The Inner Journey of Aging and Elder Wisdom with Dr. Marc B. Cooper

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Well, hello to all of our listeners joining us today on our podcast. You're listening to one of our successful aging episodes this month on the Living to 100 Club program. And I'm your host, Joe Casciani. On each program, our conversations educate and inspire, helping you get the best out of all the years we're given. Regardless of what obstacles come our way. You can learn more about my club on my website, and be sure to take a look at my new training and activities manual, Better, Longer, and Happier: A Guide to Aging with Purpose and Positivity. It's a series of 12 modules in a card deck format developed for activities directors at senior living communities and other organizations. Visit my website, livingto100.club/blh. Now, on to today's program. In this episode, I speak with Dr. Mark Cooper on the transformative inner journey of aging. Dr. Cooper shares an Ayurvedic view on aging, suggesting that as our physical bodies remain steady, our inner peace contracts— our inner space contracts, my apologies— creating an emptiness that must be filled with warmth and purpose. We discuss the untapped power of the over-65 demographic, emphasizing the potential for elders to shape the future responsibly. Dr. Cooper offers insights on using intentional self-reflection, and understanding one's higher self to find purpose, especially when traditional roles fade. This episode invites our listeners to reimagine aging and embrace the wisdom of elders in creating positive social change. First, a little background. Dr. Mark Cooper is a science researcher, academician, and seasoned private practitioner with a distinguished career spanning healthcare, consulting, and personal transformation. As a management consultant, speaker, futurist, life coach, and transformational teacher, he has impacted organizations and individuals in over 17 countries. Dr. Cooper is the author of a dozen books including the upcoming "Older to Elder," and serves as founder of the Contemporary Elders Institute. His work redefines aging by embracing the role of elder as a source of wisdom, purpose, and positive societal influence. Marc, welcome to our program today.

Wow, when someone introduces me like that, I wonder who they're talking about.

Yes, right.

Yeah, because you, uh, looking backwards, uh, all that may be true, but it has little to do with, uh, tomorrow.

Today and tomorrow. That's right, that's right. Personal histories are important, but not so. Yeah, good. Well, I always like to ask our guests to just describe a little bit about them, maybe the highlights that brought you to where you are today. I touched on your history, but what stands out in your mind that maybe has pivotal points that brought you to where you are today?

It's, it's, it's hard to see the individual elements that have determined the direction and, and stations where I have stopped on my path. Difficult. There's some that I remember, there's many that I probably have forgotten.

Sure.

But there was moments when you realize, number one, you're old. And that is a little bit of a shock. And so I had a moment like that. I had a sweetheart on Bainbridge Island, and I went to buy my ticket, and he gave it to me, and on it said senior. And I didn't even ask. And it was like, oh. I'm now that.

Yeah.

And that now that had a tsunami of judgments, evaluations, and assessments, and so much going on with it, and it all fell in at once because I held those as true about old, and now I am old. But the work that I had done on myself and with others and the word you used was transformation, was, um, it doesn't necessarily need to be that way. It— something else might be possible. So all of a sudden, I decided to spend time going down that avenue to examine what else would be possible if you didn't accept the cultural definition of aging and old age. Concurrently, I spent a lot of time with Aboriginal and Native American elders. So I had that direct experience of what elders brought into the world and knew that that was not present in our, uh, unscientific, materialistic, more is better, youth-obsessed culture.

Okay, so that occurred for me, a different perspective from what you experienced compared to our social cultural view of aging. Yeah, can you share a little bit more about that? What was the insight that, that came to you as you spoke with the—

I was, uh, I have to give a little background story. Yeah, make it understandable. But I was on a a pueblo where I had done a favor for a friend to attend a course he was doing there. And he knew that I could bring people and he was short of people. And so he said, could you, you know, that kind of request that's hard to decline. So I went with no expectation just to fulfill his request. And we were on a pueblo and we were in a Native American circle and the all was well and there was an elder there. And then what I noticed was who people were when an elder was present, which was more calm and more actually spiritual and more authentic and more loving and all, you know, it was all present in that circle. And then I went back into business and I saw none of that existed. Yeah, you know, it's like, oh, okay, so vision is a function of contrast. So I all of a sudden I saw elder in a way I had never seen elder before. Uh, from there I went and did some work with, uh, uh, the Salman Shakhtar and, uh, aging to saging work and did a lot in some of his courses. So I had all— I had elder going on, I had Salman going on, and I had old age going on. So, you know, when I said it's all in the mix, it all came out in the way it came out.

