Have a Better Quality of Life in Later Years: Christine Scheffer & Robert Fisher | Habits for Humans
September 7, 2023 • 42 mins
SHOW NOTES
In this episode of Habits for Humans with Kim Flynn, we discuss with Christine Scheffer & Robert Fisher how to have a great quality of life through your golden years through Robert & Christine's 12 Keys. You will learn a variety of surprising principles, like how to track your sleep, a trick to stop interrupting your partner, and why you will always want to wear socks! Track your progress on an annual schedule to keep yourself progressing and moving forward.
Welcome to Habits for Humans, the show that explores how to build a life beyond "fine"--something spectacular, joyful, and deeply satisfying.
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OUR GUEST
Over their combined eleven decades, Christine Scheffer and Robert Fisher have noted and experienced many of the lessons life has to offer – military service, child and pet rearing, cancer survival, long separations, career interruptions, divorces, addiction recovery, and most importantly the introspection, internal strength, and effort it takes to change thinking, adjust behaviors and move ever upward regardless of the circumstances.
Website: https://livingbetterinthelateryears.com/
Social Media: Website: https://livingbetterinthelateryears.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-fisher-00211418/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LivingBetterInTheLaterYears"
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OUR HOST
Kim Flynn is a best-selling author, podcaster and serial entrepreneur and has built multiple seven and eight-figure businesses. Her company made the Inc 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in the country. She splits her time living in Costa Rica and Salt lake City, teaching business owners how to run profitable retreats through her company Retreat Works. Kim has one husband, four kids, and a dog and loves spreadsheets.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kim Flynn (00:00):
Hi, and welcome to Habits for Humans, the podcast
that explores...
Explores what makes people tickand how to program this brain of
ours to do what we want it todo.
I'm your host, Kim Flynn.
And today we're going to talk toRobert Fisher and Christine
Sheffer and discuss and exploreand talk about the 12 keys to
living better in later years.
So I have to tell you.
We already filmed this.
(00:20):
We filmed this once.
We had technical issues.
We're refilming.
But there was one piece thatthey talked about in our last
interview.
And it's been like, when youhear something or you read
something and just haunts youand you're ah, that piece is
still like wrestling in mybrain.
That's the piece that I want toexplore specifically.
And that is, we're of coursegoing to talk about all 12, but
(00:40):
that piece is.
As you age, as you get older andthings in your body really do
break down or degenerate, or youreally do have issues, how do
you continue doing what youlove?
When your body is breaking downaround you, I want to talk about
that.
My husband has been recentlydiagnosed with this hand
(01:01):
disease.
I can't remember the name of it,but it's in his hands and his
feet and it makes his handsclench up and it gives him a lot
of pain and he can no longer goto the gym and lift weights
because of that pressure there.
And so I've been thinking aboutthis interview.
With that and I want to talkabout that with you guys in
depth.
So we do have giveaways for ourlisteners to the end.
If you like free stuff and whodoesn't stay tuned until the
(01:24):
end.
And a word from our sponsorhabits for humans is brought to
you by retreat works.
We train life coaches, businesscoaches, and wellness business
owners.
How to build a retreat in fivedays and double your sales while
having more client impact.
So I'm super excited tointroduce Robert Fisher and
Christine Sheffer.
Robert and Christine are a duothat use their life experiences
(01:47):
and perspective on aging tocreate their three 60 website,
living better in later years.
com.
Both with individual stories offeats and trials, the married
couple currently work withforeign governments, and they
just got back from Cairo, theyjust, they work for foreign
governments on nuclear missionsas full time jobs and inspire
healthy habits all the whilethrough their passion project,
(02:08):
Robert is a military veteranssharing many stories of his
deployments and close encounterswith death on a regular basis
during combat.
Wow.
That would affect your outlookon life.
And on top of this, Robert is acancer survivor at only 35 years
old.
Robert had to come to terms withhis reality that he may not be
around much longer through thesupport of his family and the
lifesaving medical treatments.
(02:29):
Robert pulled through and takesno day for granted.
He uses the three pillars of hislife story as the catalyst that
inspires the 12 keys of livingbetter in later years.
And Robert, that was all aboutyou.
For some reason, we missed thepart about Christine.
Let's turn it over to Christineright now.
Christine, tell us about you fora bit.
She's a special 1 so I'm just a,I'm an engineer turned human
(02:54):
resources professional who'sbeen in the energy business for
almost all my career.
And super passionate, alwaysbeen super passionate about food
exercise, trying stayinghealthy.
I do just tons of reading aboutthe latest thinking, especially
on sleep, food food and exerciseand longevity now is obviously
(03:17):
super trendy.
So I'm listening to all thehardcore geeks talk about their
latest theories on longevity.
I love it.
All right.
So we always start with yournumber one habit to manage your
own mental wellness.
Let's hear from Robert first.
What is a practice that you doto manage the stress of daily
life every single day?
(03:38):
The, in our 12 keys, our secondkey is sleep well, and it's only
the second key because the firstone is planning for the year.
The reason I mentioned the sleepwell being number 2 is actually
our number 1 priority.
We think that is your number 1priority in life.
(03:59):
Everything else.
If you don't get proper sleep,it undermines your ability to
perform and every aspect of yourlife.
It induces poor sleep, inducespoor eating, undermines your
exercise, compromises yourability to learn, impacts your
productivity.
It also undermines youremotional resiliency.
(04:19):
So we is our number 1 priorityis sleep.
And it's critical for yourimmune system and memory
generation and learning.
And give you some examples, how.
How important we think it is andhow focused we are.
Every morning we get up and welook at our sleep watch data
(04:39):
that goes right to our phonesand we compare our numbers to
make sure we got what weintended.
And of course, it's not alwaysperfect.
And of course, especially whenwe have jet lag coming back and
forth from internationaltravels, but we manage it we
focus it.
Focus on it and manage it and doa whole series of things.
Christine gives some examples ofthose things we do to make sleep
(05:03):
the number 1 priority.
Yeah, because in our lastinterview, you asked each of us
this question separately and Ianswered 1st and mine was sleep.
And Robert I was, Actually alittle surprised that his was
sleep.
So we hadn't discussed that inadvance.
But so what I would emphasize issleep hygiene.
What's what they call it.
And that is keep your bedroomtemperature cold minimize the
(05:26):
distractions and blue light inthe bedroom.
Go to bed at the same time, wakeup at the same time every day,
including weekends and wearsocks to bed, comfortable socks.
I hate wearing socks to bed.
Tell me about that.
I hate it.
It feels terrible.
I so many people say I'm justnot going to do that.
And then we send them we, wesend them these like fuzzy, cozy
(05:50):
socks.
I love that you just have themon hand there.
Is that just something that youcarry around with you?
Or is that?
I pulled it off my foot.
Okay.
So these wonderful cozy socksthat are like slipper socks, but
they're loose.
Then, why do you do it?
It's all about you keep yourroom cold because you need your
(06:11):
core temperature to get cold andjust by sticking a pair of socks
on your feet basil dilate alittle bit, which pulls blood
away from your core.
So it's a super easy way ofpulling down your core
temperature, taking a bath orshower before bed is also really
good because it heats you up.
And then that forces your bodyto cool itself off.
(06:33):
Wow.
Okay.
I'm so interested.
Let's dive into this a littlebit more.
So sleep hygiene.
So this is last night.
I'm going through a hard thingright now in my life.
I, stay up Tick tock till 2 a.
m.
I just couldn't force myself toget off and just want to go to
sleep.
And then I'm like, Oh, I'llsleep in tomorrow.
And I wake up at eight, so I gotsix hours.
(06:53):
It didn't feel great.
How do you like, do you justhave to force yourself to like
unplug?
What if you just don't feel likegoing to sleep seriously now,
real questions.
No serious.
So if you, if that one's hardAnd, we're going to have some
interruptions this week.
We got people arriving atmidnight tonight.
We were up at 440 this morning.
(07:13):
We have people arriving atmidnight tonight.
So we're going to have to makean exception tonight and sleep
in past our normal time and thentry to get it back even if you.
We just set a timer.
So the, if you we most of thetime have something we have to
get up for.
You can manufacture somethingthat you have to get up for.
(07:36):
And we try to be in bed 9 hoursbefore.
We need or want to get up andmake that really as hard to stop
as possible.
If you don't feel like it.
I'd say, instead of looking attick tock, read a book try
laboring through reading a bookwhen you're tired.
Yeah, you can't do it forever.
Read a book, listen to an audiobook, something that's not.
(08:00):
Super interesting, butinteresting enough, but not
super interesting that makes youfocus on something other than
what's going through your head.
Take melatonin if you need tolike, 1 milligram melatonin, is
incredibly effective.
That's our, we've experimentedwith many things for jet lag and
(08:20):
uneven sleep.
1 milligram melatonin is hard tofind.
Most of the doses are muchhigher, but we're comfortable
with it because, it doesn't it'snot, for us, at least it's not
habit forming that and studiesare not demonstrating that it's
generally habit forming, but twothings I'll go back to you
(08:41):
started off by saying make sleepyour number one priority.
