Too Old to Be Hired? The Truth About Ageism Nobody Talks About

From being seen as experienced and capable… to suddenly being “too old,” “overqualified,” or “out of touch”—ageism is one of the most overlooked and accepted forms of discrimination in modern society.

In this episode of Ella Podcasts, we explore the reality of ageism in the workplace, in culture, and in how we see ourselves. Why does growing older—something every single one of us will experience—so often come with bias, assumptions, and exclusion?

This conversation challenges the idea that youth equals value, and asks a deeper question: what are we losing when we dismiss experience, wisdom, and lived perspective?

Joining me are:

🔹 Dr. Jonathan Marshall – Psychologist and former professor
🔹 Simon J. Littlewood – Journalist, business advisor, and author
🔹 Samir Kothari – Investment fund manager

And myself, Ella Sherman. Together, we explore ageism from psychological, cultural, and economic perspectives—unpacking where it comes from, how it shows up in real life, and what needs to shift.

Drawing from personal experiences, workplace realities, and broader societal trends, this episode looks at the tension between youth-driven culture and the undeniable value of experience.  

🧠 In this episode, we discuss:

* why ageism is often ignored compared to other forms of discrimination
* how fear of aging shapes attitudes toward older people
* the role of media and tech culture in reinforcing youth bias
* why older workers are often seen as less adaptable or less valuable
* the reality of being “too senior” or filtered out in hiring processes
* how experience and “crystallised intelligence” differ from youthful adaptability
* whether retirement culture has unintentionally fuelled ageism
* how social media distorts perceptions of success and relevance
* the economic and structural factors behind workplace age bias
* the importance of intergenerational collaboration and “reverse mentoring”


🔑 KEY TAKEAWAYS

* Ageism is deeply embedded in culture—but rarely challenged
* Fear of aging plays a major role in how society treats older people
* Experience, wisdom, and long-term thinking are often undervalued
* Many industries still rely heavily on older leadership—despite youth-focused narratives
* Workplace systems and hiring processes can unintentionally reinforce bias
* Staying mentally, socially, and physically engaged can shape how we experience aging
* Connection across generations benefits both younger and older people
* Aging is not decline—it is a different kind of strength

💬 Final thought

Getting older should not mean becoming invisible.

This episode is a reminder that age is not a limitation—it’s context, experience, and perspective. And in a world obsessed with what’s new, we may be overlooking the very people who understand it best.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hello, I'm Ella, and this is Ella Podcasts. From your 50s upward, you're usually at the top of your game. You should be regarded as a wealth of knowledge and experience. Someone who's been there, done that, got the strategy. We've been refining our skills since before Wi-Fi was big and can pretty much handle everything, except for ageism. It's there. Suddenly you hit a certain age, and I've seen as someone who doesn't understand the latest developments in technology. Despite successfully transitioning through all of the changes to date in your career, older workers are often viewed as resistant to change or less productive due to slowing down, losing energy, waiting for retirement. Why is ageism the most ignored form of discrimination? Today I'm joined by Dr. Jonathan Marshall. He's a leading psychologist and a former professor. He's a Stanford and Harvard University graduate, and he offers perspective and practical advice to help people thrive. We also have Simon J. Littlewood, a journalist, business advisor, and Oxford University graduate. He's widely known for his business and economics commentary on the BBC World Service, and he's the author of the business bestseller, Let the Cash Flow. He's a regular contributor to global finance in New York and the founder of the business networking group, the Raffles Crew. And we also have Samir Kathari. He's a fund manager for an Italian investment fund and hails from Texas. He's got a Masters of Science from the University of Houston. So let's go to our first question, which is for Jonathan. Why is ageism so deeply embedded in society?

SPEAKER_05 1:47

Ageism is a form of discrimination, which is quite like quite different from others. It's a discrimination against our future self because many of us will become older. None of us want to be reminded, though, that old age, sickness, and death await us. And so there's a natural bias, even a fear, against reminders of it, such as older people. So that's part of it. And there's also a sense in which older people are different, be it in terms of culture and the way their minds work. And so there is a difference, and that difference gets uh extenuated because of that fundamental fear.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

And how does the media perpetuate ageism?

SPEAKER_05 2:24

In an enormous way. Um comparing uh looking at uh a database of a billion words regarding uh younger and older people uh in the media, they found that older people were six times more likely to be described negatively compared to younger people. That we have a natural bias against them. We turn them either into uh dodgering, sweet, old and incompetent, or uh grumpy and incompetent. That those are typical stereotypes we place on older people in the media.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah, and we are definitely living in a youth-obsessed world. It's it's always been thrown at us, and uh you feel like you're not allowed to get old, you have to keep going and looking young. But uh Simon, you've just celebrated a big birthday.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Yes, I I recently had my 69th birthday, which we celebrated with pangalactic gargle blasters. I'm just wondering whether I'm dodgery and old or what was what was the word. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:20

I think I think you get to be the grandmother, the sweet grandmother who's dependent, or or the grumpy old grandfather.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

I mean, I think I think ageism is very much a political creation. Um, and later on I'm happy to explain why I believe that to be true, because it didn't really exist in culture until the 19th century when British bureaucrats decided it would be interesting to say that everyone could retire when they were 60 on nice fat pensions. Before then, everyone did what they did until they stopped, right? From the beginning of humanity. And having started those expectations, they simply accelerated and accelerated till we bought a culture. We brought about a culture which has something called the third age, which says there will come a point where you will not do anything anymore and and you'll go into that box there, right? I question whether we should ever have done that.