What accounts for that difference? I mean, how does modern society kind of contradict that view of the elders in the pueblo? What's going on here? I mean, yeah, can you shed some light?

Yeah, well, I think one of the other— if you look at who an elder is being, if you look at that existential body of that. He's for the future of the tribe. He's for compassion. He's for kindness. He's for honoring ancestors. He's for being civil with each other. It's about the whole, not the part. There's not any righteousness. There's not any place that he or she was trying to get to. It's It's about who people are and who they need to be for the future. And it's not, I don't know what the opposite of polarization is, probably unification. But the presence of who he was was unifying the people sitting there and having them see that the future of the tribe, of the community was in their hands and what they could do about it. And that doesn't exist. I don't find it very much in our culture.

Sure. Yeah, I mean, places I'm sure it's not so apparent in most of society, most of our culture. You think we'll get back there at some point?

Oh, that's my challenge. Yeah. So I like, someone asked me, I think it was last week, you know, what are you doing now? I said, I'm saving the world. Yeah, that's what I said. So I look at elder as a possibility that could influence in such a way that would alter the conversations and relationships that people have, such that more peace would occur on the planet.

And that's kind of the theme of your book, Elder to Elder, where we're kind of— you're resurrecting the, the word, the name, the position of elder as someone that imparts this wisdom and compassion and understanding. Can you talk about that a little bit and maybe describe your book?

Yeah. Yes. Your questions are like a big portion of all at once. So there's a presence that I felt so experientially when I was with the elders Who I was in their presence was who I wanted to be. I felt safe. I had some sanctuary. I was able to be attentive. There was high respect. There was high regard. There was love and affection. All of that was present. And so when I sat down with Richard or I sat down with any of the elders that I spend time with, there's just something available that doesn't It's a feeling that isn't in our culture. I can say it that way.

Sure.

And then when you speak about wisdom, there's two kinds of wisdom. In our culture, it's conventional wisdom, which is about knowing what to do and how to do it better than everybody else. That's conventional wisdom. And so I used it. It was very good for me. I made a living out of it for 60 years, but it wasn't higher wisdom. It didn't take you anywhere beyond who you already were. Higher wisdom is an elevation to opening to something greater than yourself, and it could come in many forms, but it occurs. You start to hear people speak that you would never have heard before. If you heard them before, it didn't resonate, but now it resonates. All of a sudden, because wisdom lives within, this higher wisdom lives within. And the job of an elder, I have found, at least in the work we're doing, is you got to get inside to find them. That's where they live. Elder lives inside, not out here. And so it's all looking within to unfold that higher wisdom that's always there. It's just covered up with a lot of stuff.

A lot of stuff, a lot of noise. So it's the process of self-reflection that helps us to connect with that.

Yeah, yeah, I have to be careful with what I know your background too a little bit. So I have an understanding of somewhat of the context that you're coming from. Self-reflection is appropriate, but it's what's the self that who is reflecting? That's not the reflection of the self. It's like, well, who is it that's seeing it this way? And then you have to, at least in the work that we're doing, moving people from older to elder, which is what the book is about, is when you walk in nature, who you are, that self that's walking around, who's being in the moment, who's seeing the flowers and the trees and hearing the birds. It's like, you know, that when— then you go inside. That's true of so many things. So that self is available, and what we're asking to reflect on is how to get to that self more frequently and with greater abundance than you usually do.

