Author, Scott Fulton on his New Book WhealthSpan: More Years, More Moments, More Money

Scott Fulton, an expert in health and housing, discusses his book 'WealthSpan' and the key factors for aging well.

He emphasizes the importance of asking the right questions and designing a framework for health and wealth based on individual values.

The conversation covers topics such as diet, activity, cognitive health, and the impact of lifestyle on aging.

Scott provides insights into preserving health, wealth, and independence as we age.

The conversation covers a range of topics related to aging, health, and well-being. It delves into the importance of diet, exercise, community, and social engagement in aging well.

Additionally, it explores the future of housing and community design for aging in place. Scott Fulton, the president of the National Aging in Place Council, shares valuable insights and perspectives on these topics.

Takeaways

Asking the right questions is essential for designing a framework for health and wealth based on individual values.

Preserving health, wealth, and independence as we age requires a holistic approach that includes diet, activity, and cognitive health.

The impact of lifestyle choices on aging, including the role of diet and exercise, is crucial for maintaining overall well-being.

Understanding the association between cognitive health and cardiovascular health is important for insulating oneself from deterioration in this area.

Chapters

00:00 Insulating Ourselves from Cognitive Deterioration

28:14 The Pillars of Aging Well: Diet, Exercise, and Community

32:16 The Impact of Social Engagement on Health

36:26 The Future of Aging in Place: Housing and Community Design

Buy Scott's Book: Amazon.com: WHEALTHSPAN: More Years, More Moments, More Money: 9798990275904: Fulton, Scott: Books

Transcript

Janet Engel (00:02.129)
Hello everyone. And today our guest is Scott Fulton. He is at the dynamic intersection of health and housing and frequently speaks to the future of both given they are so intimately connected. He is an innovative thought leader in aging well with unique insights into the aging experience and extending health span, wealth and resilience. Fulton.

authored Amazon's number one new release, Wealth Span, which was just released on May 21st, and it is based on outcomes of 55 million people over 90 years. He has also co -authored multiple books on aging well. He hosts the Wealth Span Longevity Podcast and made guest appearances on many shows. He is regarded as a systems thinker.

Scott draws on diverse research and business roles in multinational corporations to address the big challenges we face as aging individuals and societies. Scaling innovation and change have been the constants across his career. Fulton walks the talk with a passion for endurance sports. Scott has completed multiple athletic challenges from death raising,

To Ironman Triathlons, life is an endurance multi -sport. Daily habits, planning, and execution produce predictable results. Scott, thank you for being with us today. And I wanted to mention some of your current roles as you are the president of Home Ideations. You are also the president of the National Aging in Place Council.

You are a member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, council member of True Health Initiative, board member of Proprion Therapeutics, and a lecturer at the University of Virginia and University of Delaware. Thank you for being with us today, Scott.

Scott Fulton (02:18.4)
Thank you, Janet, sorry for the long intro. It does provide a flavor of the number of hats I wear in any given hour of the day. So it's relevant and it's fun, which life should be fun. You find the places you enjoy. I just happen to enjoy a lot of different things.

Janet Engel (02:19.729)
I don't know.

Janet Engel (02:33.808)
Yes.

Janet Engel (02:43.441)
Yes, well long and impressive. So Scott, tell me about your book that you just released last week, Welfs Man. Can you give us an overview of your book and what inspired you to write it?

Scott Fulton (02:58.958)
Sure, I'll give you that. That's actually the proof copy. I don't have the finished copies. Other people do. Mine haven't come in yet. The inspiration from the book really came out of teaching. So I teach adults and essentially it started out teaching adults about aging in place and then it quickly morphed into issues around health and longevity around the questions that they were asking.

Janet Engel (03:06.417)
Okay.

Scott Fulton (03:27.086)
And when we think about aging in place, just to kind of anchor that point, it's really the environmental piece or the home environment, which is much part of the much bigger picture, which is why the health and home come together. So it really came out of a number of years of teaching adults and the kind of questions that they were asking. And...

And I would say that my students, what's maybe unique, because I teach in university settings, they by and large tend to be professionals. And they, like all of us, myself included, had serious, had or have serious gaps in their understanding, partly because we never got that education in school. It just wasn't available to us. Still not taught particularly well to kids.

But also, you know, there is, you know, over the last 10 and 20 years, there's been a lot of new information come out that that's relevant, but also with it has with the thanks to the internet has come a whole lot of noise. And so, you know, there's trying to. So it's this this drive to say, what are the gaps in what I see in people's understanding? And then what's the truth in terms of truth based on the data, the overwhelming data? And then.

Janet Engel (04:35.537)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (04:43.889)
Mmm.

Scott Fulton (04:51.15)
take that and then look to say, well, how do I fit into it? And I think that's the piece we see that people get stuck with. Advice is about as good as what you pay for it. And places like Facebook are full of advice. A lot of it's conflicting. And ultimately what matters is what does it mean to you? Like we talked about the home. Your home is different than everybody else's in multiple ways.

Janet Engel (04:55.473)
Mm.

Janet Engel (05:09.073)
Hmm.

Scott Fulton (05:20.526)
your health is different than in multiple ways than others. And so to population data is really good for kind of anchoring us in what's going on on the big picture.