SPEAKER_05 4:05

So you're saying that by having by having that sort of uh the pension at age 60, you're defining people above age 60 as incompetent.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Uh and and uh I don't say incompetent, but you're basically saying that that's what you will do. And the what's interesting is whenever, and we're just getting slightly ahead of ourselves, whenever government's trying to push back against that because the demographics are terrifying, doing that, you just create a level of expectation. You in effect, in effect, engender a situation where everyone's thinking, oh, when I'm 60, I don't have to do anything anymore. You know, and I question one one, it makes no economic sense, which I think is a topic we might want to cover. Um, and the second is um I really question whether it's good for human beings. I mean, you you all know this, but the data on what happens to people after they retire, you know, in terms of alcoholism and health out, bad health outcomes, mental health, loneliness, it's not good.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Well, a lot of people look forward to retiring, so let's not take that away from them.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Well, I don't know what happened to me. I mean, I'm 60, I don't seem to be retired.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Is this is this part of my retirement or am I I I think the other the other issue to think about is uh where does this come from, right? Uh and I think this also comes from the sort of modern tech industry, in which um, you know, once you hit 50, or you know, you're you're essentially uh put out to pasture, right? Um the perception is that older people are not at the forefront of any kind of innovation. Um they are, you know, Elon said this uh recently about longevity that you know with Neuralink and with certain um technological advances, people could live easily to 100. And even he said he said, you know, maybe there are a lot of people out there, particularly older people, that don't need to be you know, they need to make way for younger ideas, younger people, younger ideas, innovation, and that does not come from older people in general, right? It's the status quo. And even, you know, so I think the tech oligarchs have created this atmosphere in which young people uh need to dominate, and as you get older, you need to get out of the way, right?

SPEAKER_05 6:03

I think there's something to that. Like there are two kinds of intelligences crystallized intelligence, which is uh experience, things that you you you gather over time, and fluid intelligence, which is adaptability. And that peaks around age 20. You know, you don't get brilliant mathematical uh inventions uh for people who are older than early 20s. They kind of once you're 23, if you haven't come up with a good math theorem, chances are you probably never would.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Do we know that for sure? Is it or is it just the media likes to focus on the young people? It's always like who's 30 under 30, you know, who are the top 30 under 30. We don't hear who are the top 60 over 60.

SPEAKER_05 6:41

And most uh successful startups start with founders who are in their early 50s. So that's uh you know, it's not the 30-year-old who starts a startup that's likely to be as successful as the guy who's in their late 40s or early 50s. But in terms of fluid intelligence, adaptability, picking up new stuff, there's no question, younger people are better. In terms of experience, in terms of uh potential wisdom, knowledge, guidance strategy, older people tend to be better because of their experience.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

I think it's industry driven as well, right? You're talking about the STEM, the STEM industry, the STEM, the STEM academics, or you're talking about tech. But if you look at finance, private equity, for example, it's all people above 50, for example, who are who are uh general partners. If you look at oil and gas, so my father, my late father, continued to work all the way into his 70s because you know, there was, you know, the even with technology, there were blueprints from the 70s that no one knew how to actually read. And so they would, you know, they got him out of retirement. They're like, look, we've got mothballed uh oil rigs that were built in, you know, in the in the in the late 70s that nobody knows how to operate, for example. Uh so I think we are such a tech-driven society now, and social media plays a big part of it. I know I keep saying that, but I mean it it creates that perception that, well, you know, do you really want an old guy, you know, in on on a social media podcast, for example? But if you look at history, uh Hitler, Stalin, Nehru, all these guys, they were all in their their they peaked at their 50s, right? In terms of, you know, genocide or whatever, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Um, you know, but don't think that's a comparable idea.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

No, no, but I'm just saying, I mean, you know Okay, let me let me push back against this a little bit. Um, because I think again that this is a very modern notion. So let's look, for example, at some of the great classics of Western literature. Let's look at, shall we look at Sophocles, who wrote the Oedipus trilogy. So Oedipus, Oedipus Rex, the man who was condemned by fate to marry his mother, kill his father, um, one of the great foundation myths of Western culture. He wrote the third part of that trilogy, Oedipus at Tyranus, which is uh Oedipus at Colonus, which is a reconciliation play, really, where the where the terrible things that Oedipus has done and the fights in his family and his the death of his daughter are reconciled, and there's kind of a new acceptance of the relationship between man and society and gods. It's an incredibly powerful piece of literature. He was 93 when he wrote it. 93. If you look at Thomas Hardy, most of his great books were written when he was well into his fifties or even in his 60s. Same with Joseph Conrad. So uh it might be that you do better sums when you're in your 20s. I've got no idea, I'm not interested in doing any. Um, but um, I do know prominent mathematicians who are in their 60s and 70s.

SPEAKER_05 9:32

I think that that would be an argument for the idea that you kind of you get the skills and then you you push them further, as opposed to you're learning entirely new skills.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Yeah, it's a it's a little bit more than that, though, because the understanding of how of the cycle of human life um and and and learning um to see things in context is something you can really only acquire with age. So I think there is there is a very specific value to accessing the thinking of older people. And I think that you see it, there's much more respect for that notion, I find, in Asian societies than in European or American societies. And I lament the loss of respect because I think there is wisdom in the old. The fact that they don't know how to operate an iPhone, you know, is neither here nor there, really. Um, but that deep knowledge, that respect, that experience is incredibly important. I suppose I'm saying that because I'll be 70 in 11 months, you know, um, and I don't feel any less able to contribute. Um, you know, I'm prone to judge what I see, the lack of wisdom as young of younger people, you know, with some concern. Um, but um I when when after the Second World War, the British government thought it'd be the welfare state, everyone had suffered. Let's create a welfare state where you get benefit if you don't work, and everyone gets a guaranteed. This is the first time that anyone had had everyone had a guaranteed pension. So the the average pension was uh given to men at the age of 65 and women at the age of 60. But when that legislation was passed that men would get a pension at the age of 65, how old were how old were men? How long were men living on average?

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah, their life expectancy, yeah, that's exactly.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Their life expectancy was 62 on average in England, and that was influenced by the deaths in the Second World War. But the fact of the matter is, most men didn't expect to earn that pension, and the government did not expect to have to pay it for most men. Now you fast forward, sorry, I know we're jumping out, but we fast forward to now, where men on average are living till their early 80s, uh, and you've got 25 years of pension that you have to fund. And this is the catastrophe that's facing the whole of the West, particularly Western Europe. Um so I think it's not just a categorical mistake. I think it's uh it's um it's a political mistake, and the reason it continues to be a political mistake is because of a lack of political will to actually say, well, you know, when we started this, it was because we expected you all to die in five minutes, and now you're living relatively healthy lives for another 25 years. Why would you retire?

