Steve Franklin joins us this week to talk to us about his experience of interviewing 100 people over the age of 100. He talks about some of the things he learned from these interviews. The way that each of these people lived their lives and most without regrets. Living to be over 100 is a good goal and one worth setting. Take a listen to learn more about these fascinating centenarians. Hear more about how Steve, is Changing the Rules.
Guest Co-host: Kevin Davis: kevinkaera@comcast.net
Podcast Guest: Steve Franklin: sgfranklin@bellsouth.net
Transcription:
Kris Parsons00:02
Welcome to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do it too. Join us with your life. The host Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.
Ray Loewe00:17
Hello, everybody. This is Ray Loewe. And I'm sitting here in scenic Woodbury, New Jersey, at the Wildfire Podcast Studios with our engineer Taylor, who makes sure that everything runs in the background so that we can focus on our guests. And we've got a great co-host today and an incredible guest. And let me start off by recapping real quickly that we are working with the luckiest people in the world and the luckiest people in the world are those people who take the time to personally redesign their own lives and live them under their own terms. And, Kevin, let me introduce Kevin Davis. He's been our co-host for this month. And he has a good friend of his Steve Franklin, who's going to join us in a minute. And Kevin, thanks for being with us. Say hi.
Kevin Davis01:08
Hey, Ray, thanks so much for having me again. This has been a lot of fun. And I'm really excited about the conversation we're gonna have today.
Ray Loewe01:16
Yeah, you know, and I want to build on something you and I did a special podcast and extra one because we wanted to focus on knowing what you want, and how important it is to being one of the luckiest people in the world. Because if you don't know what you want, you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you can't design the life that you want. And what we found is that those people who truly are lucky, are able to redesign their lives constantly, no matter what life throws at that. And, here were five factors that keep coming up. And we're going to explore some of these with Steve Franklin. But one is purpose. They all have a Purpose Driven Life. They know who they are, they know where they're going from that standpoint. They have a mission, they're involved with helping others is not just themselves. They have a series of values, they know what their values are. And every time they have to make a decision, they go back to their values. They know what they're good at, and where their passions lie. And they don't do things that aren't going to keep them exciting and interested. And last but not least I and this is the most important I think that culminates in everything at the end of the day, they want to like their day. And that doesn't mean that everything goes perfect in the day, but it does mean that they get joy out of having achieved. And Kevin before you introduce Steve, I have a quick story I want to tell. Okay, I'm a competitive swimmer. And I was down at the National Senior Games in Birmingham, Alabama about I guess is about three years ago now. And after I did my swimming thing, I'm wandering around and I see this guy, and he's carrying six medals around with him. And what's important is that five of them were gold, and one was silver. And I later quite a haul, yeah, quite a haul and more important. You'll see. When I got a chance to meet John and talk to him. I found out that he won his medals in the 100 to 104 age group. Wow. Yeah. This leads into what Steve Frankel is going to talk about. The interesting thing is at age 103, he won his medals in the shot put, the javelin, the discus, the hammer throw, and you know, I can't even pick these things up. And he lost one of that to a crummy 101-year-old whippersnappers. Yeah. And you know, when I came out of that experience, I thought about two things. I mean, first of all, is if I'm lucky enough to live to be 100. Am I going to be the 100-year old that's winning medals in and out celebrating with his friends? Or am I going to be the 100-year-old sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home? And then the second revelation is, you know, I think there's a really good chance that many of us will live to be 100. And so what are you going to do with the rest of your life? How are you going to make it count? Are you just going to sit on the golf course and wile away your time? So Kevin, why don't you introduce Steve, and we know that Steve introduced a whole bunch of people over 100 so he can comment on my story?
Kevin Davis04:37
Yeah, thanks. Well, you know, Ray, it's great to have Steve Franklin, Steve and I go back a number of years. We worked together for a number of years and had a lot of fun doing that. He is and for those of our listeners who have heard me talk about barbecue before. Steve is he's my barbecue mentor. He is the one who taught me how to smoke and just got me down a path that has been so much fun in life. So I'm sure we'll have to talk about some of that along the way. But you know, Steve kind of falls into that category of what's I term a renaissance person. He's done a number of things. But never just the normal way that this idea of why not go out and talk to people who have gained great wisdom by living life started a number of years ago. And so Steve, thanks so much for being with us. today. It's great to have you on the podcast.