Obviously there's things in anactive person's life, which we
all are that disrupt that.
But the point is.
Stay on point.
And if you have things thatinterrupted you get back on
track and you keep a mental noteof, okay, I've got to go to bed
early tonight.
All right.
I've got to do this.
I've got to do that.
(09:01):
The other piece I'll talk aboutis in each of our keys, we list
all these best practices allthose best and I think in the
sleep well, key number 2 andjust 29 best practices.
Each 1 of those will not workfor every given person.
So I would like to talk about apersonal algorithm, those things
that work for you.
(09:23):
So we provide a whole slew ofthings you should consider to
build a bit of a environmentaround that, start, with your
partner, start to think about,okay, when are we targeting
bedtime?
When are we targeting andgetting up?
How are we maintaining the roomtemperature?
Okay.
When do we put our computersaway?
How are we holding each otheraccountable?
Not to doing that and creating abit of an environment that is
(09:44):
conducive to behavior change,because we all know behavior
change is hard, especially whenyou have habits born of many
decades.
If you can surround yourselfwith these things that help
goosh you to what we call babysteps, changing behaviors and
baby steps, we think you getthere.
I like it.
Yeah, go ahead.
The other thing, make your bedwonderfully comfortable, however
(10:07):
much you have to spend on it.
You're in that thing for a thirdof your life.
So get excellent pillows, get asuper luxurious mattress topper,
sheets that make you feel likeyou're back in the womb.
We're trying a weighted blanketright now which is, it's showing
some promising studies forpeople who need to feel
(10:27):
Comforted when they're in bed.
So do whatever you need to do tomake that space.
Fantastic.
And something to look forwardto.
Oh, I love it.
I just ordered a couple of daysago.
It should come today fromAmazon.
This really smooshy bed,whatever you call it, mattress
cover that I think into, and Ican't wait for it.
I'm like ha, can't wait.
Yeah.
(10:48):
And like a, an expensive duvetis so it's fluffy and cozy and
keeps you warm enough, but coolenough.
Just magical.
And some pillows, like lave,lavender, pillow sprays, all the
sleep ex experts that weresearch and look through.
They say the bed's for twothings.
(11:09):
One of those is for sleep.
The other is not your computeror your phone or any blue light
source.
Or TikTok.
Yeah.
Or TikTok.
Yes.
Okay.
That sounds great.
I'm just taking a bunch of notesand just imagining, oh, man.
I could upgrade my duvet too andjust have this really like sink
into delightful experience.
(11:31):
I could buy some, I hate thesmell of lavender, reminds me of
when I was pregnant, but I couldfind some other smell that just
sounds heavenly.
Okay.
And then last thing about sleep,cause this is the most
important, so I'm totally finediving deep into just a couple
of these instead of going,trying to hit all 12, but let's
dig deep into the sleep data.
So I had this.
On my wrist all the time aswell.
(11:51):
What do you guys look for?
What do you track?
What are you looking for?
What are the goals there withsleep data?
Number one, what we care aboutmost is restful sleep.
So that's going to be thecombination of deep wave sleep
and REM.
We, overall is the amount oftime that you were sleeping
restful sleep.
We consider most important.
(12:12):
That's the data point.
We share every morning heartrate.
Variability.
Super interesting.
And heart rate is the other 1and what we really like to do is
think about what we did theevening before.
And see how that impacts all ofthese things.
What time did we eat?
What did we eat?
What time did we go to bed?
(12:33):
And what else was going on?
So what kind of numbers are youlooking at?
And what have you noticed aboutthe activity the night before or
the meals the night before?
How does that affect heart rateor your heart rate variability?
For sure, carbs, carbs andalcohol close to bedtime drive
the heart rate up.
Really?
Yes.
(12:54):
Yes, so if we eat earlier, if weeat fewer carbs and moderate
alcohol consumption, our heartrates are lower and also our key
measure is the 8 hours of totalsleep, 5 and a half of restful.
(13:15):
But that heart, the heart rate,Christine mentioned the,
drinking red wine on theoccasion.
For personal experience, anyoccasion where I've had some red
wine later in the day my heartrate throughout the evening will
have be an average of 10 beatsper minute higher.
Really?
How about tequila?
Is it just red wine or is it anyalcohol?
(13:38):
We haven't done a completestudy.
Okay.
That's so fascinating.
Okay.
And then the variability, whatare you looking for in the
variability?
It's the higher, the better.
So my numbers tend to be around20 Roberts tend to be more in
the 40s higher, the better onthat 1.
(13:59):
and then on restful.
Our personal goals are 8 hoursof total sleep and 5 and a half
hours of restful and, I willtell you, we if we get less than
5.
We feel it.
If we get anything more thanfive and a half, we wake up
feeling pretty great.
Usually unless we're still insome kind of jet lag funk,
(14:19):
anything like occasionally I'vegotten seven hours of restful
sleep and you just.
Wake up feeling like a newborn.
It's unbelievable.
We've got in the womb with ourbed, we've got waking up like
newborns, lots of baby, lots ofyoung, very youthful, not just
like in your twenties.
We're going all the way back tothat's right.
And the other thing I'll mentionis, we say living better in the
(14:42):
later years and every week wesign off, we said.
Equates to behaving better inthe earlier years.
So our audiences, older folks,like the 2 of us started to
evolve and manage our livesbetter, but it's amazing how our
message resonates with youngerpeople because they have a
(15:03):
longer runway.
So they get a higher return oninvestment.
Any behavior or habit they formthat is healthier.
And just this last weekend, wehad a brother and a friend over
and, it was amazing to me howespecially the young person was
incorporating this feedback onsleep and how focused the person
is on this.
(15:24):
And it even had a relativelyyoung age, really focused on
getting that right and changinghis behaviors in the earlier
years.
Again, with that long runway.
I like it.
Okay, so there's sleep.
Let's dive into whatever pillar,mostly closely match mostly
closely.
Sure.
Matches what my husband isstruggling with, which is my
(15:48):
body is degenerating.
It is.
It's part of life.
How do I modify my life aroundthat without just stopping
activity entirely and gettingdepressed about it?
Yeah, so maybe I'll jump in herewith our key.
Number four is all about stayingfit and growing stronger.
And as you mentioned yourhusband, 1 of those things
that's become a ha moment as youget older, 60 70 80 90 building
(16:15):
muscle was a presumption thatnot important.
It's going to go away.
You can't use it, but it'sbecoming increasingly important.
And the notion of buildingmuscle, so for, I'll say senior
citizens actually doingweightlifting dumbbells or body
exercises, pull ups, push ups,the things that grow muscle
squats, those type of exercises,increasingly important for a
(16:38):
variety of reasons strength andnot, of course, not the least of
which means balance.
So that is a real focus area nowas you go after that.
So it's one, it's good to have amindset that says, as you get
older, you need to be moreactive, not less because in your
twenties, we all start veryactively.
We're all running around crazy.
(16:59):
You go into a long period in the30 to 40s, early 50s.
But then as you get older, somepeople say that all starts to go
to zero.
You actually need to think aboutthe opposite.
You need to play a lot more, bevery active.
And to do things like buildingmuscle.
Now things arise that can chipaway at that capability.
(17:19):
In a personal example I'vehistorically been a fiend about
pushups and I got to the pointwhere one of my wrists, I just,
I strained it just by virtue ofthat.
That angle, the 90 degrees angleyou do using pushups and I've
had to go through a differentbut it's prompt initially I was
a bit sad and depressed if youwill for a little bit about,
(17:41):
this, I can't not do pushups.
How do I go about this.
Obviously I went to medicalscreening.
I've got some, little weightexercises, little dumbbells that
I think are ridiculously small,but I do enough of them per the
doctor's orders to get my wristback.
But to me, what was importantwas finding an alternative where
I could still build thosemuscles and not let them decay.
(18:04):
And as an example I've learnedhow to do, I get myself a rubber
mat and I put my hands in a fistand I do my pushups.
On fists, which allow my thewrist and the fist to be
straight and takes away thepain.
Besides building up the riskmuscle, and we're trying to
recover that.
Finding alternative means tobuild muscles and do other
(18:26):
things.
That's a life can sometimesprohibit you from doing.
I think that alternativemindset, you can't give up as
soon as you throw in the towel.
The games starts to get oververy quickly.
Yeah, and things take so long toheal as you get older as well.
And so if you're like I'll justwait for this to heal your 6, 9
months down the road.
Then you're out of the habitthat you to build up from ground
(18:47):
0.
yeah, I had a similar example.
I was trying to, I was trying todevelop enough strength to be
able to do a pull up.
Wow.
Those are hard.
Yes.
They're super hard.
And so some, I did something tomy tricep tendon and it just
became not worth it.
I was like, I really wanted tolearn how to do a pull up.
I thought that Linda Hamiltonand the Terminator was awesome.