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Well, I I do think there is a time when people do want to relax more, see the world, travel, do their hobbies, whatever it may be. You know, not everyone wants to work to the grindstone from the day they're born to the day that they die. I mean, we've already, you know, we've passed that point in history. And I remember looking at my family tree, and I think it was something like my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather lived to a grand old age of like 89 in a workhouse. And I I actually saw that on my family tree, and I cried because I thought that poor guy would have been worked to death for 89 long years, and that would have been the most miserable existence, no doubt. And I feel like people deserve retirement, and this podcast is not about you know, should people be allowed to retire? It's actually about ageism and feeling the effects of it in the workplace in particular. So, you know, I I've said on another podcast that I'm doing a job search now, and for the first time in my life, I'm meeting that resistance, and I know it's age. So I'm constantly being told, oh, you're too senior, oh, you're overqualified. Oh, I even had, oh, we're looking for a 35-year-old. Um, and for the first time, I'm I'm realizing I am in that bucket now, and it's the perception that they think, oh, you're lacking in energy, or oh, you're getting ready to retire. I've got another 20 years to go. I mean, this is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

I think this is a generational thing, right? So, so when my grandfather was in his 50s, I remember my grandmother telling me, Oh, you know, your grandfather's really old, um, you know, you shouldn't uh tax him in terms of whatever. But I think that was the perception of people, you know, in the 50s and the 60s, right?

SPEAKER_05 13:55

And now they probably were, in a sense, older. I mean, they had harder life.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Sure, from a life expectancy standpoint. But you know, but my my grandfather retired when he was in his early 50s and lived till he was 78. Right. Right. So um, you know, it's the the I I think most people now in their 60s don't want to retire. Yeah. Um, we also you're on your comment about re on travel and everything. Travel was a was a big ticket luxury item, and you could only do that really when you were retired, so to speak, and had uh a fixed income or whatever. That does not apply anymore. I mean, we all travel. Everyone, you know, my mother's 85 years old, and she makes four or five, you know, big transatlantic, trans-Pacific flights every year, right? So I think people are aging well, people are traveling consistently. The idea of taking a sort of 20-year vacation, I I don't think is is realistic anymore uh for people. Um I think if people can work, they want to work. Uh if they can start a business, they want to start a business. I so I think the ageism issue is partly to do also with uh a lot of cost cutting in in industries uh where they want the 25-year-old uh not necessarily because you know there's a there's a there's a perception of an older person, you know, a 50-year-old can't perform. I think it's it's a cost-benefit issue.

SPEAKER_05 15:21

Myself, I'm I'm hiring right now for an executive assistant. And having interviewed a few people, I'm starting to feel an ageism in myself, in that, you know, I've I've interviewed a couple of people who are in their late 50s and 60s, but their knowledge of AI is so poor compared to the few people I've worked, I've interviewed who are in their early 30s. And I'm like, I want someone who can help me get better with AI. Um, and and so it's not that I have any objection to hiring someone who's 60, it's just that's a very specific requirement. Yeah. It it's like I need and right now, AI or tech generally is so important for a little company to be.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

But if it was a 60-year-old who's made it a mission to learn everything there is about AI, then you would have.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

But it creates a little bias. It's like, oh, okay, this one's but that's a tech issue, right? That's a that's a technology issue I think to 20 years ago, you still had technology, right? That that was more prevalent with younger people. I mean, Trump's um uh chief of staff, I mean, I think she's 60, but I mean she looks like 90, but um, you know, so he's selected. He could select he could have selected one of thousands of maybe Malania selected her. Oh gosh. I mean, she even walks like decrepitly, you know. I I don't know why you would hire her, but I mean I'm just saying that even from a political standpoint, yeah, um, you know, there is um appreciation of the fact that she probably knows everyone in in in Congress and in the Senate.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

And in politics, you can get away with it. In politics, it's about the only profession where we actually, you know, give people credit for being older, older and wiser, and that's what we look for in leaders. But I think in other industries that's not the case. And I remember being in a meeting and you know, frankly, feeling on top of my game, you know, reached that point where I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt, don't panic about anything. And a young gun in the meeting who was in his late 30s said, um, anyone over the age of 45 should be retired. Uh, you know. Oh wow. Yeah. And it was just a slight, it was an ageist comment, and everyone in the room was agreeing. Uh, I kept quiet because obviously I'm always pretending to be 26. But we've eternally 26. But it just showed how everyone seems to think it's.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

We've all been in our 20s, 25 or whatever, and seen some old dude and thought to ourselves, God, you know, you know, kill me if I ever end up this old again, right? We've all done this before. The problem is we're that guy now. Yeah, we're that guy that, you know, when we were 28, looking at the 60-year-old, we're that 60-year-old now.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Uh yeah, I mean, I think it is part of our culture. I mean, I uh um we have there are institutional obstacles to carry on being you talk about ageism. You know, well, I I did a panel about a year ago and was surprised to hear that people that came along were experiencing it in their 50s, as I think somebody has already said. Um, so so why is that? Well, because the mechanisms that get you employed by the largest corporations actively screen, um, screen out people over a certain age. HR are effectively the gatekeepers.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Um, it's actually algorithms now in the recruitment software. I mean, HR really doesn't manually get involved in it. Okay, so they've always got to be. The algorithms can filter out people from their CVs.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

And and and and governments operate pension schemes which effectively have the same effect. So you you've got you've got a pension, uh, you've got it costs more and more and more and more to hire people, which is a problem. I mean, that's a structural problem which needs to be addressed. Because if you're a consultant, and I was a consultant for many years, and you're looking at a need to reduce costs because the ship might founder if you don't, the obvious place to go is where the cost is concentrated. And you'll find that 80% of your cost is is concentrated in 20% of your employees. It always is. That's a standard perito. And they're all going to be the most senior and the oldest employees. So, you know, um, those are the ones that are gonna get cut because it gives you the kind of short-term improvement that you need to please your shareholders. Doesn't make it a good thing. Um, and why aren't we celebrating? I don't really understand this. I I mean, um going on about the Greeks a little bit here, but that there's a bit, you know, at the beginning of Plato's Republic, they are Socrates. The the a young fellow, a young fellow like Simea comes up and says, You're a bit of a you're a bit of an old fool, Socrates. You know, you're always going on about this and going on about that. Why don't you add about town getting drunk and having sex and stuff like that? And Socrates says, you know, you think you're so clever, but quite frankly, I'm just delighted that I've got to the age where I don't have to bother about any of that nonsense anymore. And I can sit down and talk about philosophy, which is far more important than any of the things that you're doing, young man. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

