Centenarians in the News

Action to take

Let centenarian role models inspire a no limits outlook on aging.

Why

What does every golfer want? A hole in one.
102-year-old Elsie McLean got one on a 96 yard par three.
See article and video of interview with her. 

At 99, retired brick layer Richard Hubbard loved bowling but found his game
was deteriorating. That prompted him to see a doctor who diagnosed
calcified heart valves. He had heart surgery at 100 and is eager to get back to bowling.

At 104 Phillip Rabinowitz set a new seniors 100 yard dash record
at 30.86 seconds. While this is far short of the any age world record at 9.74seconds,
I doubt if many teenagers could keep up with him. A few months later
Mr. Rabinowitz died from a stroke in February 2008. He is a great example
of what I call an “Energizer Bunny and alkaline batteries.” While regular batteries
gradually wear out, alkaline batteries give a steady energy level, last a lot longer, 
and die quickly.

The Pekin Times reports that a Havana, Illinois church now has a centenarian club
for member 100+ years old. It currently has two members and another due to join in July 2008.

With elections in the news, articles on centenarians keep popping up.
For example, 106-year-old Anna French couldn’t vote when she was 18.
She had to wait for the 19th Constitutional amendment to give American women the
right to vote in 1920. Regarding Hillary Clinton she said, “If a woman is
smart enough to put herself in that position, she’s smart enough to gt my vote.”

Just for fun, there is the story of how Girl Scout cookies saved a centenarian’s life.
Ten years ago, Rebecca Preston’s daughter bought a box of Thin Mints cookies for
her mother but kept forgetting to deliver them. So they sat in the freezer for ten
years. She asked a friend to deliver them and when Mrs. Preston did not answer
the door, he investigated and found her so ill she could not even get to the phone.
He called an ambulance and now 104-year-old Mrs. Preston is healthy again–and
credits a box of Thin Mints cookies.

Quotes

It gives me great pleasure to converse with the aged.
They have been over the road that all of us must travel
and know where it is rough and difficult and where it is level and easy.
~Plato

Humor

Reporter to centenarian, “Of what are you most proud?”
Centenarian: I’ve lived 100 years and haven’t an enemy in the world.”
Reporter: “Truly inspirational!”
Centenarian: “Yep, I’ve outlived every last one of them!”

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Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey is keynote speaker and author of the Oprah-featured book, Defy Aging and 52 baby steps to Grow Young. The books and his Reverse Aging anti-aging hypnosis CDs comprise his anti-aging system.

Accessing Your Strengths

Action to take

When you need to get something done, remind yourself of the strengths
you have already shown.

Why

I saw a woman who told me she grew up in an alcoholic family and became
an alcoholic herself. Eventually she did something “beneath her dignity”
and was so disgusted she quit drinking the next day.
A decade later, she was a three-pack-a-day smoker despite emphysema.
One day she was smoking and fell asleep. The cigarette fell on her
oxygen tube and her house burned down. She quit smoking the next day.

Now her health problems are complicating her recovering from a fall.
It was clear to both of us that to have a quality of lifestyle that would
let her walk easily, she needed to lose at least fifty pounds.
“But I tried all my life to lose weight and have never been successful,”
she lamented. She was feeling very hopeless.

Alcoholism, particularly when there is a strong family history,
is a tough addiction to beat. In my opinion, smoking is even harder to beat
than heroin or alcoholism. Hollywood glamorized smoking.
Until recently you could smoke almost anywhere and smoking became associated
with everything–to start the day, while working, to take a break, to socialize,
after a meal, with coffee, with alcohol, after sex, etc. For heavy smokers
few activities or events didn’t include a cigarette. Only recently has
smoking been limited in the workplace and public accommodations.

So I talked with her about how she has already singled-handedly, beaten
two of the most difficult additions. You could see a physical shift.
“I have never thought of it that way. No one has ever put it that way,”
she said. Instantly she was empowered and feeling hopeful.
We then talked about the nitty gritty of what weight loss strategies would
work for her.

The formula is 1-2-3:
1. Think of two or three of your biggest accomplishments in life. Think about how if you can do that you can do anything.
2. Think of why you must make this change (leverage). Post the reasons where you will see them everyday.
3. Plan the details of how you will achieve the goal.

What are you wanting to do that seems impossible (or just doesn’t seem to happen)?
Whether the challenge is a small one like getting yourself to exercise today,
or a big one like losing fifty pounds, accessing your strengths gets you in a can-do
state of mind.

Quotes

Continuous effort–not strength or intelligence–is the key to unlocking our potential.
~Winston Churchill
What’s past is prologue.
~William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act II, scene 2

The inscription “What is Past is Prologue” is also on the National Archives Building.
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas was riding in a Washington
cab once, pondering out loud what the quote meant. The cabbie chimed in,
“It means you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

Humor

The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body.
Thus only left handed people are in their right mind.