But we need enough information to be able to ask the right questions, to dig in and say, well, what parts of that apply to me? And how should I be viewing myself in a much bigger picture? And so the book is really, it's not about the 10 steps to live to 100, that you see a lot of these various types of click bait that attract people of shortcuts.

Janet Engel (05:38.353)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (06:00.622)
And it's really built around how do you design a framework for yourself that suits your culture, your preferences around things, that gives you the best opportunity for the best outcomes.

based on your values. And no one, including me, is in any position to make a judgment on what your values are. So all I can do is help you ask questions so that you start to think about your values on a conscious level. And then from there, you can start to say, OK, quickly I start to develop a sense of this is a good choice for me or it's a bad choice for me, or I'm not sure about it. So what questions would I now ask to start

start to get more certainty around it and how would I get some answers around it? And so that's really the essence of the book. So really it's built around the five foundations of what I think of as wealth being health, but also preserving your money. So the five foundations created an acronym called MEDAC, mind.

So all the elements of mine from attitude to things like how do you preserve cognitive health environment. So we touched on the home as being the environment we can control and where we spend most of our time, but the outside environment and how does that benefit or threat us.

Janet Engel (07:16.721)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (07:22.705)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (07:30.638)
diet and diet, we can talk about that separately if you like, but it's a, you know, it's really a look at understanding diet in terms of what does that mean to our health. Activity, so people think of that exercise, but reality it's activity and sleep is part of an activity, you know, it's the recovery piece of activity.

Janet Engel (07:51.281)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (07:54.446)
and then the last one is community and that's really the social interactions and support networks that we have around us. And if you can balance out all those five and not worry about being perfect in any one of them because you will never be perfect. So just before we started the show, it's a theme throughout the book.

Janet Engel (08:09.425)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (08:14.798)
If you feel like you're trying to be a perfectionist at any one of those, my advice would be to stop and let it go because other areas are equally important and they will either help us or hurt us depending on whether we are giving it an appropriate level of effort. And we're all a work in progress.

It's a constant work in progress. All of them, we continue to get a little bit better every year, hopefully. And as that happens, choices get easier and living gets easier, life gets happier. We understand ourselves better and big surprise, we end up being healthier and living longer.

Janet Engel (08:48.945)
Mmm.

Janet Engel (08:54.801)
Scott, when you say asking the right questions, are you referring to this acronym that you just described? Is that what it's based on, asking the right questions?

Scott Fulton (09:03.662)
Well, so it's more of a, I guess, an approach. So the acronym or MEDAC, that Mind, Environment, Diet, Activity, and Community are really, we think about, we can look at it and say, those are the things that we should feel well grounded in. And in reality, if we kind of put those five, we would all probably rank one of them as being the highest and one of them being lowest relative to our competency or comfort around it.

Janet Engel (09:08.721)
Ahem.

Scott Fulton (09:30.478)
The asking better questions is really what I view my role as a teacher teaching adults. It's a philosophy of teaching that I have because it says that I don't have all the answers. I don't have any reason to think I should and I sure don't want you to think I have all the answers.

Janet Engel (09:37.009)
Okay.

Scott Fulton (09:52.654)
But most adults, particularly well -educated adults, they know the answers. They just haven't actually come to terms with them and really asked the right question to allow the right answer to come to the forefront. And so you could look at sitting down to dinner at a restaurant. So there's like some restaurants have pages of menus.

Well, you can't possibly eat everything. And so what would be the right questions to ask? And we all do this, right? So what did I have for lunch today, for example, if you have for dinner? What did I have yesterday? What did I have last time I came here? What are what foods am I allergic to? What foods do I tend to maybe have a hard time not eating in excess? Because, you know, maybe I really like something a little more than what might be healthy. So, you know, if I haven't.

Janet Engel (10:41.425)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (10:46.766)
If I haven't had that or it's my birthday, go for it. So it's really just asking the right questions. We all ask questions. It's more getting some information now. So you would say, I'll just use a restaurant example. If I found out yesterday that I was pre -diabetic, now my questions are likely going to take on a different tone in nature than they did last week when I came to this restaurant.

So now I'm going to be looking at things to understand, well, what is blood glucose and how does that relate to food? I'm going to have some early indications, but over time, I'm going to ask more questions. I'm going to understand that. And so that's why I say the asking better questions is we all know if you eat a big bowl of ice cream.

there's a whole lot of sugar in there. That's not news to anybody. So telling people they shouldn't eat ice cream, like, it's really not helpful versus.

Janet Engel (11:45.553)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (11:49.806)
understanding what does that bowl of ice cream represent and what would be an appropriate amount to eat, what frequency, what other foods would I want to say? Well, dessert attached to a certain meal is actually far less harmful to us or more less stressful to our bodies than sitting down and just eating a carton of ice cream.

Janet Engel (12:12.561)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (12:13.166)
And as we start to understand it, we can start to ask these questions better. So it's, it's, the book is really not about sacrifice or, you know, stop doing this and stop and start doing that. It's really about understanding yourself and recognize we all continue to grow over the years. What I, what I excelled at a decade ago, I excel at different things now. So life is a continuum and it's always moving. And we think about aging.

Janet Engel (12:37.201)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (12:42.99)
kind of switching gears. The other thing I have come to realize having worked with older adults is you and I have a hard time seeing ourselves a decade and two decades down the road.