Yeah, so it's really the line, we are we are not our thoughts, we are not the thinker, we are the observer of our thoughts.

To become the witness, that's a discipline. And from my viewpoint, and again, you have to, everybody who's listening, you don't need to believe me. So just, you know, but this is how I just see it. I just think you need to be a certain age to have this whole elder phenomenon occur for you and say, oh yeah. Insights are extraordinary, but usually they're not directed to seeing something more about yourself and what's been operating in you that may not have produced the kind of happiness or relationship that you want. So this certain sense of responsibility that allows you to— and you're not harsh on yourself when you realize it. You have more self-compassion, you have more understanding, you understand humanity at a deeper level. You know, we— here's the other side of this is, you know, if you take a look at older people, there's 53 million of us in the States, soon to be, you know, 21% of the population. You know, a big number. And we have the wealth, but it's not aggregated. That's a real interesting thing. One of the things that I loved is we have more wealth, us over 65, 10 times more than Musk and all the other, and all those guys. They only have $20 billion. We have $200 billion. And we have not figured out how to used that as a leverage to change the world yet. That's another thing that I love to work on. It's like, okay, how do we, 'cause we have the wealth and now we're in the major majority and we don't have a seat at the table. We have a lot of older, but we don't have any elder in politics as far as I can see who are listened to.

Yeah, they say when you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu.

Now, there's a steel line for me.

Thank you. Well, you're right. There is a lot of leverage there, and there are so many ways that we can leverage this and kind of shift back toward recognizing the wisdom, the compassion, the acceptance of older adults.

Absolutely. All that is true, but you have to be responsible for what we're walking into, which is ageism. There's a, people see old people, they don't want to be old. There's a real abhorrence to, I don't want to get old here. And you, there's prejudice and there's stereotyping and there's, Fear that I'm going to turn out like that. So we're dealing with all of that stuff. And so you're not, when you approach anyone, all that's there, how do you disengage that so that they can hear the wisdom that's present? And that's the work that needs to get done. The other part is if I put you on a bench with, um, um, Ram Dass or with any of the pundits, Einstein, it really doesn't matter. Who would I— who would you be when you're sitting on that bench with him? Because that's the presence that alters who I am. And right now, moving from older to elder, how do you become that Einstein on the bench for others? That's the real question, because it's not up to them. You've got to get through the wall to have them be with you in that way. That's the challenge.

Well, what part of them is reflected in us, or what buttons are being pressed when we make that acknowledgement of this other person? Because how can we tap into that, that, that what that person triggers in us, I think.

Yeah, yes, exactly.

Yeah. So, um, how do you— let's get just down to some basics here. What— how do you recommend fostering this intentionality, this self-reflection, this acceptance, especially after, you know, we might feel lost or purposeless after a major life event, maybe loss of a spouse or medical setback. How do we, how do we move toward this greater intentionality and acceptance?

Yeah, well, so I find Buddhist teaching, yes, to have cosmic principles that feel right for me. Not that they're true, but that feel right for me. So one of the— you can't be transformed, you can't be fully contemplative unless you're in community. So the first recommendation is find a community that has your values and has an expression for a future that feels right for you. In the Buddhist tradition, it would be a sangha, and I belong to two sanghas actually, and I feel really comfortable on being with them. And they have certain exercises and practices that feel right for me. So the first thing that I would recommend is get out of the house, look on the internet, talk to friends, find a community that you can visit. And while sitting in one of those communities, you may find something harmonizes with something inside of you that says, if I have more of this, this would be healthy for me. So participation inside of a community that has the aspects that feel right for you. Yeah.

Well, that's— yeah, thank you. That's good. I, you know, I call it knocking on the doors. We can't wait for people to come and knock on our doors. We have to reach out and connect. And we have to be the knocker, not the knockee, if that's a word. You know, a lot of people will kind of wait around for, um, the help, the resources, the support. But I agree with you, we have to seek it out. We have to find that community. I heard Mark Middleton, uh, Bolder is Older, um, he said community is immunity. And that makes a lot of sense, but you're even taking that to another level because that community where we can connect and find shared values, that provides more than immunity. Yeah.

