Transcription
A thousand days. That's all. This one rule could radically change how you approach retirement. And well, basically life after 50.
Retirement and later life is meant to look like a kind of slow motion saga holiday advert. You know, you know the one: silver-haired couples walking on a beach, looking at the sunset, cruises, all of that with a voiceover talking about the golden years. Golden Years? What? What? Golden Years.
But as pointed out on this channel numerous times before, that's just a load of old BS. When you hit retirement, damn it, I'd say when you're round your 50s plus, time is not flat. It's not a flat, static plateau. We've been sort of conditioned to hoard money like squirrels for a winter that we will assume will last forever. But biology, biology doesn't care about your pensions, your savings, your investments.
So today, I'm talking about the 1,000 days rule. It's a kind of radical shift from planning in vague decades to executing in a kind of tactical window. Because the truth is, your health span, the years you spend with actual mobility and clarity, is a rapidly closing window. Sorry, look, I don't mean to be a downer. I'm just firing the truth bullets here. So, yeah, this video is going to hit hard for some, but we need to go on this journey. So please keep watching and have no fear. The optimistic bit, as with all my videos, will come at the end, and it'll hopefully all make sense with a basic three-step plan to make the best of your act two, the afternoon of life, as Carl Jung says, or level 50 lifestyle, as I like to say. Please like and subscribe.
So let's look at the basic maths of this, you know, the basic mass of the human machine. We often confuse lifespan, the average lifespan, with actual health span. Modern medicine is great at keeping us alive for longer, and that's brilliant, but it's not so good at keeping us vibrant. There's a big difference from being bedridden for 10 years of your life with pipes and wires, and actually being mobile and active. So, in reality, it's all about that healthy lifespan. And get this, the average healthy lifespan has actually gone down. Actually, similar to the average IQs, which, uh, I find kind of absolutely shocking, and, uh, maybe the two are correlated. Who knows? Anyway, the average healthy lifespan in the UK is 60.7 years for men and 60.9 years for women. And I've talked about this before on the channel. A recent report stated that healthy life expectancy in the UK has fallen to its lowest levels since 2013. As I said, with men averaging 60.7 and women 60.9 years in good health. This was as of '22 and '24. Wow. I mean, what's that all about in the modern world? Human civilization, it's, it's meant to be advancing, isn't it? Not going backwards, for FUD's sake.
Of course, the one caveat here is that these are averages, so they're kind of skewed slightly, and that drop is largely driven by the pandemic era impact. And of course, they also differ among the wealth divide and where you come from, etc., etc. And I think realistically, a median number would probably be a better way of looking at it, or certainly a better indicator. But the numbers, however, are a powerful reminder, a wake-up call that your active life is shorter than you think, unless you do something about it.
As I've mentioned before on this channel, post 50, you know, when you hit 50, level 50, things accelerate downwards. We're talking about literal loss of muscle mass, sarcopenia. After 50, you're losing 1% to 2% of your muscle mass every single year. By the time you hit 80, you might have lost half of your peak strength. I remember a couple of years ago, my old neighbor, who used to work in construction and on the road and stuff like that, was helping me in my garden last year. He was a nice, friendly bloke, like that. And I had this old sort of road curb block. It was really, really heavy. And he tried helping me lift it into place. And, well, he just couldn't do it, and he was like, really apologetic and stuff like that. But I could see in his face, he was sort of shocked because he used to lift these things all by himself 20 years ago. And I sensed, in a way, that he was suddenly confronted by his lack of strength. We don't realize how strength just goes over time, dripping away like a leaky tap, until we put it to the test 10 years later and think, "Blimey, I used to be able to lift these things easily." It's very sobering.
And of course, it's not just the muscle, it's your engine, you know, your VO2 max, how well your body uses oxygen and all of that. This apparently drops by 10% every decade after the age of 30. Your oxygen extraction drops 80% to 60%. Just speaking and walking, I'm losing that oxygen.
Anyway, this is why I bang on about the go-go, slow-go, and the no-go years. The go-go years are typically your 65 to 75, and they're meant to be your maximum vitality, your window of maximum vitality. Although, see my note on healthy lifespan averages earlier, which would seem to make that window significantly smaller and, I'd say, somewhat optimistic unless you're kind of really keeping healthy. That's why I retired early. At least one of the reasons I retired early. I'd say your best go-go years are certainly in your 50s. So, yeah, retire early if you can. That's why I did it.
If you're waiting for those slow-go years to trek the Himalayas or finally do that big DIY project or fix up that vintage car you've always dreamed about, you'll have the money. Yeah, sure, you've invested in that. Money's not the problem. But your knees, your back, they'll be filing a formal protest. Ain't happening, sunshine.
So why do we wait? Why do we just sit and hoard when faced with these obvious facts of reality, the facts of life? Well, because our brains are liars. Damn you, you falsifying gray sponge of doom. Psychologists call it the planning fallacy. We systematically overestimate how long we'll be healthy and underestimate the risks. When we're sitting there at our desk, say in our 40s, and our only joy from the drudgery of office and factory life is dreaming of that time in 20-plus years when we can finally retire and go and do all those adventures and travels, those dream projects, that motorbike trek, and all of that. But we're looking at those those dreams, those concepts, based on our fitness at that precise moment in time, sitting there at that desk. Not what our fitness and health might be in another 20 years' time.