Janet Engel (12:56.497)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (12:56.91)
I think those of us who work in that space have a better chance than most, but we're not programmed to do that. We're programmed to survive this day in front of us. Get the food into us, get to sleep, and do it all over again. We know that part really well. And so...

Janet Engel (13:03.025)
Yeah.

Janet Engel (13:07.857)
Hmm.

Scott Fulton (13:17.102)
So what I try to do is to help people think about the future. And that's why part of my talks are about the future, but really around who is you are trying to become. What?

Janet Engel (13:29.937)
Mm.

Scott Fulton (13:30.83)
what might be the type of person you would like to be in your later years. So how might we make that a possibility will be largely governed by the choices that we're making today and tomorrow and the days along. And so it's just starting in, getting things lined up with your values versus just going through and I'll say living for the moment. And there's this notion of living for the moment is in...

conflict with thinking about the future. And it's just become that. I don't buy that at all.

Janet Engel (14:05.649)
That's a great way to look at it. Yeah.

Scott Fulton (14:10.446)
Because I think people who have a good sense of who they are and where they're going live in the moment better than anyone and their moments are longer. And that's why the book is about more years, more moments and more money. And that's the money piece is really, how do you not burn through, right? Most of money we talk about accumulation. So by the time we're 65 or wherever.

Janet Engel (14:30.097)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (14:33.454)
We're not likely accumulating much more money. The priority becomes how do we preserve what we have and number the top two things around risks to our money, our house and health. And so if we can manage our housing and manage our health, we've dealt with the two biggest risks to our wealth, our financial wealth.

Janet Engel (14:36.593)
Hmm.

Janet Engel (14:57.009)
Going back to diet and nutrition, because I think this part is crucial and it speaks to what you just said, that the way you live your life today influences what your tomorrow will be like. And I know that diet and nutrition as well as exercise really play big roles in those areas.

Tell us how does diet influence healthy aging and what dietary changes can help older adults maintain their health, their independence, and their quality of life.

Scott Fulton (15:38.318)
Sure. So maybe what I find helpful for people is again that how do you see yourself in the future? So we think about the circle of life. Think about yourself as an elder adult being more like a young child. You're more vulnerable.

Janet Engel (15:54.225)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (15:58.574)
So what care and how would we treat our grandchild or great grandchild? And then what would be appropriate for us? So we get this, in our 30s and 40s, we seem almost immune to everything. Our body is tolerant of far more things than it is at either end of the spectrum.

Janet Engel (15:58.737)
Mm.

Janet Engel (16:15.889)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (16:16.526)
And so again, with that grounding, it becomes fairly obvious to say, well, what would we give a child? It's not to say, you know, to treat older adults like a child, but in terms of recognize the type of foods that we eat. So I'll use the example of French fries. So a plate of French fries to an infant. I don't know anyone who would give an infant a plate of French fries. Yeah.

But clearly we get introduced to them one at a time, you know, as we get older. And again, in our 30s and 40s, we can tolerate a certain amount of that. But then as we get older, what happens is our body start to lose chemicals. And to give you what I'm saying here is our body is a chemical plant.

It is producing over a thousand chemicals every hour of every day. It's made just like a big chemical plant, which is what I did when I left corporate was helping design big chemical plants that have multiple products coming out of them. Byproducts get used elsewhere. They get used up. They get sent off as waste. How well we balance the plant dictates how well the plant runs.

And so a plant that is creating a lot of waste and just putting a lot of smoke up the stack is clearly not an efficient plant. It's got health consequences associated with it. And so as we think about when we get older, generally most of our chemistry is naturally declining with age.

Janet Engel (17:34.673)
Mm.

Janet Engel (17:43.025)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (17:53.774)
After about age 40, most of our body chemistries that we make will naturally go through a decline. That's just a normal function. And the lower that they get, the harder it becomes for the body to be able to balance it. And part of that reason is because we have a loss in our communication system.

The easiest way to describe aging is to say it's a loss of communication. So as we think about, you and I are on a cell phone and one or both of us is walking somewhere, we're getting on the, and the signal is getting weaker and weaker. It's exact same concept what happens in the body, except it's multiple systems. The immune system and the endocrine system are the two biggest.

Janet Engel (18:21.841)
Hmm.

Janet Engel (18:31.089)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (18:39.214)
as the signal starts to get weaker, same way as you and I, we'll start to guess. I'll guess, I think Janet probably, you know, that word dropped out, but I think I know what she was asking. And so I'll answer in a way based on an interpretation that includes a guess of what I heard you say. And you may look at, turn your head and kind of say, huh, that doesn't make sense and continue on. Or depending on what the answer is, you may stop saying, what?

That doesn't make any sense. We have the same thing that happens with age. And so as our body starts to guess what it's asking, what other systems are asking for, it starts to make mistakes. Initially, we have mistakes happening all the time in our body. We have DNA fragments that are incorrect and our body's busy cleaning up those all the time. We have clean up systems that work all the time.

Janet Engel (19:19.089)
Mmm.

Janet Engel (19:31.185)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (19:35.342)
But what happens as we age is that we have more and more errors and our ability to clean up and keep on top of them and keep fresh cells active all the time starts to go down. And the later in life it gets, the more that becomes a problem. And so when we think about foods, that's really what's happening when our body isn't able to deal with food in the same way. And so we'll typically see things like diabetes.