And that's not easy. Community doesn't live on a screen. So that really is difficult for people to actually be with other people. You can't have an experiential moment on a phone. Except anger or disappointment or upset. But in terms of what's available, Thich Nhat Hanh calls it interbeing, you know, and we're all— you can't get yourself unless you are in a relationship with another. You can't reflect, you can't see that of you when you're not with other people.

Sure. Hard to do it on a screen or on a phone call, right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

So, you know, so find your community that really works for you. So my work is about generating communities. That's what I do, and allow for people to make that transition from older to elder.

Is that the Contemporary Elders Institute? Tell us about that. Tell us about that. What do you do? What's the mission? What's the goal?

Tell me about that. It never comes out the way you really think it should. So I'm, um, uh, I, I have a good friend who has been in my life for 30 years and helped me in career-wise move out of a certain healthcare provider into a global consultant, if you want to use that word. And his name is Jim Selman, and he had an entity in Vancouver called the Elder Institute, not Contemporary, but Elder Institute. I stole a lot from him. And he and I had written, I don't know, a number of books. And I had also had this Aboriginal Native American elder experience. And he asked me to become the director up there. And I had no anticipation of anything. And I was up there until we closed it 3 years later. But I learned, you know, what an institute can do. And actually, one of the things he has, which is really brilliantly done, is he has a ceremony. You know, we have a ceremony in the Jewish tradition called the bar mitzvah, or you have confirmation, or you have whatever you have to move into the next stage of life. And he had one developed for moving into elder. And I thought that was really He understood, he got it. And so I trained with Jim for a while and with Zalman, and then pretty soon I saw I could, with my background of organizational experience and my entrepreneurship streak and all that, I could figure out, 'cause I had put together groups internally and externally in certain domains of healthcare, physicians and dentists and executives, so I knew the structure of how to put this together. But community is really different, and community isn't— doesn't have a, uh, unified— some do, but the purpose of the communities that I see is about self-development, not organizational development. And so I looked at how to do that, and that what the Institute is really about is putting together communities that are about self-development, self-reflection, really about, you know, death and dying is part of it. You know, you have to come to, you have to get that one.

Yeah. Yeah, that's an important one. Yeah, so more so for the members than the community itself, would you say, or together?

I think the members go out in the community and people see who they are and they go, wow, that is something that I want. One of the examples is, We spend, I don't know how frequently, but death is not an unusual subject in our communities 'cause everybody's old. Everyone has people that are dying around them. Everyone has had the experience of grief. Everyone has, the horizon's right here. And to be able to talk about it freely about the fear and the anxiety and the end and all the things, and then the opening of possibility of what it is beyond what we know it is. And that begins to kind of loosen up the tentacles of it on how we live our life, because we're all in it together. So the power, that's the power of the community in that one particular area, but in all areas of being human. You know, we're all— it all came out the same, you know.

Yeah. So when we, when we do get closer to that, when we can share— I did my doctoral dissertation on death anxiety, and, um, uh, I never knew it would keep coming around in my career, but it's not going to go away. No, no. But yeah, certainly, uh, death gets closer with our advancing years, so, uh How do we accept the inevitability of death? I mean, I realize the more we can do that, the richer our existence becomes, but—

We bring people— I don't— the answer is I actually don't know.

Yeah.

Because no one knows what death is. Yeah. We all make up stories about it. It's our relationship to the unknown and how— and our availability to something beyond what we think, available to beyond our ego, our identities, you know, all of that, what we have wrapped up inside of this package, is that the level of consciousness, you know, one of my teachers said, most people believe that there's only energy and matter, but he believes there's a third line in the triangle, which is consciousness. So for us, and I believe an elder has to look at what is consciousness and become more conscious. I know this sounds strange, become more conscious of conscious so that they can be out in the world interacting differently when they're conscious about that, as opposed to self-understanding that is probably, uh, limited at that point.

