are some of the biggest misconceptions that people, including employers, have about aging and older adults?

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Speaker 3: I think there's a misperception about people's cognitive abilities as they age, rates of dementia and those things don't really peak or even come to high levels until your 70s and 80s. And so people in their 50s and 60s and 70s, not to say that there isn't such a thing as early onset Alzheimer's, but it's rare, even though many employers try to say that that's a rationale. And in fact, the cognitive, some of the cognitive skills actually increase as we age. We know more words. We make fewer big mistakes because we've made them once years ago and we learned never to do that again. And just the sort of levels of experience and diversity of jobs that you've probably had over the course of your career all make you a better worker. There's lower turnover rates by older workers, so one of the things that we see is many older workers aren't offered more skills and training as they age that they are when they're younger. But you may have a 50 year old that'll stay with you for 15 years or 20 years, whereas a 20 year old may stay with you for 15 or 20 months. And so making investments across the age spectrum and experience spectrum is really, really important.

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Speaker 2: Well, you mentioned how older employees are not getting as much training as younger employees. Maybe as a follow up, are companies doing enough to support the older employees who want to continue working?

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Speaker 3: We're seeing more and more. So we've worked with over 100 companies through a project that we've called Living, Learning, Earning Longer. And those companies are trying to think through across your working life, what are some of the issues that the employer can help support, like caregiving, where you can be a mom when you're young. You can be a daughter later where you're taking care of your mom or your dad or your aunt or your uncle. And then, you know, even later in your life, maybe you're taking care of your spouse. And so, you know, thinking about how do we support family caregivers is a really important thing that employers need to do, I think, for all generations. Some companies have started employee resource groups that are either multi generational or experienced professionals or new professionals. We've seen a lot of innovation in this space. And then also, like I said, looking at the composition of teams and seeing how you can mix levels of experience and age and wisdom can also be something that employers really do. And then finally, you know, particularly if you have a commercial role, your customers are over age 50. People who are age 50 actually spend 56 cents of every dollar in the United States. And so you really want your employee base to match your customer base in order to design the types of products and services that they want. So we're seeing more and more advertisers use images of older people. We're seeing in positive images, not just sort of ageist negative ones where everybody is bent over and sad. But, you know, even in beauty products, we're seeing more age diverse models and many companies, I think, are really breaking through, seeing that this is a growth area for their customer base as well.

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Speaker 2: You know, I just say that I'm having a flashback here. So I had to go, unfortunately, down to Florida last month for a funeral and it was in the villages, which is a lot of different communities there. Went out to dinner that night and there's a gazebo, there's a band, there's a hot rod car show, and they were living their best life. And it was probably, you know, ages 55 and up. But it was great to see, to your point, they're not hunched over, they're not in canes, they're not saying, what was me? They're out there doing what they're supposed to do and spending that 56 cents of every dollar. So they don't just put us away when we're over 50. So I just want to share that with everybody, that there's life in that second half.

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Speaker 3: There's life in the second half. And some of the surveys that I did, Chris, for the book showed that we're actually happier as we age. We're least happy in the middle of our lives, in our 40s, and we're twice as happy in our 70s and 80s than we are in our 40s. So, you know, many people think aging is all bad. But, yes, there are some aches and pains and some other things to expect, but you're not pulled in multiple directions. And, you know, maybe you're living the life that you want to live and get to choose the things that you do. So I just wanted to point out that there's things to look forward to as we age.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's funny to say that. So our oldest daughter, she graduates from college next month. And so I brought that last tuition check back in January. So that's one positive thing that I look forward to there. Thank you. I'd like to go back to a few more financial questions. How much does delaying retirement improve financial security for older adults, or does it really make that much of a difference?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, working longer can be a really important strategy for your finances. If you delay retirement until age 70, delay retirement meaning taking your Social Security specifically, if you wait till 70, you actually, your benefits are 77 percent higher than if you were at 62. So each year, in fact, you wait to take your Social Security check. It goes up about 8 percent. That's a pretty good market return specifically right now. And you're not, you know, if you're working longer, you're probably not drawing as much out of your 401k and other savings. And maybe you're even putting more in. So whether it's full time or part time. And the other thing people don't think about, yes, it's good for your bank account, but keeping cognitively engaged, and again, depends on the type of job that you have, being active in your job or being active in retirement, and that can be volunteering or working, also is really good for our brain health. If you're retired and you're sitting in front of the TV all day, that, you know, sedentary six years actually causes a lot of cognitive decline compared to working longer or volunteering or using, doing other things that keep your mind active.

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Speaker 2: Now, my disclaimer here is that we do not give tax advice on the show, but you just mentioned somebody working this age 70. I believe the IRS law is age 70 and a half. You have to start withdrawing Social Security.

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Speaker 3: So you don't have to start withdrawing Social Security, but you have to take required minimum distributions from your, from your, from your retirement funds. And I think it was increased to 73. Yes, it was. Okay. We were just talking about it this morning. Yeah. So Congress increased it to 73, but that's just so that, you know, people don't use these retirement funds as legacy funds. They're actually for their retirement.