(19:11):
But when my tricep gave out andthen all, now I can do fewer
things.
So I gave up the dream on pullups and just.
I figured out other that'll justnot be in my cards but I figured
out other weightliftingexercises I could do to build up
the area without being able toshow off my accomplishment of
(19:33):
doing a pull up, doing a pullup.
I like that.
So find an alternative.
So do you guys think as we age,we'll all just, and I love the
advice, first of all, as you getolder, you need more.
Activity rather than less, doyou think we'll all just end up
as swimmers?
Is that the end goal for all ofus?
Because all of our joints willbe falling apart.
I think swimming is wonderful.
I do think it needs to be anexercise though, because I've
(19:55):
seen swimming that is, peoplecan equate swimming with hanging
out, it means not just gettingthem out of the pool waiting,
but it's real exercise.
And obviously it helps the, whatI love about swimming is yes,
it's cardio.
There is a peace of mind thatgoes with it.
So it's because it's incrediblyquiet.
(20:17):
It's also something that canevolve over time.
And I'll give you an example.
I had a friend of mine whorecommended getting these little
swim gloves.
And initially I was like that's,I'm trying to get cardio.
I'm trying to be relaxed andwhatnot.
And then I tried these things 1time because he prompted me the
3rd time and I said, okay, I'mgoing to give it a run.
And I was amazed that when Ifound it, it was great for your
(20:40):
muscles because you have justobviously increased resistance.
And so it took that swimmingexercise to a new level.
Not only was it cardio, not onlywas it peaceful, but I could
feel a better shoulder workout,better upper body workout.
And then I took the next stepsand got the little miniature
swim fins.
So now as you're doing it,you're getting back, stomach,
(21:01):
leg exercises.
So it was just taking that same30 minutes of pool exercise
doing laps back and forth andadding a strength mechanism to
it.
It's just, trying to alwaysalter something that makes it a
little better, a little moreholistic.
I love this.
The whole idea behind all thesestories just makes me think,
okay.
It just expands your mind alittle bit into I like the word
(21:24):
alternative instead of I can't,or I'll have to wait.
It's how can I, and it makes usmove into a place of curiosity
instead of depression of, Ican't, I like that.
Anything else Christine, did youhave anything to say on that?
Yeah.
I really advocate having a setof adjustable dumbbells at home.
And I have a long history ofdoing yoga.
(21:45):
And I've.
I believe there are manywonderful things about yoga.
And so I would never, I wouldalways encourage people to try
different versions of yoga, butfor me, so I have an adjustable
set of dumbbells and I alternatestrength routines on 3 days 1
day.
I do 9 or 11 arm exercises.
(22:06):
1 day to 9 leg exercises andthen 1 day to 15 core exercises.
What I like about it is you cando it.
It doesn't take a ton of time.
I'm not cluttering up the housewith a lot of equipment.
I don't have to go to a gym or apool.
So I love the approach abilityand flexibility of it and it's
(22:26):
super impactful.
It's only I started with 9 armexercises.
I'm now up to 11 because I threwin push ups to 2 forms of push
ups.
But I feel like that small setof strength training is really
gets all my key areas and I canboth feel and see a difference.
(22:48):
That's nice.
That's really good encouragementfor me.
I go back and forth betweenbeing a gym girl and a yoga girl
right now.
I'm yoga girl.
And I miss the gym, but I don'tlike the bulk because I do bulk
up pretty good.
And I get some muscles, and thenI'm like, wow, I look like a
man.
Let's go back to yoga.
So I'm like back and forth.
So recently I've been thinking,am I ready to go to the gym
again?
Maybe I can just do both and dothe gym really light, and do the
(23:11):
three times a week with arms,legs, and abs.
Once a week on arms and legs,that's good enough.
I shoot for twice, but look, theway I view it is once, once
we'll absolutely, you'll feel itthe next day guaranteed.
And you give your body enoughtime to rest.
So I, it, when we're traveling,I do once when we're home, it's
(23:36):
more like twice depending onschedule.
When do you break up arms andlegs or just do a.
You do arms one day, legs oneday, core the third day.
That's my rotation.
Nice.
Nice.
Okay.
I want to comment on somethingyou said.
Yeah, go ahead.
You talked about going from, ayoga girl to gym girl, back and
(23:56):
forth.
I wouldn't write that off asbeing fickle.
I think that's good.
Your ability to evolve and tweakand adjust over time, especially
as.
Things change with time are veryimportant.
I know some people that do thesame thing over and over and
over and over again.
You create some vulnerabilitieswhen you do that.
(24:17):
We believe in throwing differentthings at your body.
Throwing different things totomatoes, Sorry, don't keep
going.
No, it's good.
No, but stimulating your body indifferent ways.
So I think alternating betweenactivities like that is super.
And for those of you who arelistening to this and not
watching it, Robert andChristine are in incredible
(24:38):
shape.
Like they're fully dressed.
Obviously, you can only see himfrom the neck up.
You can tell even in yourjacket, Robert, that you're
super built.
Christine, you look super.
Fabulous.
Like these are healthy peopleand they're looking good.
Just a little clarity there.
Okay.
So step two of your 13 steps or12 steps is sleep.
Step four is staying fit andgrowing stronger.
(25:01):
Which one do you guys want to goto next?
Oh, I'm a big fan of numberthree, which is enjoy healthy
eating.
So it tends to be a topic peoplelove.
Let's dive in so this is another1 where we, it's so easy to be
confused by, as fat good as fat,bad or carbs, good or carbs bad.
(25:21):
Do you want to eat fruit is allsugar bad.
And so we just, we do a ton ofreading a ton of listening to
other people on these subjects.
And so I would say 1 of thethings that made a difference
for me is, try to diversify thenumber of plant products that
you eat.
(25:42):
So I listened to a podcast wherea nutritionist just really
dumbed down all the nutritioninformation and, there's no 1 in
the world who says eatingvegetables is bad.
That's like a universally agreedthing.
And so we really.
Try now to diversify the numberof plant products that we eat.
(26:03):
This lady suggested a goal of 30in a week, which can sound wow,
which can sound untenable, butyou count olive oil, you each
herb counts, pepper counts eachplant and each part of each
plant.
So if you eat a broccoli, flowerand a broccoli stem.
That's two because it's adifferent part of a plant.
(26:23):
That may seem like cheating, butwhat are you going for?
You're going for two thingsdiversity in nutrients and
different parts of plants havedifferent nutrients.
And you're also trying tominimize concentration of toxins
because all plants containtoxins that are intended to ward
off pests.
And again, the different partsof plants contain different
(26:45):
toxins.
For us, that was really easy.
We try to I used to just havebroccoli every day and I figured
you can't get better thanbroccoli.
So I loaded up on it.
But now we try to have it bemore diverse throughout the day
and throughout the week.
So how do you do your shopping?
Then do you do meal planning?
What do you do?
What does that look like for youguys?
(27:08):
So I, I get a farm box that'sdelivered every Friday.
And so I've got to plan my mealsa week in advance.
So I know what to get in thefarm box and then how to what to
supplement with at the grocerystore.
We're lucky to live inCalifornia where there's all
kinds of, fresh food available,locally grown stuff.
The other thing is try to buywhen you can.
(27:31):
When the price is okay buyorganic and as locally produced
as possible.
Things that are imported from along way will probably be on the
shelf for a long time, losingnutrients.
But so yeah, we do our mealplanning in advance.
And I think one other thing toemphasize here is we say, enjoy
healthy eating.
We're not on diets.
(27:51):
We love food.
It is.
Behind sleep, it's the number 1thing I get excited about.
We really make food yummy, butwe just try to use real foods,
whole ingredients, make stuff byscratch.
We don't buy a lot unlesseverything on the label is
perfect.
We don't buy sauces orcondiments.
(28:13):
If there's 1 ingredient in it, Idon't like, I won't buy it and
I'll learn how to make it.
No, that's pretty cool.
So you're doing meal planningthen.
And then do you intentionallysay, okay, 30, 30 different
kinds of, vegetables are goingto be every week.
Is that kind of how it playsout?
I don't count them in advance.
I just try to, I just try tomake sure I have a good mix.
(28:36):
And then I'll in certain meals,like if I make a vegetable soup,
I want to know how many are inthere.
So when I'm trying to load ameal up with vegetables, I like
to just tally him up to see howwell I'm doing.
But really, if all you do is eatdifferent stuff every day and
try to be adventurous,especially with vegetables
(28:56):
you'll you don't have to make ita mathematic or mathematical or
rigorous exercise.
But, yeah, we don't come everyweek.
Obviously, that'd be a bit overthe top.
However, when the concept didcome in, she went for the next
2, 3, 4, 5, 6 weeks.
She was counting diligently.
Every week just to get to thatmagic 30 points or more at
(29:20):
times.
And that way, and that is not asustainable practice, if you
will.
And again, over the top, but itdid expand our diet expanded.
It changed our shopping habits.
And so it modified behavior.