There's no sign of you slowing down.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Um I don't to slow down to do what exactly. Uh yeah, I mean, yes, I mean, but I'm lucky, but I mean if I dug ditches for, you know, I'm not a well digger or an oil rig man, or it would be a problem potentially. I mean, I do have, you know, I've got metal in my back and my feet and and all of those kind of things, but I write and I broadcast for a living and I run a network. And presumably people can wheel me into meetings in a wheelchair in 20 years' time, provided I can, you know, just say speak, shut up, speak. Mike, you're doing that already, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Like Joe, like Joe Biden.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

That's a bit of an extreme case, right? I mean, I mean, that guy was like a you know, basically barely functioning retard. He was a leader of the free world.

SPEAKER_02 20:52

Just have a bit of respect.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Yeah, yeah, right. Uh but the other the other issue that I think we're not discussing is the fact that we are aging better uh with technology as well, right? So you, you know, like we just mentioned just now, 60 at in in the 1950s is a different from a 60 today. Yeah, right. There's exercise, there's there's supplements, there's uh the agri. There you go, uh as well, right? There's there's um excuse me. You know, and as we move on, um, one of the projects I'm working on is an AI project, um, which is the underlying technology for drug discovery and um longevity uh drugs. So they are actually, you know, the the the the conventional wisdom now is that if you can live for the next five years, you'll live for 10 more years. If you live 10 more years after that, you live another 10 years. So we are we are preparing, we should prepare for, you know, the you know, we have a population collapse going on globally, right? There are very, very, very few, I think India's the Only major country that has a younger demographic, maybe Indonesia. Everywhere else it's a it's an aging population. You know, and the Chinese are in a death spiral, as are the Koreans and the Japanese, right? And most Western European countries. So I think there is uh a case to be made that we will need to keep old the older generation around in in the workforce because we won't have a choice. There's just not enough people. You know, at the bottom, at the bottom, at the the the the the sort of 20s and 30s, there's just not enough people.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

That's not the I mean the reason for the high levels of immigration in Western Europe is because our polit our pusillanimous politicians have found it impossible to get people to agree to raising the retirement age. So the only solution that's left to them, if they can't do that, given constant improvements in longevity, is to have massive numbers of immigrants come in, and which is exactly what they're doing. Yeah, the only problem with that is that 60% of them are on welfare. Well, well they're not going to be working. Yeah, I'm sure that's a separate podcast on the question of immigration. But that that's that that's the policy decision that they've taken. And to your point, the Chinese are not ready to do that. Um, you know, they're not ready to to open the doors to massive immigration any more no more than the Japanese.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Well, there you the the band-aid for this with a lot of these uh uh advanced societies is robotics, right? And AI. So, you know, if you go to you know, my recent uh trip to Tokyo, I went to um uh a reception uh area of a big bank, and there's usually like seven, eight people there as you enter. And now it's done by a robot, you know, by robots, right? So a robot that looks like something out of Doctor Who comes up to you and talks to you and can actually then switch into any language, you know, whether it's English or whatever, and then direct you, check to see where you're supposed to go, and then escort you to the to the uh the elevator. So yeah, yeah, it's it's it's scary, you know? Like driverless taxis.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

It probably does a better job than that.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Well, I mean Elon's already said that they're they're they're gonna have um self-driving taxis, right?

SPEAKER_05 24:03

Well in San Francisco, it was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Yeah, they've already started there. I think the problems on the on that are legislation rather than others. I mean, if you may not recall this, but there was a beauty parade held in Singapore for three driverless air taxis, um, and one was actually selected. This was um some years ago, and in fact they decided not to do it in the end. I think it was I think it was because it was non-viable, but in essence, it would come to a place near you and you go up to it and you get in and it would fly you to where you wanted to go, um, which I think would have been kind of fun. Um, so the technology exists to do that. What has that got to do with ageism? I don't know. Are we gonna fly all our old people off to some island somewhere? What's that movie where they say you get to live till you're 30 and then you're gonna go to the room? Logan's run. Then you get incidentally. Logan's run. Yes, well, maybe we have to go down that road. I don't know. Um Well, they killed you then in that movie. Maybe they killed you when you were 30.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

You don't want to go that route.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

What are you suggesting?

SPEAKER_05 24:56

It's an interesting thing about different countries, how they they view it. I mean, in the United States, where there's such a huge emphasis, or uh not just maybe Korea and some other places on plastic surgery. Uh, in the US, 37% of college students are using uh anti-aging creams. Um, like, wow, like we're so afraid of getting old that that even youth are doing these things. Um but I don't know if that's the same in every country. Are we afraid of getting old?

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Is it is it that or is it just people want to age better, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Well, there's a lot of pressure, particularly on women to look beautiful, to look young and pretty, and you know, you've still got to look like you did at 25, even though you're now 45 or 65. I mean, it's this pressure to look a certain way. And you know, I've got a divided group of friends, so some of them now are letting their hair go naturally grey or white, whatever it's meant to be, and then the other half are resisting and doing the hair colours.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

A lot of women dye their hair.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

And uh, you know, you do see the dye the hair, John?

SPEAKER_00 25:54

I wanted I I would like to dye my hair, but you know, I've got a very sensitive scalp. You do use the same dye, in fact, don't you? I've tried everything, I've got a very sensitive scalp. I'm a sensitive value. You know that. You know what?