Steve Franklin05:35
Ah, Kevin, and Ray. Thank you what an honor really is, Ray, it's good to hear your voice. And again, it's been a while but golly, great to be on your program. Well, I gained a Ray, yeah, by the way, I'll bet my bank account, you'll be one of those centenarians still swimming laps well into your hundreds.
Ray Loewe05:53
Well, you know, it doesn't matter whether I make it to 100 or not, but I'm certainly not going to shut off life. Making up my mind that I'm not going to make it there.
Steve Franklin06:04
It's a good goal to have. I mean, it's just got me started this adventure. Her goal was to live to be 120. I had lunch with her on her 107th birthday, she died not too long after that, hey, she made 107 out of 120. Good for her, she said, Look, it's just a good goal doesn't matter whether you make or not, it's a good goal.
Ray Loewe06:19
Yeah, so tell us a little bit about your Emory University, I think, if you're on the faculty then, but you had this project and this goals, so once you refresh my memory on what you did.
Steve Franklin06:33
I was at Emory, actually, a couple of times, I was a tenured professor there for a number of years and went out and say, to see if I could do what I taught, you know, remember the old saying those who can't teach. So I want to make sure I could do what I taught. And I did was in business, went back as the associate dean of the business school and later I was involved in the industry in the financial services industry. And that's really where I got the idea of interviewing all these people, you know, you've got all these financial seminars, Ray? You've been to plenty of them, they'd have the economist talk about, or the economy or a banker talk about interest rates or something. And I got to think, got so bored with all of that. And I happened to sit down with a woman one day who was 94. At the time, I thought she was 70. And she invited me to 100 birthday party six years from then. And she said I'm serious. I said, Okay, great. And I kind of forgot about it. Six years later, she called me and said, Hey, I'll be 100 next week, her name is Katherine Durnell. Are you coming to my party, I said, I'm coming. She was in Lincoln, Nebraska, got on a plane, flew out there, interviewed her, danced with her, dined with her, laughed with her we just had a ball. And I got to thinking as a professor, having done a lot of research, I said, you know, shame on me, if I don't collect the wisdom of her and many other centenarians and share it with the younger generation, does man to the young, younger generation need to hear this wisdom. But that's what started at all, I just started to interview people. And over, over about eight years traveling all over the country, I interviewed I videotaped over 225 centenarians and dozens of other phone call conversations. And then we surveyed about a total of about 550, asking them to fill out a lengthy questionnaire. So from that, you know, came up with a book called celebrate 100 centenarians secrets to success in life and business. And so it's just was a wonderful journey, learn so much about their thoughts and wisdom, about money, about work, about life, about politics, about family, you name it.
Ray Loewe08:19
Incredible. You know, and I know when you gave that presentation for a group of my clients, it was just so motivating. And all of a sudden, it just opened up this horizon of saying, you know,you got to think about the future, and you got to make it count. Right. So, you know, tell us a story or two about some of the more interesting people that you ran into, and what they're thinking about. You got it, you got a couple-three hours. I'll give you a couple. The short version.