So doing that for a while,something with calorie counting,
(29:41):
right?
It's not something I don't thinkyou can do every day with the
calculator.
But doing it for a period oftime, which is one of the, in
the keys we recommend helps youget a better grip on what foods
you're eating, which ones youget a lot of nutrition from at
low calorie, which ones are highcalorie.
(30:02):
And then on the flip side, fromthe state, stay fit and grow
stronger.
It helps you credibly count.
How many calories you're reallyburning off or not burning off
when you're exercising, becausethere's a natural tendency to to
re to underestimate the caloriesin food and overestimate the
calories you're burning off whenyou're exercising.
(30:23):
What's so interesting is I live,half, maybe third to half in
Costa Rica and the third to halfhere is how different the entire
lifestyle is.
When I come back from.
A month or two there, and I'mback here, I'm like, Oh, my
gosh, no wonder Americans are sobig.
The food here, first of all, isdelicious.
(30:44):
I don't even, I don't care whoyou are.
Fast food is delicious.
You guys like it.
Oh, it actually is.
And it's every meal that you'reserved is huge and rich and just
tastes so dang good.
And then in Costa Rica.
You have to cook some food, youhave to actually make everything
that goes into your, in yourbody and you're not just sitting
(31:05):
in a car, you're walking aroundconstantly all day long.
And so I came back here and Ihave a friend who's really
struggling to lose weight andI'm like, sweetie, I don't even
know how we lose weight in thiscountry.
This is insane.
We just sit on our butts all dayand there's food everywhere.
So it really is a lifestylething.
Yeah, for sure.
(31:26):
That's my little tirade.
My tirade on how difficult it isto eat well in the U.
S.
compared to other cultures.
All right, we've got time for 1more.
What is your last pillar thatyou guys want to do?
So let's again our keys rangefrom 1 to 12.
And those keys, we pop, wepublish those.
Every year on the same day, the1st of each month we start with
(31:49):
plan your year right beginning.
So January 1st, we move to keysto 3 and 4 and the 1st of
February, March and April everyyear.
And then we move into on 5, welearn more 6 improve
productivity.
7 grow emotional resilience.
8 engage positively with others9 prevent disease and illness.
(32:12):
10 is avoid addiction 11 createpeace of mind through
contingency planning and 12assess your year.
And we cycle through those 12every year again, published on
the 1st of the month, so that wetake people through this
continuing improvement model forMay, just to go to the next key.
We've we just finished.
(32:32):
We're finishing up, but learnmore once you have a foundation
of sleeping, eating well, andstaying fit and growing
stronger.
It creates a foundation.
For improved productivity,improved mental capabilities and
improved emotional resilience.
So that number five is learnmore.
And one of the ones I think weappreciate is we just wrote an
article about dueling is ourapplication of choice to learn a
(32:57):
second language.
Because we deal with people allacross the world in our on our
daily work lives, 80, 90% ofthem all can operate in a second
language, that being English.
And many have more than that.
And you can just tell they,their brains and their
communication skills aredifferent than someone's like
(33:19):
ourselves who have been a singlelanguage for the rest, most of
their lives.
I used to consider being anEnglish speaker an advantage.
Now, I considered adisadvantage.
Wow.
One of the things we've beendoing now is using Duolingo to
improve our Spanish and toactually make that a second
language.
And it has been incredibly hardor, but.
(33:43):
I can tell my brain is changing.
In fact, I entitled the articlefracking your brain because
you're trying to create newpathways in your brain.
And that duolingo is a very goodapplication.
It goes at you several differentways and leads you along and
taunts you along the way.
So very helpful.
I'm practicing my Spanish too,obviously in Costa Rica, but
(34:06):
when I'm here in the U S I liketo watch like Spanish
telenovelas and I sit there withmy book, writing down all the
words that I don't know.
And I put it on Spanish,obviously they're speaking
Spanish.
And then I put Spanish tubtitles too.
And I expand my vocabulary.
I've learned quite the spicyvocabulary lately.
I'm like, wow, I can now saythat in Spanish.
(34:27):
Spanish.
So that's also been a fun way.
But I really enjoy learninglanguages as well.
Really fun.
Awesome.
Yeah, go ahead.
And traveling, to put thatlanguage to use.
We think travel.
Is perhaps an underappreciatedway to learn more in terms of
language, culture food, like yousaid, art, history, everything I
(34:52):
agree.
Oh, don't you love travel?
It's amazing.
Any last words of advice fromyou guys before you tell us all
about your program and what youcan give away today?
Yeah I'll start it and then I'llpass it to Christine just some
final words, but, We built thesekeys and again, we don't
(35:15):
consider ourselves experts inthese areas.
We consider ourselves lifepractitioners and we just be
comprehensively collecting thesethings, organizing these keys
and all the content within andthen systematically providing
for people to go on thiscontinuous journey of self
improvement over time.
And as you, of course, you getolder, it's compensation for the
(35:36):
life, the natural life forcesthat kind of drag you down, if
you will.
So it's always a buildingyourself up to offset those
degrading forces.
We also like it and justrecently, it's really dawned on
me that the at times life isvery tough and can throw you
some curve balls and you have togo through some very difficult
times.
And I've seen this with peopletrying to survive some of those
(35:59):
tough times.
These keys are also are awonderful tool to help in that
recovery.
And you have to deal with, youhave to deal with, but to get
yourself back on your feet.
Sleep well, eat better stay fitand grow stronger, start to
learn more, prove yourproductivity, grow emotional
resilience, then build someengage a positive with others
(36:19):
and then build some contingency.
If you follow this, you can helpit helps in that recovery
process too.
I just think it's a wonderfulway to.
Develop your own personalalgorithm, your collection
stuff, the best practices thatwill guide you to a higher
place.
Very well said.
I love it.
And Christine, will you talk tous about can you start middle of
(36:40):
the year?
Do you have to wait tillJanuary?
I love the structure of that.
How is it delivered?
Is it like a email program?
Is it written?
How do you go through theprogram?
You guys frozen here?
You're frozen on my end.
Let me wait just a minute and wecan edit this out.
(37:00):
Okay.
This is 1215.
Tell me when you guys can hearme again or see me.
Can you hear me and see me?
(37:26):
Try, if you can hear me, tryexiting and coming back and we
can edit this no problem.
So if you can hear me, let metry to text you as well.
Oh, you just did.
Okay.
(38:31):
Hopefully, we're back.
You're I think you're muted, butI can see you moving.
So it looks like, okay, we'regood.
Yay.
All right.
That was weird.
Let's just jump straight backin.
So we'll just edit out to thatpoint.
Okay, here we go.
Christine, tell us about theprogram.
Do you have to start in January?
Does it can you start mid year?
Is it delivered via email?
(38:53):
Is it a book?
Tell us about how we can getstarted with your program.
Okay, we suggest going to ourwebsite, which is living better
in the later years dot com.
So living better in the lateryears dot com there, you can
sign up for our email list andyou will get the keys by email
every month.
In addition, you'll get articlesevery week that focus on the key
(39:17):
for that month.
And the website itself has quitea bit of content.
You can surf around on and alsoby signing up for the email.
So all our stuff's free.
In addition to the content, allbeing free you get there, we do
a monthly drawing for ourproduct, which is called the
survivor guide.
And we don't spend a lot of timepeddling this product, but we
(39:40):
consider it really important.
It is something.
That, given that you've done.
All of the things that wesuggest still, you're going to
come to an end sometime and itis basically a planning system.
So that the people you leavebehind don't have to struggle to
go through your affairs andthat's the 1 product right now
that we're that we actuallysell.
(40:02):
We're working on some others.
Everything else is free.
And the survivor guide, is thata book or what kind of product
is that right?
Right now?
It's a physical binder withinserts in it.
And so it just helps youorganize all of the information
that people are going tostruggle with if you don't, if
(40:23):
you don't put it together forthem, we like the binder because
you can show someone where itis.
Tell them that's where it is.
It's pretty old school, but,they don't need a password or a
gateway or any magic to gothrough it.
We are working on.
We are working on online contentthough, because we realize that
the younger generation is goingto be less enthused about a
(40:45):
physical product and perhapsgoing to want to have it online.
I don't know.
I think we're, I think there's abig trend towards physical in
your hand again for things thatare considered more like fun or
meaningful, the day to day isonline.
I don't know.
There's a trend there.
Yeah, I agree with that kind ofthrowback trend, but we are, by
the end of the year, we'll havethe electronic online version,
(41:08):
which somebody can do.
Just online, totally with thecomputer.
And we're also developing aworkbook type approach where you
can get from Amazon, just thebook, and then you can fill out
the pages and then put in yourown binder.
So you'll have three differentcost points and three different
approaches.
You can take the best fit,whatever lifestyle.
Really nice.
And I love that all your keysare free.
(41:30):
Give us your website one moretime.
Living better.
In the later years dot com.
Perfect.
All right.
So thank you so much for beingon here.