SPEAKER_01 26:05

So whether you want to age gracefully or naturally or you want to fight it. And I think the majority of people are fighting it.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

I don't really understand this. I I mean, I had not conscious of wanting to age dramatically, non-dramatically. I mean, at the end of the day, it's a binary thing. Either you're alive or you're dead. If you're alive and you can stand up and walk, you you carry on forging in the direction that you want to go, you carry on doing new stuff. I mean, you know, um, I'm starting two new companies. I'm working on a couple of books, I write fairly regularly on uh for columns and stuff like that. Um, but because my brain hasn't really, I mean, it's different, but it hasn't gone away. Um, on the contrary, I I see this is by the by, but I've created this persona who's a very grumpy Scotsman from the 19th century who sees a thousand things every day that he wants to moan about. Uh, you know, and I find it very congenial because you get older, you get insights because you've seen things over a longer period of time, you know.

SPEAKER_05 27:02

I was talking to an inventor about two weeks ago, and um he's he's in his uh mid to late 50s, and I asked him how is aging affecting his inventions, and he said, actually it's really helpful. I was like, how is that possible? Because the research on fluid intelligence. And he said, Oh, I don't have as much libido anymore. It means I can actually concentrate on what I'm doing. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 27:22

That's exactly what Socrates is saying. Oh, really? Well, it's the same thing. Yeah, I just said, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Drinking and the sex.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Yeah, yeah.

unknown 27:29

I am.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

So if you age better, you can continue to do the drinking.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

I got I got invited to go to this networking session, I forgot what it's called, but it's a thing where everyone stands up and tells you in two minutes what they do, and then you can then hook up with them. And there was uh I didn't really hear anything, but the only interesting thing I heard was there was a young lady, Chinese lady from Singapore, who said that a lot of man's greatest ideas occurred when they were in the in the littlest room, you know, taking care of nature's needs. So she had a company that designed uh toilets that were specifically engineered to bring out your creative side, which I thought was an absolutely brilliant idea. I I've never heard of that before. See? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

I have no idea. I'm a loss of words here because I I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Who does that?

SPEAKER_00 28:16

A pen and paper there?

SPEAKER_02 28:17

It's very binary because people get very upset. I mean, I have a girlfriend who says, I just go in there to mm and I wipe and I leave, and I say, Well, I don't know. I sing, I think, or you know. Really? Really? Um I thought that was the shower. I thought that was a shower, not the shitters. But um, okay, yeah, a book.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Okay. All right, Simon. Well, you're while you're playing with your rubber tubes. That puts me in a minority, clearly.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

That's what you're doing. You're like uh you're stimulating a tension.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Why are we so you know, why is it so difficult to about talk about the decline? You know, why is this still very taboo?

SPEAKER_02 28:50

Um, I think you take, I mean, I'm sorry, I mean, I I've had cancer twice. I've got metal here, metal here. I broke my neck, I broke my back, I've broken both legs. Um, you know, and the first time I I got cancer, they said there was about I don't know what the chances were, they weren't very good. Um you don't you either stop or you carry. I don't know how to express this really. Don't let these things get on top of you. You know, if you get through it, you carry on, you know. I mean, we could I could die tomorrow, but um I'm not mournful or sad because death is just a part of life. And the other thing I notice, I keep I keep a little file called the departed, which is a list of my contemporaries who've left us. Um and many of them are far fitter than I. They are slim gyms and they go off and they're running and they're cycling, and then you know, they're over. I mean, I'm overweight, I never exercise, I have a terrible diet, and yet here I am sitting here giving you the pleasure of my thoughts. Um, so I'm I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to it. I think the thing is to live in the moment because you can't necessarily be as physical as you used to be, you know, find other useful things to do. Use your accumulated experience to contribute to others. Um and I don't accept that the world has moved away from you because you're 69 and that the essential wisdom resides in the minds of youth. I mean, we talked about startups. I mean, I coach startups. Startups are run by megalomanic idiots for the most part. I mean, they're people that have one disruptive idea, which might or might not be a good idea, but they fundamentally lack the experience to run businesses effectively. 80% of startups collapse because they don't understand how the balance sheet works, they don't understand how growing businesses work. So it might sound like you know, startups are all done by young people, but but those are the same startups that collapse in very large numbers due to a lack of experience. And one of the businesses I'm involved in, which is Salamander, is giving fractional experience to startups from old farts like me who actually know what it takes to have a successful business.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Trevor Burrus, Jr. This goes back to we do not celebrate older innovators, you know, the press isn't so interested in them, the media doesn't shine the spotlight on them. It's all youth-obsessed. Oh, he's only 22 and he's made his first billion. I mean, that's what excites people when they read publication social media.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

I mean, I think that's on the surface. If you look at it, again, it's industry specific, right? So if you're looking at tech, particularly at the working level, you're gonna get young people. I mean, every every big tech company has a bunch of 50-year-olds uh at the at the C-suite level, right? Um you look at JP Morgan, right? I mean, Jamie Diamond's been there for like a million years, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Uh yeah, but when you're at the very taller, sure, but all of the senior management are older, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Um, you know, you you may get one or two whipper snappers, but essentially, if you look at Elon's people, uh, they're all older. Um, private equity all older, finance all older. Um, so I, you know, I I think this is a kind of perception issue. Again, I I keep bringing this up, it's because of social media, right? You've got a bunch of young looking people in who are playing this role of whether it's a a successful uh uh coach in media or whatever, and who happens to be under 30, right? So the perception is, oh yeah, this is a world for young people. But I think in general, um outside of that sort of sort of uh social media and tech world, you're seeing a lot of people in their 50s and 60s. I mean, just look at just look at the the uh you know the political landscape um across um Western Europe to a certain extent and uh the US. Most of these people are under 60, right? I mean, or they're above 50, right? Let's say. And they're doing you know, they're doing good stuff. I mean you can I mean we we don't get a political discussion here on what is good stuff, but you know, they're they're hard charging still at 55, still at 60. Trump's 80, right? Um so I I I don't think that outside of sort of the tactical, so we're talking about the tactical sort of perception uh as it relates to um most likely social media, right? But if you go at the the if you go to the strategic route, it's all older people.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

But when we look at regular people, regular jobs, we're not looking at a you know the top five.

SPEAKER_05 33:17

Yeah, but you're looking at the corporate world specifically. Yeah, but startups started by a 60-year-old are three times more likely to succeed than a startup. Um but but but I get your your point. Like for the regular person, how is it?

SPEAKER_01 33:31

And what can regular people do to stay currently? Are any of you regular people?