Janet Engel (19:44.145)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (20:04.878)
is more likely to come on in later years for people who are predisposed, even though they haven't done anything that they would view as difficult. The body is starting to lose its ability to manage its balance, to be in a state that is healthy and normal and operating optimally.

Janet Engel (20:08.273)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (20:21.649)
to regulate itself.

Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (20:32.753)
Yes, that happened to my grandfather. He developed diabetes in his 50s and he was never overweight, always exercised, he ate healthy, and eventually towards the end of his life he was insulin dependent, which really worries me. I hope that I didn't inherit his predisposition to diabetes because it's such a terrible disease. But yes.

goes along with what you're saying that there are doctors are finding that, you know, it's not, you can develop diabetes type two for reasons other than lifestyle and diet.

Scott Fulton (21:15.374)
Right, those are risk factors. They aren't necessarily the determinants, right? And so we only find out. And so just to kind of touch on diabetes, one of the, I think one of the things that's important is, which you alluded to, is the stigma that we associate with things like obesity and diabetes. We assume it's 100 % lifestyle. In the book, I don't remember how many you list out, all the factors that contribute to obesity.

Many of them are outside of our control. Some of them are, but many are outside our control far more than what people realize. And it's the same with diabetes. And so kind of tying it back to diet. Once you start to understand ways to be able to eat foods that may be at risk, there are countermeasures that we can do in our eating styles that will help mitigate the risk and help protect our insulin sensitivity.

Janet Engel (21:45.137)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (22:09.873)
Yeah, so research that has been coming out in the last few years is that your microbiome can have a big influence on your ability to lose weight or your propensity to gain weight.

and that's fascinating. They find that there are certain bacteria that people that are thin have in their gut that people that are heavy don't have enough of in their gut.

So just fascinating research around your microbiome and not only how it affects your weight, but also your mental health. They have associated depression with a certain bacteria that lives in your microbiome or doesn't live in your microbiome. Since we're talking about that, mind and cognition, can you tell us about that?

Scott Fulton (23:06.03)
Yeah, we.

Janet Engel (23:11.921)
part of the acronym cognitive health and obviously this is a significant concern as we age and now cognitive impairment is the number one disability in the United States. It's up at 12 .8 percent where mobility impairment now is number two at 12 .1 percent. So how does cognitive health

How can we insulate ourselves better from deterioration in this area?

Scott Fulton (23:52.142)
Sure. So again, from an understanding of physiology and biology, the number one thing to know about cognitive health is its association with cardiovascular health. So when we think about cognitive health, we're talking typically about vascular disease. Now there are, in terms of traumatic brain injuries and those sort of things, but in terms of from the big numbers are really associated with.

with the various forms of dementias. People know Alzheimer's the best, but if you look at all dementias, what's common to all of them is reduced blood flow. As soon as you limit the amount of nutrients and oxygen going to the brain, you're putting the brain under stress. And so it will, they will tolerate it. The body is incredibly adaptable, but it's...

Janet Engel (24:32.465)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (24:47.694)
it's not infinitely adaptable. And so given enough time, this chronic exposure, we get chronic disease. And really that's...

we talk about these things as though they were sudden. People say like a sudden heart attack. The attack itself is acute, but there was nothing sudden about it. It happened over decades and cognitive health is the same. It happens over decades. And which is why if we wait, unlike, I'm not gonna, I may be able to get a heart transplant.

Janet Engel (25:07.857)
Right.

Scott Fulton (25:20.238)
or a bypass surgery, but those options don't exist for brain health. And so we really, if we want to protect brain health, and I would say most of my students, that is the number one concern that they have in terms of what the threat is, is brain health for a very good reason. One is because there's so little you can do about it, but the other is the impact it has on the whole family.

And so, so kind of going back to vascular health. So I kind of coach people around the things you do for your heart are all good for your brain. It's a two for one. It's also good for diabetes and a number of other diseases too. But that's really the, the place to think about it is how do I preserve blood flow? There's things like mental exercises that are good for cognitive health.

generally the best things for cognitive health are activities with other individuals and you're moving. So the classic one is dancing. So dancing on the dance floor with a partner, you've got the partner doing their thing and hopefully you're doing them reasonably well together or whatever that together is supposed to mean, but you're also in a space with others. And so you've got a lot of things going on and you're physically active at the same time. You're not trying to run a marathon or run a hundred yard sprint, but you do get the

sensor.

there's exercise happening and movement and cognition around the space around you. It's a very taxing activity in a very appropriate way. So that's just a good example, but you could apply it to it like doubles tennis versus singles tennis, for example, would be better in that regard as well. Or, you know, pickleball, the big thing, right? You look at the number of people on a pickleball court, we have one out here, and I go by in the morning, they're just, with all the things.

Janet Engel (26:54.745)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (27:05.649)
Yeah, hugely popular.

Scott Fulton (27:13.6)
going on. Those are great for cognitive health because there's so much going on around you and you're in it. You're not sitting in this, you're not a spectator of life, you're in life and you're living it. So really those are the things and then going back to the diet it really is, you know, obvious things around diet. I would hope everybody knows processed foods are just bad news for everything and that includes cognitive health and generally...

