One of the many challenges in planning for retirement is grappling with the unknown. A big unknown is longevity. No one really knows how long they'll live. And there's a growing number of centenarians these days. What if you live to be 100? Or what if you become a super-ager and live much longer than that? It's something to consider in your planning, both financially and non-financially. And this longevity revolution we're in the midst of is creating many challenges for systems that were built to support lives that lasted a handful of years after retirement. William J. Kole, author of The Big 100: The New World of Super-Aging, joins us to discuss the joys and consequences of longer lives - and what we can learn from super-agers that could help you live a triple digit life.

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Bio
William J. Kole, recently retired as the New England news editor for Associated Press, is a veteran journalist and former foreign correspondent who has reported from North America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The grandson of a woman who lived a few months shy of 104, Kole has been writing about extreme longevity since the 1990s, when he was based in Paris and told the world the extraordinary story of Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122. His many awards include one from the Society of American Business Editors & Writers for an investigation into the exploitation of undocumented immigrants by the Walmart retail chain. The Big 100: The New World of Super-Aging is his first book. He speaks French, Dutch, and German, and resides in Warwick, Rhode Island.

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For More on William J. Cole
The Big 100: The New World of Super-Aging
Website -Bill Kole Books

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Podcast Episodes YouMay Like

Breaking the Age Code – Dr. Becca Levy

The Well-Lived Life – Dr. Gladys McGarey

The Mindful Body – Ellen Langer

The Measure of Our Age – MT Connolly

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Best Books on Retirement You May Like

Live Life in Crescendo - Stephen R. Covey & Cynthia Haller Covey

Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism & Kindness Can Help You Live to 100

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Mentioned in This Podcast Episode

Dr. Thomas Perls' Life Expectancy Calculator

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Wise Quotes

On Longevity in America



"We are aging in the United States by practically every metric. We're going to hit a very important milestone just a little over 10 years from now in 2034, when the numbers of Americans who are 65 and older will outnumber those who are 18 and younger for the first time in our history. And the number of people who are 85 and older are rapidly growing. It's one of the fastest growing subsets of the population. But what's really driving this, what I call a new world of super aging, is really two-fold. One is just demographics. So the baby boomers, a huge generation numerically are getting older. I'm one of them. I think you might be too, Joe. {Indeed}And there's at least 70 million about by some counts, a bit more than that. The oldest of us is about 77 right now. So in the next 25 years, the fittest of those people will age into triple digits. And interestingly, centenarians tend to occur in one in 5,000 in the population in general, in many places at least. This is according to Tom Perls at the New England Centenarian Study, which is the largest of its kind in the world. And so just by virtue of there being so many boomers aging, we're going to see a sort of algorithmic increase in the numbers of people living to 100. And then there's a medical and technological piece, where we are doing a better job at treating, and in some cases, curing the things that kill us."

 



On Stress & Longevity


"For me,