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Speaker 2: And again, not tax advice, just IRS codes, age 73.

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Speaker 3: I'm just telling you the rules, Chris.

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Speaker 2: We follow the rules here. And if someone does want to work longer, as you mentioned before, how can the gig economy or remote work benefit older workers? And do you have any advice about what kind of work?

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Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So about 20% of gig workers are over age 50. And in fact, one survey we did half of all the Uber and Lyft drivers were over age 50. And I will say those platforms love older drivers because they get high ratings. They're consistent. They've got lots of experience on the road. So looking for ways to use, whether it's, you know, whether it's these kind of gigs of driving or there's ones where you can, you know, if you're handy around the house, you can put, you know, you can sign up to, you know, help others who are less handy like me there's all kinds of different ways to work for short periods of time around your own schedule. And then we're seeing more and more freelance workers and others. And, and I think, you know, that's a way to extend our working life. It's also a way, you know, if you have your own health issues or you're trying to take care of somebody else, you know, to be able to manage work with the rest of your life.

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Speaker 2: Beyond the financial factors. And you mentioned a moment ago that the cognitive benefits, are there social or health benefits to working past that traditional retirement age?

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Speaker 3: It depends on your job. I'm going to say, and, and really, you know, what we have the most evidence for is the, the cognitive health and longevity events of things like purpose and meaning. So maybe you find that from your work, but maybe you also, my parents retired early, but volunteered at like seven different things. My dad had his favorite volunteer was to job was to work at our local community golf course. It's a public golf course. And he worked at the bar and chit chatted. My dad doesn't golf. He had no, but he loved it because, you know, people would come through and, and, you know, talk to him for a little bit. And, you know, he's a little like the town mayor. I'm from a small town in Eastern Washington. So, you know, there's different ways to find that sense of meaning and purpose that keep you busy and that, you know, can help give back to your community.

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Speaker 2: It's funny you mentioned about the golf course. I didn't even think about it. My dad retired a few years ago and he works part-time at the local golf galaxy, just re-gripping clubs and he gets a discount. So we can go golfing more.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great thing.

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Speaker 2: I love it. So AARP has advocated for policies that support family caregivers, such as paid leave and financial assistance. What are some of the biggest challenges facing family caregivers today? And is there any relief in sight for them?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say there's a few challenges. One, we do not have a very strong long-term care program within the United States. So what I mean by that is if you break your arm, right, the hospital will, Medicare will pay to send you to the hospital and to repair your arm. But if you can't cook or eat or, you know, do other things, that's not covered. And so oftentimes families or friends have to step in to help somebody. And, you know, that can happen in an instant. One of my friend's mom fell and broke her hip and she had to spend, you know, a couple months helping her mother out. So there's the issue is we sort of expect families to take care of people at a moment's notice and we don't really have good systems. Now, the good news is some states are starting to look at solutions. So my home state of Washington just developed a program to help pay for family caregivers or pay for modifications for your house. That's just kicking off, but we'll see if that spreads. We're also working right now to get a tax credit for family caregivers. So many of us help our family members financially. And so the tax credit would help us to write that off if we itemized our taxes. And then things like Medicaid, which is a really important program where Medicare doesn't provide long term care, Medicaid does. And many people, even if they have a lot of retirement savings, if they become ill for a long period of time or have dementia, people will spend all of their life savings out of pocket to try and cover the care that they need. And that goes fast. Nursing homes cost over $100,000 a year in this area. If you need dementia care, that's $200,000 a year from some people I've spoken to. So whatever you've saved goes really, really fast. And then Medicaid, people try to qualify for Medicaid based on if they've spent down all their assets and have very little income and then can get some help that way. So that's where we have sort of discontinuous programs that make it really hard when we really need help and care as we age.

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Speaker 2: Those are significant numbers, $100,000 to $200,000 a year. I don't know the stat, but I mean, I'm guessing in single digits, the percentage of the population that hasn't much saved for retirement.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, no, even when you're first retiring, about half of us have nothing. And then the average, so then about half of us have less than $100,000 or $200,000. I don't have the exact number off the top of my head. So very few people and even, you know, again, Alzheimer's can last for decades. And so, you know, entire families can be impoverished when somebody needs high levels of care. So so this is this is the one of the key issues. And I talk about it in the book as part of where will we live, that, you know, people need to start people need to think about long term care before they need it, ideally. And if they have family support that can help them and and how do they talk to friends even to get help? The other big volunteer work that my parents did was drive friends and neighbors to Spokane, Washington, which was an hour and a half each way. But that really helped a lot of people to be able to go see the doctors that they needed.