Yeah, yeah. To me, it's, um, it's what connects all of us, and it preceded our existence and it continues after we're gone. It's that whatever the higher level of awareness, consciousness, the energy that connects, links all of us together.

And when we talk about death and we move that into the circle, the fear about, uh, the fear about death gets lessened because consciousness doesn't go— consciousness is not a thing. Consciousness is present. So our vector is expanding consciousness into what it means to be human, to humanity, because we're all human, and to other possibilities beyond. This is it. This is— this may not be the end.

Yeah, yeah. I call it a pre-existing condition. Yeah, it's there before us and it follows us when we're gone, so we can— we reconnect with it.

One of our— one of our participants said we were in the midst of a fear— a fear mongering among death in our group at one point, and The guy said that, you know, and what about if it's going home? And that changed everything for me right there. It says, oh, that feels— yeah, maybe it is going home.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good, that's good. Excuse me, let me, let me ask you about— I know when we spoke earlier, there's a the theme of artificial intelligence and how we can leverage that. How can seniors use that to our advantage and to kind of raise the awareness, raise the value of older adults? What—

I don't know how you can't. Yeah, you know, it's everywhere all the time now. I use it every day. Yeah, um, I don't— Google is, uh, doesn't do it for me, you know. I ask AI and I get, you know. The other thing is it knows you. It begins to shape its responses to your previous questions of it. It's got, and it's, you know, it's incredible. I think what it can't do is what elders can do. And so the more it becomes that, AI, more defined, more distinguished, the more clear wisdom will be, 'cause it doesn't live in AI. You know, it's linear thinking. It has a tremendous base, but it can't take disparate areas of life and move it into insight. It just can't do that. Um, only elders can, and others can, but elders perfect that level of, uh, of ability to be able to see the various pieces and see the trend that will occur if unattended. They can see the future differently than most people, and particularly how AI sees it. So I think AI is great. I think driverless cars for old people, I'm excited. My waffle, you know, they can take my keys because I have a car that I can talk to, you know, and it's all perfect. It's all perfect. So how it will be is it will enhance my life in terms of functionality. It will allow for me to be related in a way with information that I couldn't be by myself, or where you, you know, that, uh, and it will, it will interact with me in a way that will lessen my burden in terms of my needing to function in a particular way. It's going to be great.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. It, it, one of the best parts is that it does build up this profile. I, I use AI all the time and it builds up this profile so it knows what I'm up to, what I've done, what I've written, what I want to do, and all the answers are kind of filtered through that profile.

Weren't you surprised when it came back and it personalized you? It was like, oh man, yeah, that's great.

So how would you— let's say you, you have a community in your Contemporary Elders Institute. How would the community be able to use AI to advance and grow. Can you think of any example?

Oh yes, yes. So one of the things that we hold as valid, may not be true, but hold as valid, is that when the career is over, it's over. The exit door is only one way. But they've been purpose-driven for their entire career. They've been, you know, on purpose. And, you know, career-wise, company-wise, People don't succeed in this, in our world, the for-profit companies or even nonprofits if they don't deliver results. And to deliver results, you have to be able to be very competent and be on purpose. Well, that purpose disappears when you walk out the door. Yeah. Now what? Oh, so they do the 18-month, what I call the 18-month dance. I see the grandkids. Go to the beach, do the two cruises. Yeah, do they do, you know, I find no alarm. They still call into the office to figure out what they just want to hear the gossip, they just to stay current. They'll have a boys' night out maybe, or a girls' night out. But then there's a hollowness that occurs and a little bit of despair and a little bit of resignation. There's nothing there. There's no purpose. So one of the things we certainly work on in the Institute is to find their higher purpose. What is that? What is that? And when they can become— get on purpose, all of a sudden AI has another capacity for them because they have to expand that. They're on purpose now, but it isn't about them anymore. It isn't about their career anymore. It isn't— it's about out there, not in here. And they're, you know, now they're charged and AI becomes their partner.