Janet Engel (27:21.201)
Yeah.

Scott Fulton (27:43.182)
Generally, we want to be active. We want to be feeding ourselves. So if I kind of just switch gears, diet is really simple. It's really three things. Quality food, kind of number one. Again, that's an easy one. Everyone can look at the food in front of them. Is it quality? Or is it, so is it fresh or is it rotting? Is it fresh or did it come out of a can? It doesn't have a label on it or is it a whole food like an apple would be a whole food, for example.

Janet Engel (28:03.569)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (28:12.59)
Variety is the other one. So it's not about, you know, eat this short list of superfoods. Now, eat a wide range of foods is helpful. And then the other missing one for people, which is really an easy one, is fiber. Fiber kind of goes right back to what you asked to comment about the microbiome or the gut microbiome. That's what our...

Janet Engel (28:14.481)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (28:19.601)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (28:32.814)
our gut microbiome feeds on is fiber. And so that preserves the mucosal layer on our epithelial cells, which are our intestines. And so provided we feed our gut lots of fiber, that's what it'll feed on and it'll naturally balance. Most people, if they could just eat more fiber, their microbiome will naturally find its way to a balance within a matter of weeks. And if we don't,

Janet Engel (28:59.185)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (29:01.326)
the microbes will actually eat at our cells. They'll feed on our cells. They'll feed through that mucosal layer and start to feed on the cell. And that is clearly lots of dysbiosis happens when that starts to occur. And so quality, variety.

and fiber. Those three things. Forget about whether, you know, if you want to be a vegan and that suits you and your biomarkers support, you're able to be healthy doing that. Great. Don't have to be a vegan to be really healthy. The other extreme would be those who, you know, the carnivores who believe that you can eat just meat because meat eats everything else and so you can absorb it all. But what I would say, going back to where I said at the start on the data,

Janet Engel (29:27.665)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (29:34.193)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (29:51.15)
There's never been a single individual in human history live to be truly old on that type of diet, let alone a culture or civilization. And so there are always people that want to play on the fringes and they want to be the Einstein of the one that solved it. But be very careful around who you think you're trying to kid when you do these things. There's just.

Janet Engel (30:07.025)
Right.

Scott Fulton (30:17.646)
lots of good health down the center lane once you know that you're in the lane what's in that lane and what's not.

Janet Engel (30:23.985)
Mm -hmm. I think a good way to think about it is, like you just said, eat so that you support the microbiome in your gut so that they're happy, which is consuming fiber, vegetables, and fruit. And that mostly, that should be most of your diet. And then you can eat everything else as well. And then having that variety so that you have a diverse...

microbiome. So just like they find that people in developed countries, their microbiome tends to look one way, where in places like, you know, India, Africa, their microbiome is much more diverse.

Scott Fulton (31:14.382)
Right. Microbiome is a moving target all the time. It's a very dynamic place. You can get it tested and get some profiles back. That's most helpful for people who are trying to sort out a disease. It's less helpful for healthy people.

Janet Engel (31:21.041)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (31:28.113)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (31:35.278)
because it's a moving target, the fact that you're healthy doesn't, and then you get results in your microbiome, it doesn't necessarily suggest you should try to change it. It may be helpful for a reference to have in the future. Say if you did get some disease later and go back and say, well, what's changed? That's helpful, but in terms of trying to pursue a particular...

Janet Engel (31:45.841)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (32:00.334)
diversity of microbiome for a healthy person is energy, kind of what I said earlier, it's energy misspent. We're focusing too much on one area. There's probably other things that will be far more productive to spend your time and resources on.

Janet Engel (32:08.529)
Mm. Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (32:15.761)
So what about community and social engagement? You talked about how people that exercise with others receive greater benefits. So tell us more about being part of a community overall and how can we stay socially connected especially as we age.

Scott Fulton (32:40.59)
Yeah, I think socialization is one of those practices for a lifetime. We develop certain habits as children and they tend to stay with us through a lifetime. And so, again, just telling someone go do this, you know, that's not in their nature is unlikely to be very successful. But if you start to understand the value in in making sure that you have engagements with people.

each day and so that might mean walking to the store. For example, if you live near a grocery store, you're fortunate to be able to walk there versus getting in your car. You're gonna see people along the way. We've met neighbors out running and walking on the path and become very good friends. And so simple things like putting yourself in the place of other people. So I mentioned pickleball. You may not ever be.

anything but a terrible pickleball player, but you could be a great partner or team member because you're so much fun to be around. And that's what ultimately we're judged by, at least by people who matter.

is really how well we interact with others. And so there's an element of, again, from that chemistry standpoint I mentioned, so when you and I have some sort of a discussion, our bodies are generating chemicals based on our discussion. It's a positive discussion. It's going to generate certain chemicals more. If it's a negative and stressful one, it's going to start to develop different chemicals.

Janet Engel (34:09.265)
Hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (34:16.558)
And so we want to generally promote all those healthy chemicals. And so that's why we see people who are happy and well engaged live better, live longer. It's a much happier life. And so.

Janet Engel (34:27.665)
Mm.