That's a great information thatyou shared as we wrap things up,
reminded that the goal of thispodcast is to instill wellness
habits into your daily life tobuild a life beyond.
(41:52):
It's fine.
Let's achieve spectacular,joyful, and deeply satisfying.
Even in your later years, ourgiveaway from our sponsor
retreat works, there's a freelive masterclass trained by
yours.
Truly if you are a life coach, abusiness coach, or have a
wellness business, learn thesystem to add a high end retreat
to your business and bring in anextra 50 K in sales.
(42:13):
Every single time you host aretreat, even if you don't have
a following.
So go to retreat.
works and register for the freemasterclass.
It's called five days to build aretreat.
Thank you so much for joining usRobert and Christine again, have
a wonderful day.
And thanks, thank you to ourlisteners in advance for giving
us a positive review.
(42:34):
Thanks everyone.
Hi, and welcome to Habits for Humans, the podcast
that explores...
Explores what makes people tickand how to program this brain of
ours to do what we want it todo.
I'm your host, Kim Flynn.
And today we're going to talk toRobert Fisher and Christine
Sheffer and discuss and exploreand talk about the 12 keys to
living better in later years.
So I have to tell you.
We already filmed this.
(00:20):
We filmed this once.
We had technical issues.
We're refilming.
But there was one piece thatthey talked about in our last
interview.
And it's been like, when youhear something or you read
something and just haunts youand you're ah, that piece is
still like wrestling in mybrain.
That's the piece that I want toexplore specifically.
And that is, we're of coursegoing to talk about all 12, but
(00:40):
that piece is.
As you age, as you get older andthings in your body really do
break down or degenerate, or youreally do have issues, how do
you continue doing what youlove?
When your body is breaking downaround you, I want to talk about
that.
My husband has been recentlydiagnosed with this hand
(01:01):
disease.
I can't remember the name of it,but it's in his hands and his
feet and it makes his handsclench up and it gives him a lot
of pain and he can no longer goto the gym and lift weights
because of that pressure there.
And so I've been thinking aboutthis interview.
With that and I want to talkabout that with you guys in
depth.
So we do have giveaways for ourlisteners to the end.
If you like free stuff and whodoesn't stay tuned until the
(01:24):
end.
And a word from our sponsorhabits for humans is brought to
you by retreat works.
We train life coaches, businesscoaches, and wellness business
owners.
How to build a retreat in fivedays and double your sales while
having more client impact.
So I'm super excited tointroduce Robert Fisher and
Christine Sheffer.
Robert and Christine are a duothat use their life experiences
(01:47):
and perspective on aging tocreate their three 60 website,
living better in later years.
com.
Both with individual stories offeats and trials, the married
couple currently work withforeign governments, and they
just got back from Cairo, theyjust, they work for foreign
governments on nuclear missionsas full time jobs and inspire
healthy habits all the whilethrough their passion project,
(02:08):
Robert is a military veteranssharing many stories of his
deployments and close encounterswith death on a regular basis
during combat.
Wow.
That would affect your outlookon life.
And on top of this, Robert is acancer survivor at only 35 years
old.
Robert had to come to terms withhis reality that he may not be
around much longer through thesupport of his family and the
lifesaving medical treatments.
(02:29):
Robert pulled through and takesno day for granted.
He uses the three pillars of hislife story as the catalyst that
inspires the 12 keys of livingbetter in later years.
And Robert, that was all aboutyou.
For some reason, we missed thepart about Christine.
Let's turn it over to Christineright now.
Christine, tell us about you fora bit.
She's a special 1 so I'm just a,I'm an engineer turned human
(02:54):
resources professional who'sbeen in the energy business for
almost all my career.
And super passionate, alwaysbeen super passionate about food
exercise, trying stayinghealthy.
I do just tons of reading aboutthe latest thinking, especially
on sleep, food food and exerciseand longevity now is obviously
(03:17):
super trendy.
So I'm listening to all thehardcore geeks talk about their
latest theories on longevity.
I love it.
All right.
So we always start with yournumber one habit to manage your
own mental wellness.
Let's hear from Robert first.
What is a practice that you doto manage the stress of daily
life every single day?
(03:38):
The, in our 12 keys, our secondkey is sleep well, and it's only
the second key because the firstone is planning for the year.
The reason I mentioned the sleepwell being number 2 is actually
our number 1 priority.
We think that is your number 1priority in life.
(03:59):
Everything else.
If you don't get proper sleep,it undermines your ability to
perform and every aspect of yourlife.
It induces poor sleep, inducespoor eating, undermines your
exercise, compromises yourability to learn, impacts your
productivity.
It also undermines youremotional resiliency.
(04:19):
So we is our number 1 priorityis sleep.
And it's critical for yourimmune system and memory
generation and learning.
And give you some examples, how.
How important we think it is andhow focused we are.
Every morning we get up and welook at our sleep watch data
(04:39):
that goes right to our phonesand we compare our numbers to
make sure we got what weintended.
And of course, it's not alwaysperfect.
And of course, especially whenwe have jet lag coming back and
forth from internationaltravels, but we manage it we
focus it.
Focus on it and manage it and doa whole series of things.
Christine gives some examples ofthose things we do to make sleep
(05:03):
the number 1 priority.
Yeah, because in our lastinterview, you asked each of us
this question separately and Ianswered 1st and mine was sleep.
And Robert I was, Actually alittle surprised that his was
sleep.
So we hadn't discussed that inadvance.
But so what I would emphasize issleep hygiene.
What's what they call it.
And that is keep your bedroomtemperature cold minimize the
(05:26):
distractions and blue light inthe bedroom.
Go to bed at the same time, wakeup at the same time every day,
including weekends and wearsocks to bed, comfortable socks.
I hate wearing socks to bed.
Tell me about that.
I hate it.
It feels terrible.
I so many people say I'm justnot going to do that.
And then we send them we, wesend them these like fuzzy, cozy
(05:50):
socks.
I love that you just have themon hand there.
Is that just something that youcarry around with you?
Or is that?
I pulled it off my foot.
Okay.
So these wonderful cozy socksthat are like slipper socks, but
they're loose.
Then, why do you do it?
It's all about you keep yourroom cold because you need your
(06:11):
core temperature to get cold andjust by sticking a pair of socks
on your feet basil dilate alittle bit, which pulls blood
away from your core.
So it's a super easy way ofpulling down your core
temperature, taking a bath orshower before bed is also really
good because it heats you up.
And then that forces your bodyto cool itself off.
(06:33):
Wow.
Okay.
I'm so interested.
Let's dive into this a littlebit more.
So sleep hygiene.
So this is last night.
I'm going through a hard thingright now in my life.
I, stay up Tick tock till 2 a.
m.
I just couldn't force myself toget off and just want to go to
sleep.
And then I'm like, Oh, I'llsleep in tomorrow.
And I wake up at eight, so I gotsix hours.
(06:53):
It didn't feel great.
How do you like, do you justhave to force yourself to like
unplug?
What if you just don't feel likegoing to sleep seriously now,
real questions.
No serious.
So if you, if that one's hardAnd, we're going to have some
interruptions this week.
We got people arriving atmidnight tonight.
We were up at 440 this morning.
(07:13):
We have people arriving atmidnight tonight.
So we're going to have to makean exception tonight and sleep
in past our normal time and thentry to get it back even if you.
We just set a timer.
So the, if you we most of thetime have something we have to
get up for.
You can manufacture somethingthat you have to get up for.
(07:36):
And we try to be in bed 9 hoursbefore.
We need or want to get up andmake that really as hard to stop
as possible.
If you don't feel like it.
I'd say, instead of looking attick tock, read a book try
laboring through reading a bookwhen you're tired.
Yeah, you can't do it forever.
Read a book, listen to an audiobook, something that's not.
(08:00):
Super interesting, butinteresting enough, but not
super interesting that makes youfocus on something other than
what's going through your head.
Take melatonin if you need tolike, 1 milligram melatonin, is
incredibly effective.
That's our, we've experimentedwith many things for jet lag and
(08:20):
uneven sleep.
1 milligram melatonin is hard tofind.
Most of the doses are muchhigher, but we're comfortable
with it because, it doesn't it'snot, for us, at least it's not
habit forming that and studiesare not demonstrating that it's
generally habit forming, but twothings I'll go back to you
(08:41):
started off by saying make sleepyour number one priority.
Obviously there's things in anactive person's life, which we
all are that disrupt that.
But the point is.
Stay on point.
And if you have things thatinterrupted you get back on
track and you keep a mental noteof, okay, I've got to go to bed
early tonight.
All right.
I've got to do this.
I've got to do that.
(09:01):
The other piece I'll talk aboutis in each of our keys, we list
all these best practices allthose best and I think in the
sleep well, key number 2 andjust 29 best practices.
Each 1 of those will not workfor every given person.
So I would like to talk about apersonal algorithm, those things
that work for you.
(09:23):
So we provide a whole slew ofthings you should consider to
build a bit of a environmentaround that, start, with your
partner, start to think about,okay, when are we targeting
bedtime?