Steve Franklin08:52
Let me give you a quick context, Ray, you know, as I did this with your group, too, you may recall, and when I always start these presentations, I'll say, I want everybody to get a number in their mind to what age do you think you will live? To what age do you think you will live? And I get a number that I will call on people? What do you and the average number across all of America, Cali several 10s of 1000s people I spoke to is 85? Most of most people have in their mind, the average is I think I'll make it 85. And then I qualify that say now let me ask a question. If you were healthy can still swim laps or rent walk or whatever. And if you're financially well off enough to live, you know, a lifestyle you would like to how is how long would you like to live? Well, of course, 99% of people want to live to be 100 or more. So that's a good context. I think again, hundreds of good goal to have. But golly, I could just go Let me I mentioned a couple of First of all, Walter Bruning at the time. He was according to the Guinness Book of World Records the longest are the oldest man in the world. He was 114 at the time. Throughout the Great Falls, Montana spent the day with Walter. He woke up every morning very early, got on a suit and tie came down to This wonderful senior home that he was living in, would have breakfast, go over his mail, walk down to the bank, come back, have lunch, and he went up at two o'clock every day. And that was it. I mean, e only ate two meals a day and he listened to talk radio, the rest of the day, went to bed about eight o'clock. Well, when he turned 114 is the world's oldest man, of course, the governor of the state got hold of it, and said, and so he goes over to the house at about 3:20 in the afternoon. They call up and say, Walter, the governor is here he wants to see he said, I don't see anybody after two o'clock. They said but Walters, the governor, he said, Tell the governor, I don't see anybody after two o'clock, come back tomorrow. The governor went back to the Capitol. He came back the next day before two o'clock. So I love that. But another quick one on Walter. I asked Walter what he did. He was in the railroad business for 50 years. They made him retire 65. He hated to retire. He hated to retire. And so he said, so I kept working here in Great Falls. I did work for nonprofits. And he was an accountant and financial kind of guy, he said, but in 99, I decided I need to quit doing two things. So what was that? He said, Well, I decided I need to quit working. I need to quit smoking. He gave up smoking at 99 two packs of lucky strikes every day. He said, but I think quitting early has contributed to my longevity. I'll tell everybody, if it goes smoke, make sure you start knocking off at 99 or whatever. But Walter was a great guy. Just just. And he had a blog. He started a blog at 112. Ray, think about that. He started blogging at 112. At 114. You could get on the blog and ask Walter any question. And then he had an opinion about everything. So one of my real heroes in that group. Another lady, let's see Mary Tyler. She was the world's oldest living Girl Scout lived in Southern California. Marian's name was Marian Tyler and at 88. She did a 45-minute video called Marianatics. And where it was kind of like yoga and exercise or whatever at 88 gave me a copy of the DVD. And at the time, I was probably what 60 something. I went home and it wore me out, you know, but she was going strong at 104 living in her own home gardening in the back, just one of the world's oldest living Girl Scout at the time. So again, just a wonderful lady. Oh my goodness, one of the questions I asked is this is important for your listeners, which I think is to your point, right of having a purpose I and one of the questions I asked him, I said if you had your life to live over again, would you have liked to have done something different than what you do? And they have, they had done all kinds of things, and a lot of jobs that you and I might consider quote-unquote, mundane 82% of them said no, I would have done the exact same thing. I loved what I did. And so loving what you do, I think is a real key to longevity, I really, really believe that. They just they slowly you know 18% saying Yeah, I'd like to maybe been a radio talk show host like you or a financial adviser or a pilot or an astronaut or something like that. But 82% of them actually loved what they did. Another question I asked I thanks very important for your listening audience is this. I said if you had your life to live over again, what is one or two things you wish you had done more of? What's a couple of things you wish you had done more. And the number one by far was they said, I wish I had traveled more. I wish I had gone to more places in the country. In the world, I could have. I had the money to I had the health too. But I just was lethargic. I didn't set goals and put it on my bucket list and go do it. The number two behind that was I wish I had read more or learned more not gotten more college degrees. But I just wish I had read more books, read more magazines, which had gone to more classes to learn things in which it tied perfectly with what I used to tell my students and Emery Ray and Kevin, I said, Look, you and I are a composite of three things in life, the books we read, the people we meet, and the places we go. That's what we're made up of the books we read, the people we meet, and the places we go. So do as much of all three as you can. And the centenarians nail that when I asked him if you could be more and lived your life over again, do more. They both said they wish they travel more and read more books or articles or whatever. So I think it's very important for your audience to know.