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Speaker 2: So I'm going to give my opinion, not yours. I want to speak for you. So the private sector health care drains people's savings and then Medicaid slash the government step in to fit the bill afterwards. You have to do your grocery. The answer is I don't want to put you in a bad spot.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sure I would say just the costs are so big and they're not covered by the current government government plans. And so, you know, what we do need is to have a real conversation about long term care in this country, because, again, it is affecting families and their kids and their grandkids all the way down the line.

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Speaker 2: When you mention Alzheimer's, the funeral I went to was for a family member who had Alzheimer's for 14 years.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And they were she was in and out of the home. And so luckily, you know, they were successful. But I've seen the drain on the family and it's awful. It's an awful disease. Along with policy advocacy, AARP provides a wealth of resources, including educational materials, caregiving support, financial planning tools and discounts and various services. What are AARP's most popular and effective programs?

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Speaker 3: We have a whole range of them, and I do want to give a shout out because I know you have a lot of listeners that are veterans. If you go and Google AARP veterans resources, you'll come up with everything from guides to help you against fraud. Unfortunately, veterans are more highly targeted at fraud and financial exploitation. We have resources for VA and Medicare, all kinds of things like that. We also have a Social Security tool and calculator. We have great guides for enrolling in Medicare. And then our magazine is one of the most widely read one in the country. And we have a bulletin and thousands of different articles on our website. So, you know, we people don't think of us or people often think of us as only an advocacy organization, but we're a communications organization as well, really targeted to to older adults and the questions that they have. And so we have tons of different programs. We also have a giant volunteer network that if anybody wants to join us and great programs in communities all over the country. My mom was a volunteer with our foundation on tax aid. So she did taxes for people in her community for many, many years. And I think we do several million tax returns every year for free. And so, you know, we've got lots of great ways that you can either get help or help others.

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Speaker 2: I love you mentioned the magazine, so I was gonna give that a shout out if you didn't talk about that. So I'm glad you highlighted it. And one more time, where can people find your book?

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Speaker 3: So it's called The Second Fifty Answers to the Seven Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond. You can find it at your local bookstore or any of the online sellers.

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Speaker 2: Deborah, we have just a few minutes left. Would you take us to the end of our conversation with advice or a story that helps our audience feel more resilient, empowered and able to succeed in the face of adversity?

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Speaker 3: So I mentioned my husband's heart attack. So I'll go into a little bit more about that and what it's led for us. So Glenn was a lifelong athlete, four sport athlete in high school and three in college and super healthy. And we had been out in Colorado for a week and a half. And then he was staying a little bit longer to pick up my son, who was doing an outward bound. And he was hiking outside of Boulder, Colorado, and he felt chest pains. And Glenn's a teacher, so he had gotten CPR training every year, as teachers do. And he recognized the symptoms and he flagged a couple of hikers down who called that. Luckily, there was still service where they were. They called 9-1-1 Boulder Mountain Rescue, ran up the mountain, put him on a gurney, braced him down, got him to the emergency room and his heart stopped in the emergency room. Had it stopped sooner, things would not have turned out as well as they did. But there's also a cardiologist right there who got a couple stents into his veins. And other than a couple of cracked ribs from the chest compressions, he was he's fine. And doing great. And so I should have started with that because sometimes I tear up. And I think that story taught me several things. One, how much I love my husband and I want him around. In fact, our wedding vows ended with I'll love you till I'm until I'm a hundred and three, which meant it was you know, I told him he wasn't you know, he would break our vows if he died sooner. And Glenn did a few things after that one. He he wrote letters to the people that were important in his life, teachers, coaches, friends, mentors, and thanked them because he realized, you know, what's what's the thing that I would have wanted to say had my life ended at that moment. And I think that sense of gratitude is true in his life. And I think in ours, another thing, Chris, I studied in the book is, you know, what does it take to live a longer and healthy life? And one of the interviews I did was about the importance of relationships that, you know, if you look at healthy 80 year olds and you compare them to unhealthy 80 year olds and look back at what they did in their 50s, it's not that they had lower cholesterol and it's not that they exercise more. It was the quality of relationships that people had in their 50s that's most predictive of their health later in life. And so this weekend I hung out with friends Saturday and Sunday because I've been traveling so much and trying to deepen my own relationships. But but also understand, you know, time may be vast. We might get a second 50. We might live till we're 100. So we need to think for the long game, what is it that we want to get out of life? But also time is short and it may be shorter than we can imagine. And how can we live every day in a way that makes us happy that day? So that's my challenge that I try to live with.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for sharing all of that. And 103 means you have to write your third book, the third, the third 50. Dr. Deborah Whitman, thank you so much for being with us today.

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Speaker 3: Chris, it's been fun. Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2: It's been a lot of fun. I appreciate your time. I know how busy you are. I'm Chris Meek. Run of time. We'll see you next week. Same time, same place. Until then, stay safe and keep taking your next steps forward.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in to Next Steps Forward. Be sure to join Chris Meek for another great show next Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific Time and 1 p.m. Eastern Time on The Voice America Empowerment Channel. This week, make things happen in your life. Next Steps Forward is brought to you by the Voice of America. The voice of America.