When are we targeting andgetting up?
How are we maintaining the roomtemperature?
Okay.
When do we put our computersaway?
How are we holding each otheraccountable?
Not to doing that and creating abit of an environment that is
(09:44):
conducive to behavior change,because we all know behavior
change is hard, especially whenyou have habits born of many
decades.
If you can surround yourselfwith these things that help
goosh you to what we call babysteps, changing behaviors and
baby steps, we think you getthere.
I like it.
Yeah, go ahead.
The other thing, make your bedwonderfully comfortable, however
(10:07):
much you have to spend on it.
You're in that thing for a thirdof your life.
So get excellent pillows, get asuper luxurious mattress topper,
sheets that make you feel likeyou're back in the womb.
We're trying a weighted blanketright now which is, it's showing
some promising studies forpeople who need to feel
(10:27):
Comforted when they're in bed.
So do whatever you need to do tomake that space.
Fantastic.
And something to look forwardto.
Oh, I love it.
I just ordered a couple of daysago.
It should come today fromAmazon.
This really smooshy bed,whatever you call it, mattress
cover that I think into, and Ican't wait for it.
I'm like ha, can't wait.
Yeah.
(10:48):
And like a, an expensive duvetis so it's fluffy and cozy and
keeps you warm enough, but coolenough.
Just magical.
And some pillows, like lave,lavender, pillow sprays, all the
sleep ex experts that weresearch and look through.
They say the bed's for twothings.
(11:09):
One of those is for sleep.
The other is not your computeror your phone or any blue light
source.
Or TikTok.
Yeah.
Or TikTok.
Yes.
Okay.
That sounds great.
I'm just taking a bunch of notesand just imagining, oh, man.
I could upgrade my duvet too andjust have this really like sink
into delightful experience.
(11:31):
I could buy some, I hate thesmell of lavender, reminds me of
when I was pregnant, but I couldfind some other smell that just
sounds heavenly.
Okay.
And then last thing about sleep,cause this is the most
important, so I'm totally finediving deep into just a couple
of these instead of going,trying to hit all 12, but let's
dig deep into the sleep data.
So I had this.
On my wrist all the time aswell.
(11:51):
What do you guys look for?
What do you track?
What are you looking for?
What are the goals there withsleep data?
Number one, what we care aboutmost is restful sleep.
So that's going to be thecombination of deep wave sleep
and REM.
We, overall is the amount oftime that you were sleeping
restful sleep.
We consider most important.
(12:12):
That's the data point.
We share every morning heartrate.
Variability.
Super interesting.
And heart rate is the other 1and what we really like to do is
think about what we did theevening before.
And see how that impacts all ofthese things.
What time did we eat?
What did we eat?
What time did we go to bed?
(12:33):
And what else was going on?
So what kind of numbers are youlooking at?
And what have you noticed aboutthe activity the night before or
the meals the night before?
How does that affect heart rateor your heart rate variability?
For sure, carbs, carbs andalcohol close to bedtime drive
the heart rate up.
Really?
Yes.
(12:54):
Yes, so if we eat earlier, if weeat fewer carbs and moderate
alcohol consumption, our heartrates are lower and also our key
measure is the 8 hours of totalsleep, 5 and a half of restful.
(13:15):
But that heart, the heart rate,Christine mentioned the,
drinking red wine on theoccasion.
For personal experience, anyoccasion where I've had some red
wine later in the day my heartrate throughout the evening will
have be an average of 10 beatsper minute higher.
Really?
How about tequila?
Is it just red wine or is it anyalcohol?
(13:38):
We haven't done a completestudy.
Okay.
That's so fascinating.
Okay.
And then the variability, whatare you looking for in the
variability?
It's the higher, the better.
So my numbers tend to be around20 Roberts tend to be more in
the 40s higher, the better onthat 1.
(13:59):
and then on restful.
Our personal goals are 8 hoursof total sleep and 5 and a half
hours of restful and, I willtell you, we if we get less than
5.
We feel it.
If we get anything more thanfive and a half, we wake up
feeling pretty great.
Usually unless we're still insome kind of jet lag funk,
(14:19):
anything like occasionally I'vegotten seven hours of restful
sleep and you just.
Wake up feeling like a newborn.
It's unbelievable.
We've got in the womb with ourbed, we've got waking up like
newborns, lots of baby, lots ofyoung, very youthful, not just
like in your twenties.
We're going all the way back tothat's right.
And the other thing I'll mentionis, we say living better in the
(14:42):
later years and every week wesign off, we said.
Equates to behaving better inthe earlier years.
So our audiences, older folks,like the 2 of us started to
evolve and manage our livesbetter, but it's amazing how our
message resonates with youngerpeople because they have a
(15:03):
longer runway.
So they get a higher return oninvestment.
Any behavior or habit they formthat is healthier.
And just this last weekend, wehad a brother and a friend over
and, it was amazing to me howespecially the young person was
incorporating this feedback onsleep and how focused the person
is on this.
(15:24):
And it even had a relativelyyoung age, really focused on
getting that right and changinghis behaviors in the earlier
years.
Again, with that long runway.
I like it.
Okay, so there's sleep.
Let's dive into whatever pillar,mostly closely match mostly
closely.
Sure.
Matches what my husband isstruggling with, which is my
(15:48):
body is degenerating.
It is.
It's part of life.
How do I modify my life aroundthat without just stopping
activity entirely and gettingdepressed about it?
Yeah, so maybe I'll jump in herewith our key.
Number four is all about stayingfit and growing stronger.
And as you mentioned yourhusband, 1 of those things
that's become a ha moment as youget older, 60 70 80 90 building
(16:15):
muscle was a presumption thatnot important.
It's going to go away.
You can't use it, but it'sbecoming increasingly important.
And the notion of buildingmuscle, so for, I'll say senior
citizens actually doingweightlifting dumbbells or body
exercises, pull ups, push ups,the things that grow muscle
squats, those type of exercises,increasingly important for a
(16:38):
variety of reasons strength andnot, of course, not the least of
which means balance.
So that is a real focus area nowas you go after that.
So it's one, it's good to have amindset that says, as you get
older, you need to be moreactive, not less because in your
twenties, we all start veryactively.
We're all running around crazy.
(16:59):
You go into a long period in the30 to 40s, early 50s.
But then as you get older, somepeople say that all starts to go
to zero.
You actually need to think aboutthe opposite.
You need to play a lot more, bevery active.
And to do things like buildingmuscle.
Now things arise that can chipaway at that capability.
(17:19):
In a personal example I'vehistorically been a fiend about
pushups and I got to the pointwhere one of my wrists, I just,
I strained it just by virtue ofthat.
That angle, the 90 degrees angleyou do using pushups and I've
had to go through a differentbut it's prompt initially I was
a bit sad and depressed if youwill for a little bit about,
(17:41):
this, I can't not do pushups.
How do I go about this.
Obviously I went to medicalscreening.
I've got some, little weightexercises, little dumbbells that
I think are ridiculously small,but I do enough of them per the
doctor's orders to get my wristback.
But to me, what was importantwas finding an alternative where
I could still build thosemuscles and not let them decay.
(18:04):
And as an example I've learnedhow to do, I get myself a rubber
mat and I put my hands in a fistand I do my pushups.
On fists, which allow my thewrist and the fist to be
straight and takes away thepain.
Besides building up the riskmuscle, and we're trying to
recover that.
Finding alternative means tobuild muscles and do other
(18:26):
things.
That's a life can sometimesprohibit you from doing.
I think that alternativemindset, you can't give up as
soon as you throw in the towel.
The games starts to get oververy quickly.
Yeah, and things take so long toheal as you get older as well.
And so if you're like I'll justwait for this to heal your 6, 9
months down the road.
Then you're out of the habitthat you to build up from ground
(18:47):
0.
yeah, I had a similar example.
I was trying to, I was trying todevelop enough strength to be
able to do a pull up.
Wow.
Those are hard.
Yes.
They're super hard.
And so some, I did something tomy tricep tendon and it just
became not worth it.
I was like, I really wanted tolearn how to do a pull up.
I thought that Linda Hamiltonand the Terminator was awesome.
(19:11):
But when my tricep gave out andthen all, now I can do fewer
things.
So I gave up the dream on pullups and just.
I figured out other that'll justnot be in my cards but I figured
out other weightliftingexercises I could do to build up
the area without being able toshow off my accomplishment of
(19:33):
doing a pull up, doing a pullup.
I like that.
So find an alternative.
So do you guys think as we age,we'll all just, and I love the
advice, first of all, as you getolder, you need more.
Activity rather than less, doyou think we'll all just end up
as swimmers?
Is that the end goal for all ofus?
Because all of our joints willbe falling apart.
I think swimming is wonderful.
I do think it needs to be anexercise though, because I've
(19:55):
seen swimming that is, peoplecan equate swimming with hanging
out, it means not just gettingthem out of the pool waiting,
but it's real exercise.