Ray Loewe14:51
Yeah, you know, let me turn this around a little bit. So you did all these interviews. It was part of a project you were doing. I don't know what you're motivation was for doing that at the time. But you obviously personally benefited from these interviews and meetings. So when you look at things and all the people that you talk to, how did this affect your life and where you're going in your life?
Steve Franklin15:18
Yeah. Well, you know, I've always kind of been a goal setter, but it really had me it really one of the things that is really Catherine Brunel was the one that really got I set a goal to be 120. Kevin knows that you may remember that. That's my goal. And it really is a good goal to have. I mean, it comes down to Janet here. She said, Genesis six, three, it says, everybody, we live in eight or 900 years. And if you read the Old Testament book of Genesis, it says, My spirit will continue with humankind for 120 years. She said, Look, I don't care whether I'm making it on not, it's a good goal to have God said it, I believe it I'm going to go for and she made it to 107. So I thought it was kind of cool, mixing a little bit of biblical theology in with a lifetime goal of life expectancy. So my goal is 120. So it because I had always thought about, it'd be nice to live to be 100. But now I have a very definite goal that I want. And I tell everybody, I know that my goal. is to live to be 120. That's the goal. And unlike Katherine, it doesn't matter whether I make it or not, but it's a darn good goal to have. That's one thing. The second thing I learned was that they were masters, they were masters at managing stress. You know, that wonderful Serenity Prayer, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. They are masters of embracing that prayer because the only thing you can change is yourself, you can't change anybody else. And so, most all, and by the way, they live through some pretty stressful times in life, if you think about it. World War One, they lived through the Great Depression, they lived through World War Two. I mean, these people did not live stress-free, free lives, but they really, they really learned to just manage stress very well. And it's really helped me a lot to just realize it you know, there's really nothing is really that big a deal. Another thing it did financially speaking is, is and when I asked them, you know, one of the things about giving us your wisdom about money, you know, you all have you lived through the Great Depression. And they were all in teenagers or young or in their 20s a number of them as they were living through the depression. One lady said, she said, I live by the three Do's make do, do without, and do-over. Make do, do without, and do-over. So I think I probably learned to be a bit more frugal myself a bit more sensitive to being a little random with my money. They all say said pay cash. They hated that that was a nasty four-letter word to centenarians. They hated debt, you know, most all of them were debt, all of them were debt-free, very few, even a very few pay for anything. Except for with cash. And so, I sort of go by that, mantra now I've got an I'm debt-free, you pay for almost everything cash, pay off our credit cards at the end of every month. So I have no debt so that I don't live with that stress. And think about if you live without any debt, most of your life, you're going to be a lot less stressed and which may contribute to your longevity. Another thing they taught me was, and Kevin knows this, I've really had about 16 careers. And they because they all said they loved what they did and, and I have always when I got bored doing something, I went and did something else. And I've always loved what I've done. And I've told people I said, Look, if you're loving what you do, you have eight hours of your day is lousy. The other eight hours a day that you're awake are gonna be wonderful. But if you're loving what you do eight to 10 hours a day, probably the other eight or 10 hours a day are really gonna be fine. So I've really pursued that I've always done what I've enjoyed doing and what I quite enjoy doing. Like you said some of that mundane days, but I've always stayed focused on enjoying what I do. So those are some very practical personal. And, and man I am traveling, all I can. Now two years ago, my wife and I celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary, we did a 44 day around-the-world trip. We went from Atlanta, the ship to Japan to China to Hong Kong to Cambodia to Vietnam to Singapore to India to Dubai. You name it, man. So we're going to see all of this Earth that we can before we get slapped in the face with a shovel.
Ray Loewe15:19
Yeah, that's cool. You know one other quick story and then I want to get back to your stuff. Sandy and I were in Antarctica a few years ago and we met a couple of down there that one of the days didn't come on one of our side trips that we went on to and it's an expensive trip so everybody does everything. And the short version of it is they said you know, we put off taking this trip too long, not realizing that we have to be physically healthy to do some things. And we, we didn't have the money we needed, we saved the money. Now we have all the money when we want, we can't walk up the hill to see the penguins. And it's so significant to do what you can when you can, you know, what have you changed? Now, you've gone through this career at Emory where you were doing all this research, what are you doing now?