Scott Fulton (34:30.862)
So it's really kind of going back to where I started with, it's something, it's a practice we need to really impose on ourselves to do each day. Yes, it might be easier to get in the car and drive to the store and drive back. And certainly if you've got multiple bags, it all makes sense. But the point is look for opportunities to meet new people all the time. Be the first one to talk, be the first one to reach out.

Janet Engel (34:43.409)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (34:54.577)
Mm.

Scott Fulton (35:00.27)
be the one to open both arms for a hug. These are all little things that on their own don't add up to anything. But over a decade and more, they make a big difference because you don't know how many of those people will end up being long friends for you. And so once you get those long relationships, we know, like for all of us, like we can pick up the phone or Facebook or whatever and reconnect with somebody we went to school with.

Janet Engel (35:06.385)
Hmm.

Janet Engel (35:11.089)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (35:18.065)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (35:30.638)
And it's like, I know where you come from. I know who you are. And that's the beauty of long relationships, even if they get gaps in them, is we want to be able to lean on those and knowing that they're there is really important. And so we need to continue to feed those in. So they will help with our state of being and they'll help to know that we have this safety net around us. Essentially.

What they, if nothing else, what it says is there's people out there who care about me. So that's a lot of what depression is for people thinking, I don't matter. And so my self -esteem suffers. And as soon as I'm in a state of I don't my life doesn't matter again, now I'm producing a lot of unhealthy chemicals. And so my health will start to follow essentially where my brain goes versus.

Janet Engel (36:04.177)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (36:09.937)
Hmm.

Janet Engel (36:20.081)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (36:24.817)
Hmm.

Scott Fulton (36:26.35)
I have mattered to people because I've had this validation through certain things. You have that person hugging you back or that person reached out to me that I met last week and said, yeah, could we go for a walk every Monday at 10 o 'clock at this time? Any sorts of things can happen in any number of ways. Or would you come and play pickleball with us or come dancing with me, right?

Janet Engel (36:39.953)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (36:46.993)
Yeah.

Scott Fulton (36:49.422)
These are all things that really on an emotional and psychological level play really important roles and we have to be careful not to discount them. That's why the things like exercise and diet, because they're things we can measure, we tend to want to focus on them. But these are things are equally important. And so they help us maintain health, but also over the journey of life, there are times when we need other people.

Janet Engel (36:57.553)
yeah.

Janet Engel (37:04.561)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (37:16.718)
Right, so we don't know when they're coming and once we need it is not the time to start acting, right? Right, we need to be investing and then someone will be quick to come to you know, friends will come, you know.

Janet Engel (37:17.905)
Yeah.

Janet Engel (37:24.017)
Right, right.

Scott Fulton (37:30.862)
fall and break a hip and suddenly, you know, people are showing up to the door with food for us and things. That only happens if we're investing over time. And it's not the reason to invest, it's just an indication or a natural outcome of investing in relationships. You know, someone to give me a ride somewhere, you know, which ends up being more enjoyable to go to the grocery store with someone else. You know, you do your shopping, I'll do mine, but then we'll have coffee on the way home or whatever. These are all little things.

that just start to give us a physical network around us to help us in times when we do need help.

Janet Engel (38:04.881)
you

Janet Engel (38:08.593)
Yeah, and I couldn't agree with you more Scott. It's important to develop those deep relationships, but you also want to develop those superficial relationships. And I have quite a few of those because I go to my gym regularly and I like to exercise in groups. So I attend the group classes and I've made so many friends with, especially with women that are

all some 20 years older than I am, some 10 years younger than I am. And I don't even know their last names. But some of them I don't even know their first name. But as soon as we see each other, we say hi and we're genuinely happy to see each other. And if one misses for a week, people notice and they ask you.

where have you been? Are you okay? And it just, I know that when I get too busy with work and I'm not able to go to my gym classes, I really miss those people.

Scott Fulton (39:16.078)
Yeah, humans are pack animals or herd animals. That is the natural state for us and to kid ourselves to sit at a computer all day long and do even these sort of things all day long, that's not the substitute for actual physical connection and being in the same place with other people. And that's, yeah.

Janet Engel (39:17.105)
Yeah.

Scott Fulton (39:38.446)
lots of different situations, again, like the food, variety is everything. Quality people, wide variety of people that may be different languages, they look different than me, they have different interests, that's really where we're gonna thrive.

Janet Engel (39:50.865)
Mm -hmm. That's, yeah. Are you saying, Scott, that if we pay attention to our diet, exercise, our, the community that we create around ourselves, that all of these factors will help us age in place?

Scott Fulton (40:14.382)
Right, so it's a kind of the life is a multi -sport earned and endurance multi -sport. And that actually came to me, I remember when I did my first Ironman. And so in Ironman, you do a, I don't know, whatever, 3 .4 miles swim, I don't know what the number is. And then you ride 112 miles and then you start out and do a marathon. And I described that marathon as essentially the later part of life.

You've had a lot of miles behind you, you still have more to go, but you're now in a disadvantaged state because you've done all these other things in the hours preceding. And so you're cognitively not as able to make what should be pretty, like, am I hungry? Am I thirsty? We think those should be easy choices to make. And so in that event, in the course of a day, it's like putting 40 years down into four hours of that marathon.

Janet Engel (40:52.657)
Okay.

Scott Fulton (41:14.158)
And so it's only the preparation that actually prepares to recognize the signals and how to interpret and how to adjust and essentially pay more and more attention to things that matter. And so when we think about, like I think about aging places.