And obviously it helps the, whatI love about swimming is yes,
it's cardio.
There is a peace of mind thatgoes with it.
So it's because it's incrediblyquiet.
(20:17):
It's also something that canevolve over time.
And I'll give you an example.
I had a friend of mine whorecommended getting these little
swim gloves.
And initially I was like that's,I'm trying to get cardio.
I'm trying to be relaxed andwhatnot.
And then I tried these things 1time because he prompted me the
3rd time and I said, okay, I'mgoing to give it a run.
And I was amazed that when Ifound it, it was great for your
(20:40):
muscles because you have justobviously increased resistance.
And so it took that swimmingexercise to a new level.
Not only was it cardio, not onlywas it peaceful, but I could
feel a better shoulder workout,better upper body workout.
And then I took the next stepsand got the little miniature
swim fins.
So now as you're doing it,you're getting back, stomach,
(21:01):
leg exercises.
So it was just taking that same30 minutes of pool exercise
doing laps back and forth andadding a strength mechanism to
it.
It's just, trying to alwaysalter something that makes it a
little better, a little moreholistic.
I love this.
The whole idea behind all thesestories just makes me think,
okay.
It just expands your mind alittle bit into I like the word
(21:24):
alternative instead of I can't,or I'll have to wait.
It's how can I, and it makes usmove into a place of curiosity
instead of depression of, Ican't, I like that.
Anything else Christine, did youhave anything to say on that?
Yeah.
I really advocate having a setof adjustable dumbbells at home.
And I have a long history ofdoing yoga.
(21:45):
And I've.
I believe there are manywonderful things about yoga.
And so I would never, I wouldalways encourage people to try
different versions of yoga, butfor me, so I have an adjustable
set of dumbbells and I alternatestrength routines on 3 days 1
day.
I do 9 or 11 arm exercises.
(22:06):
1 day to 9 leg exercises andthen 1 day to 15 core exercises.
What I like about it is you cando it.
It doesn't take a ton of time.
I'm not cluttering up the housewith a lot of equipment.
I don't have to go to a gym or apool.
So I love the approach abilityand flexibility of it and it's
(22:26):
super impactful.
It's only I started with 9 armexercises.
I'm now up to 11 because I threwin push ups to 2 forms of push
ups.
But I feel like that small setof strength training is really
gets all my key areas and I canboth feel and see a difference.
(22:48):
That's nice.
That's really good encouragementfor me.
I go back and forth betweenbeing a gym girl and a yoga girl
right now.
I'm yoga girl.
And I miss the gym, but I don'tlike the bulk because I do bulk
up pretty good.
And I get some muscles, and thenI'm like, wow, I look like a
man.
Let's go back to yoga.
So I'm like back and forth.
So recently I've been thinking,am I ready to go to the gym
again?
Maybe I can just do both and dothe gym really light, and do the
(23:11):
three times a week with arms,legs, and abs.
Once a week on arms and legs,that's good enough.
I shoot for twice, but look, theway I view it is once, once
we'll absolutely, you'll feel itthe next day guaranteed.
And you give your body enoughtime to rest.
So I, it, when we're traveling,I do once when we're home, it's
(23:36):
more like twice depending onschedule.
When do you break up arms andlegs or just do a.
You do arms one day, legs oneday, core the third day.
That's my rotation.
Nice.
Nice.
Okay.
I want to comment on somethingyou said.
Yeah, go ahead.
You talked about going from, ayoga girl to gym girl, back and
(23:56):
forth.
I wouldn't write that off asbeing fickle.
I think that's good.
Your ability to evolve and tweakand adjust over time, especially
as.
Things change with time are veryimportant.
I know some people that do thesame thing over and over and
over and over again.
You create some vulnerabilitieswhen you do that.
(24:17):
We believe in throwing differentthings at your body.
Throwing different things totomatoes, Sorry, don't keep
going.
No, it's good.
No, but stimulating your body indifferent ways.
So I think alternating betweenactivities like that is super.
And for those of you who arelistening to this and not
watching it, Robert andChristine are in incredible
(24:38):
shape.
Like they're fully dressed.
Obviously, you can only see himfrom the neck up.
You can tell even in yourjacket, Robert, that you're
super built.
Christine, you look super.
Fabulous.
Like these are healthy peopleand they're looking good.
Just a little clarity there.
Okay.
So step two of your 13 steps or12 steps is sleep.
Step four is staying fit andgrowing stronger.
(25:01):
Which one do you guys want to goto next?
Oh, I'm a big fan of numberthree, which is enjoy healthy
eating.
So it tends to be a topic peoplelove.
Let's dive in so this is another1 where we, it's so easy to be
confused by, as fat good as fat,bad or carbs, good or carbs bad.
(25:21):
Do you want to eat fruit is allsugar bad.
And so we just, we do a ton ofreading a ton of listening to
other people on these subjects.
And so I would say 1 of thethings that made a difference
for me is, try to diversify thenumber of plant products that
you eat.
(25:42):
So I listened to a podcast wherea nutritionist just really
dumbed down all the nutritioninformation and, there's no 1 in
the world who says eatingvegetables is bad.
That's like a universally agreedthing.
And so we really.
Try now to diversify the numberof plant products that we eat.
(26:03):
This lady suggested a goal of 30in a week, which can sound wow,
which can sound untenable, butyou count olive oil, you each
herb counts, pepper counts eachplant and each part of each
plant.
So if you eat a broccoli, flowerand a broccoli stem.
That's two because it's adifferent part of a plant.
(26:23):
That may seem like cheating, butwhat are you going for?
You're going for two thingsdiversity in nutrients and
different parts of plants havedifferent nutrients.
And you're also trying tominimize concentration of toxins
because all plants containtoxins that are intended to ward
off pests.
And again, the different partsof plants contain different
(26:45):
toxins.
For us, that was really easy.
We try to I used to just havebroccoli every day and I figured
you can't get better thanbroccoli.
So I loaded up on it.
But now we try to have it bemore diverse throughout the day
and throughout the week.
So how do you do your shopping?
Then do you do meal planning?
What do you do?
What does that look like for youguys?
(27:08):
So I, I get a farm box that'sdelivered every Friday.
And so I've got to plan my mealsa week in advance.
So I know what to get in thefarm box and then how to what to
supplement with at the grocerystore.
We're lucky to live inCalifornia where there's all
kinds of, fresh food available,locally grown stuff.
The other thing is try to buywhen you can.
(27:31):
When the price is okay buyorganic and as locally produced
as possible.
Things that are imported from along way will probably be on the
shelf for a long time, losingnutrients.
But so yeah, we do our mealplanning in advance.
And I think one other thing toemphasize here is we say, enjoy
healthy eating.
We're not on diets.
(27:51):
We love food.
It is.
Behind sleep, it's the number 1thing I get excited about.
We really make food yummy, butwe just try to use real foods,
whole ingredients, make stuff byscratch.
We don't buy a lot unlesseverything on the label is
perfect.
We don't buy sauces orcondiments.
(28:13):
If there's 1 ingredient in it, Idon't like, I won't buy it and
I'll learn how to make it.
No, that's pretty cool.
So you're doing meal planningthen.
And then do you intentionallysay, okay, 30, 30 different
kinds of, vegetables are goingto be every week.
Is that kind of how it playsout?
I don't count them in advance.
I just try to, I just try tomake sure I have a good mix.
(28:36):
And then I'll in certain meals,like if I make a vegetable soup,
I want to know how many are inthere.
So when I'm trying to load ameal up with vegetables, I like
to just tally him up to see howwell I'm doing.
But really, if all you do is eatdifferent stuff every day and
try to be adventurous,especially with vegetables
(28:56):
you'll you don't have to make ita mathematic or mathematical or
rigorous exercise.
But, yeah, we don't come everyweek.
Obviously, that'd be a bit overthe top.
However, when the concept didcome in, she went for the next
2, 3, 4, 5, 6 weeks.
She was counting diligently.
Every week just to get to thatmagic 30 points or more at
(29:20):
times.
And that way, and that is not asustainable practice, if you
will.
And again, over the top, but itdid expand our diet expanded.
It changed our shopping habits.
And so it modified behavior.
So doing that for a while,something with calorie counting,
(29:41):
right?
It's not something I don't thinkyou can do every day with the
calculator.
But doing it for a period oftime, which is one of the, in
the keys we recommend helps youget a better grip on what foods
you're eating, which ones youget a lot of nutrition from at
low calorie, which ones are highcalorie.
(30:02):
And then on the flip side, fromthe state, stay fit and grow
stronger.
It helps you credibly count.
How many calories you're reallyburning off or not burning off
when you're exercising, becausethere's a natural tendency to to
re to underestimate the caloriesin food and overestimate the
calories you're burning off whenyou're exercising.
(30:23):
What's so interesting is I live,half, maybe third to half in
Costa Rica and the third to halfhere is how different the entire
lifestyle is.
When I come back from.