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Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey is keynote speaker and author of the Oprah-featured book, Defy Aging and 52 baby steps to Grow Young. The books and his Reverse Aging anti-aging hypnosis CDs comprise his anti-aging system.

Aging Can Help Your EQ

Action to take

If you know more, have more savvy, and are more effective
than you were years ago, give yourself credit for having a higher EQ.

Why

Pat Nicolino, a corporate consultant friend, was catching me up on
what had happened since I saw her in September. In short, she is having
great success at turning around yet another company and has
never felt better or enjoyed herself more.

“I’m 56 now and I have 20 more EQ points than when I was 36,”
she said with exuberance. “At 36 I would have been clueless
about how to accomplish things that I now do with ease.”
Everyone knows what IQ is. EQ, she explained, is knowing how
to get things done and doing them.

I love it. As you get older your experiences and new learning build on each other.
Do you have more confidence than you did twenty years ago? Do you
know more about how organizations work and how to work with people?
Have you learned a lot of new skills in the last twenty years?
If so, give yourself credit for a higher EQ (Experience Quotient).

I would suggest that at 18 the average IQ and EQ is 100. If you are
continually learning and growing, give yourself credit for an additional
EQ point each year since age 18. If you have gone back to school,
learned a new career, or have had other intense learning experiences,
give yourself extra credit.

After the insight, I realized there is a lot of overlap between experience quotient
and Dr. Daniel Goleman’s emotional intelligence and his eventual use of
EQ for emotional intelligence. The broad skills he describes for emotional
intelligence have a lot of overlap with experience quotient. The difference is
an emphasis on having social intelligence vs. those skills getting better with experience.
Why is considering your EQ important? Psychology and medicine
have painted a negative picture of declining skills as we age.
Your EQ reminds you that you have grown, and are getting sharper with age.
No disrespect to my teenage children, but would you really want to go back
to the mind you had at 18? Neither would I. So what’s your EQ?

Quotes

Many people think you have to be very intelligent to be successful in life.
Exhaustive research shows that many self-made millionaires have only average intelligence.
~Brian Tracy

Continuous effort–not strength or intelligence–is the key to unlocking our potential.
~Winston Churchill

Humor

America is the only country where it takes more brains to
fill out the tax forms than it does to make the money.

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Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey is keynote speaker and author of the Oprah-featured book, Defy Aging and 52 baby steps to Grow Young. The books and his Reverse Aging anti-aging hypnosis CDs comprise his anti-aging system.

Centenarian Heroes

Action to take

Forget Superman and Beckman. Choose remarkable centenarians as role models. Here are four who recently made the news:

Why

At 104 R. Waldo McBurney maintains a downtown office in Quinter Kansas where he sells honey from his 199 colony of bee hives. He still competes in several track events in the Senior Olympics. In 2004 he came out with his first book,
My First 100 Years.

The mysterious decline in bee populations is causing an agricultural crisis. Bees not only produce honey, they pollinate flowers and plants. Diagnosing the problem may come from a young scientist. Or it may come from 101-year-old beekeeper Wendell Cummings. He has kept bees since he was a child. Several years ago he downsized his honey business. He still does a lot of observing and thinking about bees. He believes he the mysterious decline in the bee populations is due to a new strain of beetles from South America. Scientists are seriously studying his theory.

Centenarian Kathryn Davis could have spent her millions self-indulgently. Instead she donated $20 million for clean up and conservation along the Hudson River where she still loves to kayak. Her “1000 Projects for Peace” scholarships awarded $10,000 scholarships to undergraduates who develop and implement grassroots ideas for peace. She also has funded several projects to study Russian language and culture.

Jose “El Nino” Temprana was a Cuban sponge diver and lobster fisherman. He left Cuba in 1994 after spending thirty years in a Cuban prison for opposing Fidel Castro. At 105 he achieved a dream he has had since prison He became an American citizen. He still enjoys gardening and socializing with lots of friends.

Quotes

We don’t get to choose our parents, but we select our lifestyles.
~ R. Waldo McBurney, 104 year old beekeeper and fitness advocate,

I love the thought of people enjoying the river, sailing, kayaking, hiking.
~Kathryn Wasserman Davis, philanthropist

Humor

I was always taught to respect my elders and I’ve now reached the age when I don’t have anybody to respect.
~George Burns

If you live to be one hundred, you’ve got it made. Very few people die past that age.
~George Burns

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Anti-Aging Psychologist Dr. Michael Brickey is keynote speaker and author of the Oprah-featured book, Defy Aging and 52 baby steps to Grow Young. The books and his Reverse Aging anti-aging hypnosis CDs comprise his anti-aging system.