What preparations am I doing to set myself up for success? Because what will be different is that I will lose the ability to react and adjust the way I have been able to do for the last 60 years.

That is a hard thing to kind of like I said earlier about seeing the future. It is really hard to convince people that that is the truth. That is the way it works. And so it's OK. It's not like, yeah, it's a fact of life. So accept it. And then so how am I going to deal with it so that it's not going to affect me?

And so really that's the have a plan, execute on the plan. What are all the elements of the plan like the cross the mind, environment, diet, activity and community, you know, the home being the environment piece that I have lots of control over. How am I going to approach that in a way that's going to set me up for the best chance of success for a long time.

Janet Engel (42:26.417)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (42:34.225)
I love that that's fascinating because you talk about it in a way that isn't going to turn people off because no one as you said we can't imagine ourselves 10 20 years from now and No one wants to admit that they are aging which the reality is that we're aging from the time we're born Right if you look at it

in those terms, then it's like, I've been doing this for many decades now. But if you talk about it from that perspective of your environment, your mind, your body, your community, then it...

I think it's less scary and we're not looking at it just in terms of what we look like or what we're able to do.

Scott Fulton (43:28.59)
Yeah, I think one of the ways to tell where your mind is at with it is, are you fearful or anxious about aging? Right, that means you're in an acute mindset. You're thinking about all the negative aspects associated with it versus step back and say,

You're going on a trip, you've done all the planning for the trip, and you finally get seated on the airplane and you're going. Your mind is all about all the good things that are going to happen for you over the next period of time while you're on vacation because you did the proper planning, which was actually okay. Nobody complains too much about planning for a vacation. And when you plan well for aging, you view aging more as an opportunity and a blessing versus a

It's going to happen if you're lucky. So which mindset do you want to live in? And you can live in denial.

Janet Engel (44:19.345)
Hmm. Right. If -

Scott Fulton (44:27.694)
but it's not gonna be a very healthy experience. So you're naturally disadvantaging yourself by not setting your body and your mind up for success. So I think as an industry, we haven't done a good job of speaking to aging as opportunity. We've promoted the whole thing about hammering and about grab bars and all the things that all make good sense. I have grab bars in my house. And...

But, you know, and I love it when I wash my feet in the shower. I don't know how I did it before I had grabbed bars because I got one. I got one there. So I guess I was doing the flamingo thing and hoping I didn't slip and fall. And I never did. But it's just now I realized, wow, that's that's just better. And I designed it as part of the whole bathroom. And when it got done, so it fits and it works great. But that's not what that's not what aging is about. Aging is about the positive experiences and how do we create more opportunities?

Janet Engel (45:02.673)
Right.

Scott Fulton (45:25.358)
for more experiences. That's what I kind of go to the book. It's more years, but it's really more moments. What are the moments that really say, this is really, I just wish this moment would never end. And that could be, you know, a grandchild's graduation, right? Or maybe it's looking forward to a grandchild's graduation. Like I want to be there in that moment and like, don't bother me at all when that's on, or maybe it's a great song or a concert or something.

And so it's really about setting the stage for great moments to continue to happen for many, many years.

Janet Engel (45:58.673)
I love that. That was beautifully said. And I don't want to end our conversation without you telling me about the work that you do as president for the National Aging in Place Council.

Scott Fulton (46:13.326)
Sure, thank you. So it's a, so National Indian Place Council is professionals across the country in every state and there are chapters in most major centers of people who get together from over 60 different service sectors. So again, it's teams that come together to work and serve the needs of people who are planning to age well and people who are in acute need. So it really is across the range.

My work, other than the chores that come with being the title of a president and dealing with the things that come, are really more around, I'm looking into the future around what is aging and what are communities going to look like. And again, these are things that people have a hard time imagining. So communities are going to go through a long overdue change.

The suburb, suburbia is clearly going to be a problem to try to age in because we've isolated ourselves going back to the community thing. Everything will be more difficult the more isolated we are. The closer we are to all the services and all the people, the better off we will be in our later years. And that.

also applies to the type of transportation options we have. And so if I choose to live out in the country on acreage, I'm going to have to be in my car to go everywhere versus if I live in a community that's walkable or a lot of the new vehicles now are designed for really short trips. The electric car, when you're worrying about how many hundred miles it goes, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about more of the golf cart type community, but really accessible. And so if we think of,

what's gone on with senior communities, they generally have tailored to the wealthy. So what we're going to see happen, I think, is really an opening up of the middle market, where they become affordable options and really appealing options, where people say, I want that.

Scott Fulton (48:20.078)
because I see what people are doing there and I can afford to live there. There are very few of those options today, but it's inevitable that they're coming because the need is so high. And this generation of today's boomers has never been one for sitting back and taking whatever they're given that they want what they want and they find ways to make it happen. So I'm working with kind of the industry around how do we put together different businesses and different communities, whether it's,

a new community or we take and bring those into an existing community and build those elements of connection back in where people feel like they belong. We make sure that they get access to good food. They get lots of activity just as part of normal life.