SPEAKER_02 33:36

Just so I'm pretty sure none of you are. I'm pretty sure I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

I think I'm regular. Okay, okay. Yeah. And then I'm a lowly HR manager.

SPEAKER_05 33:45

So uh not so lowly as I recall.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Well you know, I perceive myself as that. So, you know, what can people do to kind of defeat this ageist? Well, we got to find place.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Um we've got to find some people have hinted at this already, but um I looked at data for the uh for the panel that I ran on ageism uh some time ago, and um it's believed that the first person to live to 200 is alive. And certainly the economist announced over two decades ago that the first person to live to 150 is alive. That's not that's because of as you as you hinted, it's because there are going to be constant changes um in healthcare, which essentially are going to eliminate cancer, they're going to eliminate they're gonna predict, first of all, using genetic modelling, and then eliminate um obviously you're not reading about the clot shots and the damage that's done. Oh no, no, I mean I don't take anything, but yeah, but but it's but it's happening, you know. People are getting older, aren't they? My mother, bless her, she died last 92, about 18 months ago. She got remarried at 84. You know, she said, you know, I'm not getting enough uh action. I'm not gonna use quite that word. She said, she said, darling, men aren't any good unless they perform. And she probably married one that was quite a bit younger than her. Wow. Um, poor man, he lost a ton of weight after that.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Sure he got fit.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

But no, I'm just saying you just carry on, you know, and mum was great. Um, I don't need to.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Well, it is it's definitely something to do with attitude and age as ageism because my great-grandmother, who was an absolute spitfire, I remember seeing her once, and she was in her, she died at 105, and she got run over at a zebra crossing, so she didn't even die naturally, which went down as a legendary thing in the family. But I remember her jogging across the zebra crossing. I remember her in her 80s doing Meals on Wheels, which was a program in the UK where you'd go to the old folks and give them a hot meal once a day.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

You could do cartwheels well into her 70s.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

My great-grandmother, she was in her late 80s, and I remember saying to me, Oh, those poor old dears, because she did the meals on wheels for them. I said, You're 30 years older than them. So I honestly I looked at her and I thought, wow, it's all in your head, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 36:02

It's like there's that actually is a very big predictor of longevity. If you have a positive view about aging, you're likely to live seven and a half years longer. That's a choice. I'm actually all things are a choice. I mean, I firmly.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

I want to hear more on this, John.

SPEAKER_05 36:16

So cholesterol, exercise, diet, don't compare to a positive attitude about aging. If you hold a belief that aging is good and I want to and I want to be older and I look forward to it, yeah, you're likely to live seven and a half years longer. Sure, that's true. Which is incredible.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

That there was a Johnny Carson uh clip going around where there was an actor called Ken Burns. Do you remember him?

SPEAKER_05 36:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

The old guy with the round glasses. And so he's smoking cigars. And so Johnny asks him, he goes, So what cigar is this? It's my tenth cigar today. And uh uh so he says to this Burns, uh this actor, says that, well, what does your doctor say about it? He goes, My doctor's dead. That's good. And he was like 96 at the time, and his whole thing was he wakes up, um, plays uh, you know, plays bridge, then boozes after that. He has a few martinis, he takes a nap, and then starts at, you know, starts drinking again. That was his entire routine. And he was, I think he lived to 100, I suppose. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Well, I think when your numbers up, your numbers up. I've always had that.

SPEAKER_02 37:21

There's no rhyme or reason to it. I mean, I've lost a few friends recently, um, with whom slightly younger than me. I was in a band with three other guys. Two of them died. The third one's got terminal cancer. So for no index for no reason I seem to be okay, you know.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

It doesn't make any sense, does it? And I think this is why people should I know it's easy to say, but you know, to stop obsessing. I mean, there's a guy in the US right now who's trying to be as young as his son. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's taking a million supplements.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Stem cell treatment. No, no, no. He's uh uh he's a tech guy, sold his company. I can't it it'll come to me in a second. Yeah, he's he's on a lot of the podcasts now.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

Yeah, so he's obsessed with being, you know, what 15 years old.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

He wants to live, he wants to be the oldest, he wants to he wants to he's using his body as essentially a genetic, I mean a sort of a longevity experiment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Um but what a miserable life that must be. I mean, there's no joy in it because it's all about I'm only allowed to eat this, these are my supplements.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

To your point about about attitudes, yeah. Yeah, I find the health obsessive and and the and the fitness obsessive people very tedious. Um and there are quite a lot of them, um, especially at my age, you know.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Um you asked me that question. You were like, yeah, you're walking like five kilometers a day and you're going to the gym. Why do you do that? You're like, why do you do that?

SPEAKER_01 38:41

Well, he looks hot for it, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_02 38:43

Oh, does he? Yes, yeah. I think about it a lot. There you go. Don't get any ideas.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

That's interesting. So do you think it's a good idea for people to try and stay looking younger? Because there's that TV series called Younger, and uh it's in New York, and it's about a woman who's in her late 40s, can't get a job, tries and tries, but she's everyone says, Oh, you're too old, you're too old for this. So she basically starts wearing youthful clothes, does her makeup really zany, and she pretends to be 28 and she gets the job. So the whole TV series is about her having to fake being 20 years younger.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

That sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

And uh, you know, and it does raise that question mark whether you should do what you have to do to stay younger.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

And what would that be?

SPEAKER_01 39:34

The way you look, you know you act.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

It's also how you perceive yourself, right? This is goes back to what both these guys were saying is if you don't feel old, if you perceive yourself as you know, uh as as young and sharp, you know, the the perception of others will be the same, right? So I I I feel there's there's a lot of that to do with it, right? There's something to that where um and you have a high energy level of whatever. Simon Simon's uh the oldest year, but I mean he has an amazingly high energy level, for example.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

Well, but you're the so what about reading and things like that? Is that is that correlated with longevity? Don't know that. With mental health, for example? Because I mean, you know, in the West, one of the common things now is is um Alzheimer's.

SPEAKER_05 40:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

That people are physic physically actually okay. I mean, uh, you know, I forget things, but so my observation would be that if you read and you have a big acquaintance um and you talk and you you're sociable, I think that's very important, that kind of stimulation, you know.