A month or two there, and I'mback here, I'm like, Oh, my
gosh, no wonder Americans are sobig.
The food here, first of all, isdelicious.
(30:44):
I don't even, I don't care whoyou are.
Fast food is delicious.
You guys like it.
Oh, it actually is.
And it's every meal that you'reserved is huge and rich and just
tastes so dang good.
And then in Costa Rica.
You have to cook some food, youhave to actually make everything
that goes into your, in yourbody and you're not just sitting
(31:05):
in a car, you're walking aroundconstantly all day long.
And so I came back here and Ihave a friend who's really
struggling to lose weight andI'm like, sweetie, I don't even
know how we lose weight in thiscountry.
This is insane.
We just sit on our butts all dayand there's food everywhere.
So it really is a lifestylething.
Yeah, for sure.
(31:26):
That's my little tirade.
My tirade on how difficult it isto eat well in the U.
S.
compared to other cultures.
All right, we've got time for 1more.
What is your last pillar thatyou guys want to do?
So let's again our keys rangefrom 1 to 12.
And those keys, we pop, wepublish those.
Every year on the same day, the1st of each month we start with
(31:49):
plan your year right beginning.
So January 1st, we move to keysto 3 and 4 and the 1st of
February, March and April everyyear.
And then we move into on 5, welearn more 6 improve
productivity.
7 grow emotional resilience.
8 engage positively with others9 prevent disease and illness.
(32:12):
10 is avoid addiction 11 createpeace of mind through
contingency planning and 12assess your year.
And we cycle through those 12every year again, published on
the 1st of the month, so that wetake people through this
continuing improvement model forMay, just to go to the next key.
We've we just finished.
(32:32):
We're finishing up, but learnmore once you have a foundation
of sleeping, eating well, andstaying fit and growing
stronger.
It creates a foundation.
For improved productivity,improved mental capabilities and
improved emotional resilience.
So that number five is learnmore.
And one of the ones I think weappreciate is we just wrote an
article about dueling is ourapplication of choice to learn a
(32:57):
second language.
Because we deal with people allacross the world in our on our
daily work lives, 80, 90% ofthem all can operate in a second
language, that being English.
And many have more than that.
And you can just tell they,their brains and their
communication skills aredifferent than someone's like
(33:19):
ourselves who have been a singlelanguage for the rest, most of
their lives.
I used to consider being anEnglish speaker an advantage.
Now, I considered adisadvantage.
Wow.
One of the things we've beendoing now is using Duolingo to
improve our Spanish and toactually make that a second
language.
And it has been incredibly hardor, but.
(33:43):
I can tell my brain is changing.
In fact, I entitled the articlefracking your brain because
you're trying to create newpathways in your brain.
And that duolingo is a very goodapplication.
It goes at you several differentways and leads you along and
taunts you along the way.
So very helpful.
I'm practicing my Spanish too,obviously in Costa Rica, but
(34:06):
when I'm here in the U S I liketo watch like Spanish
telenovelas and I sit there withmy book, writing down all the
words that I don't know.
And I put it on Spanish,obviously they're speaking
Spanish.
And then I put Spanish tubtitles too.
And I expand my vocabulary.
I've learned quite the spicyvocabulary lately.
I'm like, wow, I can now saythat in Spanish.
(34:27):
Spanish.
So that's also been a fun way.
But I really enjoy learninglanguages as well.
Really fun.
Awesome.
Yeah, go ahead.
And traveling, to put thatlanguage to use.
We think travel.
Is perhaps an underappreciatedway to learn more in terms of
language, culture food, like yousaid, art, history, everything I
(34:52):
agree.
Oh, don't you love travel?
It's amazing.
Any last words of advice fromyou guys before you tell us all
about your program and what youcan give away today?
Yeah I'll start it and then I'llpass it to Christine just some
final words, but, We built thesekeys and again, we don't
(35:15):
consider ourselves experts inthese areas.
We consider ourselves lifepractitioners and we just be
comprehensively collecting thesethings, organizing these keys
and all the content within andthen systematically providing
for people to go on thiscontinuous journey of self
improvement over time.
And as you, of course, you getolder, it's compensation for the
(35:36):
life, the natural life forcesthat kind of drag you down, if
you will.
So it's always a buildingyourself up to offset those
degrading forces.
We also like it and justrecently, it's really dawned on
me that the at times life isvery tough and can throw you
some curve balls and you have togo through some very difficult
times.
And I've seen this with peopletrying to survive some of those
(35:59):
tough times.
These keys are also are awonderful tool to help in that
recovery.
And you have to deal with, youhave to deal with, but to get
yourself back on your feet.
Sleep well, eat better stay fitand grow stronger, start to
learn more, prove yourproductivity, grow emotional
resilience, then build someengage a positive with others
(36:19):
and then build some contingency.
If you follow this, you can helpit helps in that recovery
process too.
I just think it's a wonderfulway to.
Develop your own personalalgorithm, your collection
stuff, the best practices thatwill guide you to a higher
place.
Very well said.
I love it.
And Christine, will you talk tous about can you start middle of
(36:40):
the year?
Do you have to wait tillJanuary?
I love the structure of that.
How is it delivered?
Is it like a email program?
Is it written?
How do you go through theprogram?
You guys frozen here?
You're frozen on my end.
Let me wait just a minute and wecan edit this out.
(37:00):
Okay.
This is 1215.
Tell me when you guys can hearme again or see me.
Can you hear me and see me?
(37:26):
Try, if you can hear me, tryexiting and coming back and we
can edit this no problem.
So if you can hear me, let metry to text you as well.
Oh, you just did.
Okay.
(38:31):
Hopefully, we're back.
You're I think you're muted, butI can see you moving.
So it looks like, okay, we'regood.
Yay.
All right.
That was weird.
Let's just jump straight backin.
So we'll just edit out to thatpoint.
Okay, here we go.
Christine, tell us about theprogram.
Do you have to start in January?
Does it can you start mid year?
Is it delivered via email?
(38:53):
Is it a book?
Tell us about how we can getstarted with your program.
Okay, we suggest going to ourwebsite, which is living better
in the later years dot com.
So living better in the lateryears dot com there, you can
sign up for our email list andyou will get the keys by email
every month.
In addition, you'll get articlesevery week that focus on the key
(39:17):
for that month.
And the website itself has quitea bit of content.
You can surf around on and alsoby signing up for the email.
So all our stuff's free.
In addition to the content, allbeing free you get there, we do
a monthly drawing for ourproduct, which is called the
survivor guide.
And we don't spend a lot of timepeddling this product, but we
(39:40):
consider it really important.
It is something.
That, given that you've done.
All of the things that wesuggest still, you're going to
come to an end sometime and itis basically a planning system.
So that the people you leavebehind don't have to struggle to
go through your affairs andthat's the 1 product right now
that we're that we actuallysell.
(40:02):
We're working on some others.
Everything else is free.
And the survivor guide, is thata book or what kind of product
is that right?
Right now?
It's a physical binder withinserts in it.
And so it just helps youorganize all of the information
that people are going tostruggle with if you don't, if
(40:23):
you don't put it together forthem, we like the binder because
you can show someone where itis.
Tell them that's where it is.
It's pretty old school, but,they don't need a password or a
gateway or any magic to gothrough it.
We are working on.
We are working on online contentthough, because we realize that
the younger generation is goingto be less enthused about a
(40:45):
physical product and perhapsgoing to want to have it online.
I don't know.
I think we're, I think there's abig trend towards physical in
your hand again for things thatare considered more like fun or
meaningful, the day to day isonline.
I don't know.
There's a trend there.
Yeah, I agree with that kind ofthrowback trend, but we are, by
the end of the year, we'll havethe electronic online version,
(41:08):
which somebody can do.
Just online, totally with thecomputer.
And we're also developing aworkbook type approach where you
can get from Amazon, just thebook, and then you can fill out
the pages and then put in yourown binder.
So you'll have three differentcost points and three different
approaches.
You can take the best fit,whatever lifestyle.
Really nice.
And I love that all your keysare free.
(41:30):
Give us your website one moretime.
Living better.
In the later years dot com.
Perfect.
All right.
So thank you so much for beingon here.
That's a great information thatyou shared as we wrap things up,
reminded that the goal of thispodcast is to instill wellness
habits into your daily life tobuild a life beyond.
(41:52):
It's fine.
Let's achieve spectacular,joyful, and deeply satisfying.
Even in your later years, ourgiveaway from our sponsor
retreat works, there's a freelive masterclass trained by
yours.
Truly if you are a life coach, abusiness coach, or have a
wellness business, learn thesystem to add a high end retreat
to your business and bring in anextra 50 K in sales.
(42:13):
Every single time you host aretreat, even if you don't have
a following.
So go to retreat.
works and register for the freemasterclass.
It's called five days to build aretreat.
Thank you so much for joining usRobert and Christine again, have
a wonderful day.
And thanks, thank you to ourlisteners in advance for giving
us a positive review.
(42:34):
Thanks everyone.
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Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.