Steve Franklin20:28
Well, it's great. I finished working for money, let's just say eight and a half years ago, you know, finished up in the financial services business we did four successful rates and hung it up. And I had a wonderful ministry called North Point ministries, they that it's a it's an interesting organization, it has eight or 10 churches in the Atlanta area, but it supports probably 75, all types of nonprofit ministries throughout the Atlanta area, and all throughout the United States in about six or seven foreign countries. And so and this was really neat that the Lead Pastor of that organization a guy named Andy Stanley he and the executive pastor said, you know, we do a great job helping people who are struggling with finances, you know, the ones that are really you know, surviving, struggling, we've got all kinds of great resources to help them get out of debt, get on a budget, pay off credit cards, you know, all of those sort of things. But we do nothing, we do nothing. For people who are in that, let's call it that cert, that that that stable to surplus stage of life that you and I are in, right? I mean, we're in a stable surplus age you say, we assume all those people fine they got plenty of money, they're gonna retire, they got no issues and whatever. And we did nothing to really focus on them to help them be let's just say, enjoy their retirement more, be more strategic with their generosity, he said, I'd like you to come on board and see if we can develop some environment, some irresistible environments, that would help these people be more strategic in their stable surplus years, that second half of their life. So I spend my time now with a lot of people, most of them I would say are in their late 50s, 60s and early 70s. But a goodly number of people in their young people in their 30s talking about once you get to that finish line, whatever your retirement goal is all those sorts of things. How can you be more strategic in your generosity to give away money so that you really do jokingly say die with a smile on your face? A good friend of mine, Ron Blue says do you're living while you're, do your giving while you're living. So you're knowing where it's going, you know, we're not telling you that there's going to be a meeting about your money. And either you can be present or you won't be. So let's get strategic about being generous with what you got now in the stable surplus years. And so I do a lot of that do one on one meetings, I do a lot of group meetings, I bring in various speakers to talk about that. Just really, really a fulfilling kind of self-actualizing chapter of my life.
Ray Loewe22:57
Oh, cool. So we're, unfortunately near the end of our podcast time. So do you have any final comments you want to make before we have to break off?
Steve Franklin23:08
Ah, you know, pay cash for everything. Get out of debt, love what you do. And if you're not finding what it is that you're doing? And just be nice to people,
Ray Loewe23:18
and sharing your wisdom in some way, maybe some money is a good thing too, isn't it? Absolutely. Cool. Kevin, any last comments that you have?
Kevin Davis23:28
So I just got to say, you know, along with this, do things now right and enjoy some of what you have now. For anyone coming to Atlanta reach out to Steve or I because you got to come to Das barbecue. There's a couple of them now. Steve's son, Steven started them legitimately. And I'm not just saying this legitimately, probably the best barbecue joint in Atlanta. And that's saying something. But you know, enjoy life a bit. Bring a friend. Let's go have a fun conversation about your passions. And did you notice the theme this common thread over the last three or four podcasts Ray of people who, who didn't talk to each other ahead of time, which I think's interesting about how when you're others-focused, whether it's giving of your time or giving of your money? It seems like there's an immense amount of joy that comes from that. Isn't that interesting? Right? Yeah.
Ray Loewe24:27
And we're gonna dwell on that going forward. You know, Kevin, you've been a great co-host. I really appreciate your time and your energy. And you know, our next podcast, we're gonna have another co-host. And his name is Jeff Wuorio. He's a ghostwriter. And he's helping me write my next book as we speak. So that'll open up some interesting stories and some interesting opportunities to, to search into life. So everybody, thanks so much for being with us. Thanks, Steve Franklin. You know You got me excited about older age and by the way, I'm going to live to be 154. That's a good number. A good number I like that. All right, great, everybody. Have a great day. And we'll see you all again next week. Thank you much.
Kris Parsons25:18
Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best life and how you can figure out how to do that too. Join us with your lively host of Ray Loewe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.