And that's, I guess, maybe part of the other thing to mention is it feels normal to them. It's not marketed as a Disney resort. Those resorts are great for holidays, but people generally don't want to live in them 365 days a year. It needs to look and feel more like a normal life. Housing will be different because, quite frankly, most of us will not be able to afford to live in single family homes.

Janet Engel (49:10.961)
Mm.

Scott Fulton (49:31.534)
least to not have the services. So you may have your home, but you're not going to be able to afford to get out. You're not going to be able to afford to have services come to you versus some other home situations that will allow for nice compromise of everything. If everybody gets 80 % of what they really want, that's a pretty good compromise. And so again, that asking, kind of going back earlier, asking better questions around what do I really value in my life?

Janet Engel (49:59.385)
Are there communities?

Scott Fulton (50:00.302)
Is it really the half acre of grass to cut or is it having people around that, you know, I feel like I belong in a community?

Janet Engel (50:09.521)
Are there communities that currently exist or are being built that would fall under this realm?

Scott Fulton (50:19.406)
There are elements of them, but as planned communities not yet, and it's because the industry hasn't responded to that, they haven't felt the need to. So long as they've largely catered to the wealthier, and those people are willing to, I'll pay whatever I can or what I want to get what I want. And so there hasn't been the pressure.

Janet Engel (50:38.577)
Mm -hmm.

Scott Fulton (50:47.534)
But the whole middle market, that's where essentially all the money is, is in the middle market for housing. And so it's coming. It's just a, it's a different model than what they're used to. And so, yeah, you can look at the villages down in Florida as one example of something that kind of developed like a great vision. And you could take that, there are essentially elements of all these communities that exist today.

But what they haven't done yet is to be able to put them together in one community or put it on top of an existing community. And it just takes, again, stepping back and saying, what are your values? How do we design every community around the values that a lot of people will aspire to? Not everybody. Some are still going to want what they want. One will want the resort and one will live on a mountaintop until their last days.

But in terms of the need within the major segment of the population, there's a huge housing gap today in terms of not just houses, but the type of housing that will be affordable and accessible to a much larger group of people and will be a fun place to be. But we got to get busy and start to build them. So that's really what I'm excited about having to play a part in that too.

Janet Engel (52:06.449)
Okay, well I'm glad you're the president of the National Aging in Place Council and that you have the influence to make the needle move in this direction.

Scott Fulton (52:19.342)
Well, just try to nudge it a little bit. That's all any of us can do.

Janet Engel (52:21.617)
Hehehe

Well, Scott, this has been a fascinating conversation. I've learned so much and I look forward to reading your book. I think so many of the pillars that you mentioned are so valuable and essential for people to have good quality of life at any age, not just in their later years. And yeah.

Scott Fulton (52:47.886)
Yeah, it wasn't written for old people or for young people. It was written for the book of life, if you will, around certainly the second half of life to say, OK, I want to start making sure I've got the best life. And I see that with kids, kids in their 30s and 40s saying, I don't want what my parents ended up with. And those to me are positive signs.

Janet Engel (53:08.849)
Mm.

That's me. I'm a kid in my 40s.

Scott Fulton (53:15.854)
Yeah, yeah, we all are. I can kind of say the whatever we think our parents experience was, ours will be different. And I will tell you, ours will be different because of all the changes that are coming to us. So, you know, probably one of the biggest will be our homes are going to be much more important than they ever were. We've seen the office in home now since COVID around more people working from home. The whole health system has done a pivot to say.

We have to figure out how to keep people in their homes because we can't afford to care for them any other ways. And the public has very little idea of what's coming. But essentially, we've started already scaling back the number of nursing beds, things like assisted living and all those essentially will cap, even though the population will rise, they're gonna be managed at home. And so investing in our homes for the long haul is much, much more important than it ever was.

Janet Engel (53:54.833)
Yes.

Janet Engel (54:09.329)
Mm -hmm.

Janet Engel (54:13.649)
Yes, I couldn't agree with you more. Well, thank you, Scott. I wish you the best of luck with your book. And I'd love to have you on again in the future and talk about what the National Aging in Place Council is doing. I want to quickly mention that there is the, in October, you're having the conference, which is,

going to be a great opportunity for people to come together. I plan to attend. I'm really looking forward to it and becoming a part of the National Aging in Place Council as well.

Scott Fulton (54:54.99)
Yeah, that's yeah, our conferences in Orlando October 12th. Yeah, it'll be fun to bring everybody together. It's really looking forward to it. So thank you for that.

Janet Engel (55:05.105)
Can you tell us again what the name of your book is and where people can buy it?

Scott Fulton (55:10.19)
So I'll put it up in front. It's called Wealthspan. It's like Healthspan, but a W in front of it if you're just on audio. Amazon is the easiest place to find it. It's the number one release, a new release out now. So it's...

it's taken off and yeah it's you know it's I had somebody just before we got on who had just got a copy of it and said and commented how big it is like it's but you don't have to take it all at once but the idea is it's it's it's it's really I think a good guide for people to work through and and to really give them a lot more opportunities to look for in life and and and enjoy all that life has to offer.

Janet Engel (55:51.633)
Hmm.

I like that, a guide. Well, thank you, Scott, for being with us today. It was a pleasure.

Scott Fulton (56:03.182)
Well, thank you, Janet. Wonderful to talk to you again and great and thanks for having me on your show and good luck to all your audience out there.