SPEAKER_05 40:32

Yes, if you're if you're stretching your mind, stretch your heart, stretch your body, like all of those things are important. I'm not sure about stretching my heart, but um I think emotionally connecting, physically uh engaging in the metaphorically, mentally learning, uh uh to keep on learning. Does anyone read anymore?

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 40:49

I thought everyone just watches podcasts like this.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

I read two books a week.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

I've got two in my backpack.

SPEAKER_01 40:54

I read two books a week. I have a book.

SPEAKER_02 40:55

I have a book club, um, which you're gonna come to, right? Uh of course. I yeah, because it because it's fun. Human beings are infinitely amusing, you know. And one of the nice, nice things about getting old is not just that you you get less bothered by chasing women and other things, so you can think of important things. Um, but I think you have a you have a more genial per I mean you're my case, I'm prepared to forgive much more than I used to be able to. Do people agree? Do people find that? Because you see so much behavior and you've made so many mistakes yourself, yeah, that if you're honest, um, you know, it's a bit hypocritical to to be too exigent. So I look around me and I think that's very funny, I remember that. Um if I get told off for that, I get told off for that in business. Women are much hard more hard-hearted than men. I've got a case recently where I had a guy who I discovered was not very honest, and so I expelled him from my network, and then I saw that he was doing very badly, and I decided, should I invite him back? Because he's clearly struggling. And the all the girls said, No, absolutely not. You certainly shouldn't. Was he on old was he an old guy? Uh a little bit younger than me, but he's 60, yeah. Yeah, okay. Is is that significant?

SPEAKER_00 42:04

No, no, it is it is because I think I think, you know, uh, you know, if you're uh maybe you get more you get more discount if you're younger, I guess. I don't know. Women are hard on all of us, you know that, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:17

Uh well they look yeah, they encourage to get it.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

So here's a good question. Yeah. If you could take a pill which would freeze you at age 30 forever, would you take it?

SPEAKER_05 42:27

As opposed to just let yourself get it.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Instead of aging, so you everything you you know, where you're at in time, is your 30-year-old brain and body forever.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

This is a trick question? Are you kidding, or what?

SPEAKER_01 42:38

No, I'm just throwing it in there. All right.

SPEAKER_00 42:41

I wouldn't pause. Yeah. I'd take it. I'd take it. Yeah, I'd take it a hundred. I'd take five five pills. No, I wouldn't take it. You wouldn't take it.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

So that means you're actually aging gracefully in the world.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

Well, I mean, you know, I've got you know, I um went through a big change about ten years ago where I kind of everything it was a big uh upset in my life, and I had to sort of rethink things somewhat. Um, and as a result of that, I'm enjoying my life very much. So I'd rather be me now than uh than the much younger Simon when I was like, when I was starting, I was, you know, I was saying yes to everything in not a good way, you know, whether it was sexual experience or substances or whatever the hell it was. So I was going around the world like a typhoon, you know, spending money upsetting people. Um in a very still upsetting people, dude. Only when they deserve to be upset. All right, all right. Yeah. Um, so I no, I don't actually feel that particularly. I mean, I don't I don't relish the fact that I limp rather badly and you know I've got a big tummy and so on, but given the choice, I'd rather be where I'm I'm good. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Well you're the only one, aren't you? I won't give you one then. I've got one in my pocket.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

I don't want one. I leave that to my kids, you know. Um yeah. And the other thing is we haven't talked Talked about this. One of the many elephants in the room is, you know, it's nice to hang around with younger people, isn't it? I mean, if you're uh if you're uh coming up to 70 years old, it's maybe nice to marry a 30-year-old woman. What does that do to your morale and your longevity? Any theories on that? I'm looking at you, Professor. I don't know the numbers on that one. It's got to be a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

There's an epidemic of that, right, in the US, right? All these all these NFL owners and coaches have 30 30-year-old uh 30 30-year-old I mean 30-year younger um uh partners.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Yeah, but it's a certain demographic, isn't it? It's it's successful guys, they've had their first marriage and their kids, and then the second marriage often.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Yeah, but these guys are in their 70s, right? Like so. Yeah, but let's say dating. It's not just men. There are women. Mick Jagger has a has like a 30-year-old age gap.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Yeah, but he's Mick Jagger.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Right, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

And he's also got a lot of money in his bank account.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

And all the fame and fortune. So there's always a young thing that will get turned on by those things.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

So is that a good thing or a bad thing?

SPEAKER_05 45:03

I think like uh into being with people who are in a very different generation, I think is generally a good thing. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think uh programs that I think KPMG and I forget the other company, where they're trying to counter ageism, where they've got um uh reverse mentoring. So younger people are mentoring older people and they're deliberately putting uh people from different generations onto the same project as a way of trying to combat ageism. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

How would you feel about someone younger mentoring you?

SPEAKER_05 45:32

Uh about AI?

SPEAKER_01 45:34

I'd love it.

SPEAKER_04 45:35

It depends on what she looks like. I think it does.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

It depends on what she looks like.

SPEAKER_04 45:40

That's what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 45:43

Oh, um mentoring age. Well, I you know, I I I run a network called the Raffles Crew, and we about a seven months ago, we decided to start offering interns places. And without deliberately doing it, we ended up with three women. We had a guy, but he dropped out. Um, and observing, and these were first year of university, last year of school kind of age, so what, 18, 19, 20. Um, the effect on the older members of the Raffles crew was was quite tangible in terms of their evident interest in helping young people. The the the way that the um the engagement became more constructive. Um and you know, we set up not reverse mentoring, but that reverse mentoring kind of happens anyway because they think you're an idiot automatically. Because if I, you know, when I talked about setting up the website and talk to one of them, she's able to do in sort of two hours what I would never be. I might be able to do it in a year if I took a series of courses, but uh, you know, because um but she did it, you know. Um so for morale purposes, it's very important to have young people around. And that's something we've actually lost as a society because in the old days when we was hunter-gatherers, you know, there'd have been a whole clan of people of all ages. We'd have been surrounded by children, grandchildren. I think that would have been a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

No, but there there are studies done for for uh the effect of grandchildren on on the older parent, right? Yeah. Uh where they actually live longer.