Yeah, that's good. That's, that's the, that's the reinventing part, right? That's the redefining ourselves. Yeah, we were an accountant, we were a nurse, we were whatever, and let go of that. And our future should be bigger than our past according to Dan Sullivan, and I agree. Let's let go of personal history and let's see what doors we can open. Yeah, I was watching— just quickly, I was watching a documentary about Twyla Tharp, the famous dancer. Um, you know, she would do the Broadway plays, and she had a line, um, about dancers, and she said, for dancers, there's only one way out, and that's forward. So I think we all can say that about ourselves. There's only one way out, And that's forward.

Yeah.

Keep looking forward. Yeah.

I, I think I say it a bit differently. It's through.

Think through. Okay.

Yeah. You, you know, if we believe what the culture tells us about aging, we're gonna not have a very fulfilling life.

Yeah.

And, um, creating your own life. Not being determined by what others say, but by you choosing what, who you are and what you do in spite of that, um, gives you a remarkable life actually.

And yeah, yeah, as demonstrated by you stepping out of those comfort comfort zones, those familiar, safe, cozy places. And let's—

well, we all want to be comfortable, we all want to be safe, we want to be secure.

We do, we do. That's— yeah, it's a curse as much as a blessing. Yeah, yeah.

And we just have been— you know, I think right now, uh, elders are so much more needed. So if I look out there after this election and what's going on in people's heads and hearts It's like they're confused, they're uncertain, they're fearful.

Yeah.

Things are out of control. Yeah. All of that's going on for them at some level. For some, it's really high in terms of intensity. For some, it's moderate. And for some, they think it's, you know, however they think about it. But, you know, an elder's wisdom would allow people to be in uncertainty, to be in, uh, you don't need to know that, you need to figure out you. So an elder would take the attention from trying to resolve that to becoming more of who I need to be to be able to deal with that.

Yeah, yeah, that's your advice. I like that. That's like, um, letting go of what we cannot control and focusing on what we can control.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, good, good. Well, this has been an interesting conversation, a fun conversation, Mark. I really thank you for being a part of it.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Anytime I can talk about it.

Yeah, yeah. So I spent some time learning the power of language.

Spent time with some really strong people. And one of my teachers once said, you know, as you speak, you create who you're being in your speaking. You're able to step into that. So I appreciate the opportunity to speak like this because I like— it allows me to be the kind of person I want to be. This is Gandhi's thing. You know, be the person you want to see in the world. Well, that's right. That's what I get the opportunity to do when I— and with you, it was, you know, Joe, you're, you're really, you're there, you know. You want to make a difference and you understand.

Yeah, it's exciting to think about what's next.

Yeah, you are what's next. And then for me, that's— you are the expression of Elder. This is what's next.

Yeah, good.

It's, it's So thank you.

Yeah, you're most welcome. Well, Mark, it looks like we're out of time, but before we wrap up, I just wanna remind my listeners to visit my website, livingto100.club, sign up for my email list. You can download a free copy of my 9 Tips to Make Living Longer Enjoyable. And if you're affiliated with senior living setting, be sure to look into my new training manual, Better, Longer, and Happier. Mark, thanks so much for being a guest on our show. For those who might want to pick up a copy of your book, how would you direct them?

Amazon, bookstores, you know, the— Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And do you have a website people can learn?

Oh yes, we have. I have two websites. That's how— I don't know how that happened. So we have the Institute website, which is www.requestingwisdom.com, um, and then the other one is my name. It's, uh, www.drmarkbcooper.com. The B has to be in there because there's a lot of Mark Coopers running around.

I'm sure it's probably a lot of Dr. Mark B. Coopers too. Um, .com?

Yes.

Okay. So requestingwisdom.com and drmarkbcooper.com.

Correct.

Well, thank you.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it so much.

You're welcome. Thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.