SPEAKER_06 47:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

Uh I had you know the most wonderful time with my grandfather and my grandmother. Like, I mean, I was I enjoyed time with them versus my parents, actually. And they enjoyed, you know, talking about, you know, their lives and history and Hinduism and all of this stuff. And I really uh miss that. I mean, you know, and um even in our own family, we've got, you know, my mother has grandchildren, but there's not that same connectivity with the younger kids, the grandkids now and the grandparents because we're all over the place. Um, and there's no there's there's no real appreciation for the their wisdom and their their their love and their their affection or whatever, right? They're just seen as like, you know, a pain, yeah. You know, she she she's talking about something that I you know I'm not really interested in.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

Well, I've heard it five times before. It's the same old story, and and you know, people p putting parents into homes.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

Well, I do that. I mean it's repeating yourself. I I'm always very careful to ask people, have I told you this story? Because you know, if it's like the third time. So what are the practical things that we should be doing to create it? We sort of all seem to agree that there's ageism.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Well, I think in workplace culture there does have to be you know a culture of acceptance, and and unfortunately, often you have to ram it down people's throats when you want change. So there'd have to be some sort of program to you know look at you know the aging population in the workplace, and what are their achievements, what are you know, what are their skills, what can you go to them for, what can they mentor younger people?

SPEAKER_00 48:51

Um but but from a question goes to you. You were a regional head of HR for a large financial uh brokerage house. What were were you doing anything to bring in older people, or were you the were you were you because my my sense is that you were probably towing the line. You were more to blame than any of us. Yeah, because you're the Yeah, HR is the one that that that started all of this.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

Not at all. Culture comes from the top, it comes from the leadership, and it filters down.

SPEAKER_05 49:19

And I think it's it comes from everywhere. I think everybody is afraid of older people. Nobody wants them around.

SPEAKER_02 49:24

Good God, really?

SPEAKER_05 49:25

I think in Asia. In Asia we we we've got a little bit more palette for them, but I think generally there's people are very sweet to me, yeah. Older people are are things you want there, not not, you know, because they're just they're a bad reminder.

SPEAKER_01 49:39

And I do think, I know it sounds a sweeping statement. You didn't answer the question by the way, but okay. But the younger people today, I think, have even less respect than we had in our time of the elderly generation or older people at work. I I I feel it when you're with the young people. Because they feel like they know everything. You know, they graduated, they feel like they know everything, they should be instantly made a manager, they should be on the big money. You know, there's no ladder for their career, it's an elevator. I thought I knew everything about that.

SPEAKER_00 50:08

Okay, the last word on this younger women, you know, from a romantic perspective, like older men. So there we go. So there is there is some hope for us. There's some hope for you.

SPEAKER_06 50:19

Oh, thank you. You are we don't all have your looks, I'm here.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Oh, right. Okay. So in terms of what is the answer, it has to come from No, but were you personally trying to convince senior management to take older, more experienced people?

SPEAKER_01 50:41

I I would when we had interviews and we had various resumes, I would try and mix it up. But often the you know, the heads of the business would say, no, no, too old, too old, too old. You know, anyone over 40, I'm sorry, it was an in you know, you didn't even get to the first round of interview.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

It was it an age thing or was it a comp thing?

SPEAKER_01 51:01

It's a bias thing.

SPEAKER_00 51:03

So it's an age thing, it's not a comp thing.

SPEAKER_01 51:04

Well yeah, it's a it's an age.

SPEAKER_05 51:06

Probably one one is a sort of a an easy way of guessing the other.

unknown 51:10

Right.

SPEAKER_05 51:10

You know, like me with like wanting an assistant who's good at AI, like interviewing enough people age 60 and in their late 50s. I'm learning that people of that demographic are probably not going to be. But they can be taught.

SPEAKER_02 51:20

I mean, it's partly structural, let's be clear, because the older you are, the more you have to be paid. I mean, it's that very simple fact.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Well, it's pretty much not nowadays. People will take the pay cut to work, and actually it's here, people in their 50s and 60s, they reduce salaries. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:37

Well, also the CPF gets reduced. I mean, the government is trying to do a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 51:41

Um But it's it doesn't necessarily work, that's the problem. So it's a massive mindset shift, and I think a lot of it comes down to respecting people with experience and knowledge, and all those years of being through things and knowing how to deal with it. There needs to be a lot more respect.

SPEAKER_02 51:58

I never respected people with experience and knowledge, but I'm thinking because they're getting their own back on me now. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 52:03

Um, let's have some last positive thoughts on defeating ageism.

SPEAKER_05 52:10

Connecting with younger people. I think that's good for the younger people to see that old people aren't just the stereotypes that the media presents. And it helps the older people feel connected to the liveliness that's going on in people younger than them. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 52:24

No, I think connectedness is really important, and I think uh given that we accept that people are going to go on living longer and longer and longer, we have to find ways of engaging uh older people and having them engaged in uh society at large and in the life of others so that they flourish and they can bring their undoubted experience to the service of others as opposed to being alone, because loneliness is a is a huge part of that.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

Yes. I I think aging better is is the key also, which is I agree with both of you in terms of connectivity, but you actually, in order to do that, in order to connect with younger people, you've got to age better. You've you you you you want to uh be more active, and that helps the connectivity because you're able to get out and meet people and you know go for walks or whatever it is that you do, play tennis.

SPEAKER_01 53:12

Party as in your case.

SPEAKER_00 53:13

Yeah, yes. And that's and then you meet the younger girls that you know that they want to mentor you. I thought we were headed in that direction. Yeah, here we go.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

Please mentor me. Well, thank you for joining us today on Ella Podcasts. Ageism is rife, so governments and companies need to do more to protect and nurture older workers, and they'll continue to thrive. They don't bring companies potential, they bring receipts. If you want to hire someone reliable and responsible, try hiring someone in the autumn of their years. And they won't need six months to become effective. Experience isn't expensive. Inexperience is. If you want to suggest a topic for our next episode, please join our Facebook group at Ella Podcasts and message us. Please rate and share this podcast and subscribe to our channel, sending you a big youthful hug.