But there's a deeper trick: time compression. Think about it. When you're 10, a year is 10% of your life. That's why those young summer holidays when you're a kid seem to stretch on for ages. It feels like an eternity. At 60, one year is a tiny fraction of your life. So, subjectively, it feels like it's moving faster. So, we think, "Oh, yeah, I've got plenty of time." At 30 or 40, when I was a teenager, my mom told me, she said, "Son, when you're 40, your life just rushes by." Yeah, sure. Whatever, Mom. When I hit 40, I thought, "God damn it." She was bloody right.
And in that repetitive drudgery, the same office hours, the same sort of school term times when you have kids, the same holidays, they sort of blur into each other, making time feel like it's whizzing faster when you look back because there are not many standout memories or experiences. I did a whole video on this, and you can check that out here. We just don't have lots of new memory points in our life, especially in our late 40s and onwards. Think about it. All those moments with the kids, etc., when they were growing up, they get kind of less and less as they get older and more independent, and life starts to just seem to be on rinse and repeat. Yes, dear. No, dear. Let's go there again. Let's do that again. Oh, go to the office. Go home. Or it's the weekend. Go to the office. Yes, dear. No, dear.
Sitting there at your desk or in the factory, wherever it is, your brain is telling you, "Now, be patient." Right? Just chill. Wait for the right time. But the cells, the cells in your body are screaming for you to move. Get off your butt. Change your goddamn life. This is the trap. We wait because time feels fast. And we wake up with a bank account full of someday money and the body that says, "No thanks, too late, expired, past its sell-by date."
Wow. Gosh, Clive, that brought us right down. Thanks for that. I know, I know. Please wait. Wait. Stick with me here, because here comes the good bit. This is where I think you can flip the script. Stop planning for 2035 and start planning for the next 1,000 days.
Why 1,000 days? It's a nice number. It's the magic window. In biology, the first thousand days of life determine a child's entire future. In martial arts, Mas Oyama said 1,000 days is the minimum to forge a foundation. One becomes a beginner after 1,000 days of training, and an expert after 10,000 days of practice. In life, it's what you need to master a new craft. But we'll just settle here, just to be a beginner. A beginner in a new life. A 10-year plan is just a dream you don't have to act on today. But a thousand-day plan, that's tactical. That's urgent. That focuses the mind. It's raining now. Had a sense it was going to start raining. Welcome to the UK weather. Sunshine then rain. That's life. You can't predict it.
Step one, anyway. Stop counting years. Count experiences. If you see your kids, say your older kids, maybe twice a year, and you have 20 years left, that's just 40 visits. How many vacations have you left while at work? Oh, no, not another trip to Benidorm. I used to go to St. Ives every year with the extended family for nine years, maybe even 10 years. Every year. And look, hey, don't get me wrong, it was kind of fun, and the great family and the kids loved it and all of that, but when I look back now, I think, what about the variety? As soon as I separated, it was, oh no, it was trekking and mountaineering and adventures in Wales and adventure holidays and camper van in the Isle of Wight with the kids. And oh man, they loved it. And because it was different and fresh, they still remember those holidays with fondness. Certainly my son does, even though it was all 10 years ago. Although, in fairness, I have found myself just going to France to see my sister every year. So maybe I'm getting into a bad habit again. The point is, how many holidays do you have left in the next 20 years? Whatever that number is, that's it. When you start to see it in numbers, you know, just as data, boring as that sounds, it really focuses your mind. How many summer vacations do you have while you're still working?
Step two is the "die with zero" mentality. Basically, what this is about is that your money has more utility now than it ever will again. Especially in early retirement, this is the time to kind of spend your money to enjoy it while you have the kind of health and fitness to do it. You're active to explore. Don't just sit on it. Use time bucketing. It's something I mentioned before in my travel paradox video. Put the high-impact stuff, the big adventures and that if you want to do them, or the projects, or whatever it is, in the "now" bucket. Yeah. Your big spend now, in early retirement, when you get real value out of it. When you've got that go-go in the go-go-go years, you can't take it with you. I know it's a cliché, but it's true. Collect experiences and memories to cherish. Something to sort of flick through in your mind when you are bedridden and the nurse is wiping your butt. An old father time is waiting patiently at the end of the bed. "Just one moment, mate. Few more memories. I'm reliving. And then I'll be right with you, Mr. Grim." I mean, what do you think you'd be doing at that moment? Counting all that money you saved.
Step three, upgrade physical capital. You don't maintain health, you actually train for the life you want. If your 1,000-day goal is to go on a walking tour of Rome, or, god damn it, like me, trekking around Tokyo, just doing stuff. I mean, whenever I go to Japan, I'm just clocking up 20,000-plus steps every day. That's just walking around looking at stuff. Your 10,000-day gym plan starts tomorrow. I talk about the importance of going for walks and doing strength training. I did my exercises this morning. I should really do more, but start doing it now. I started exercising actually during the pandemic, and it was to encourage my kids who, you know, obviously were getting schooled at home because of the pandemic. And so I followed an exercise routine that some guy was doing on YouTube for the kids. They gave up after 3 days, but I kept going, and now it's a habit that I do at least three times a week. Whatever it is, start doing it now. That's the real investment you need to be making if you want to reap the dividends when you hit retirement. Strength and stamina training. Invest in your body and reap the interest later.
I talk about the Stoics a lot on this channel, and I did a whole video about Stoicism, and with good reason, because it's really good, uh, for early retirement, I think. But the Stoics had a phrase: memento mori. Remember you will die. Or, I know it sounds a bit dark, but it's actually the ultimate productivity hack for your soul, because it cuts through the trivialities. The Stoics viewed this not as something to be kind of scared of, but just a natural thing. You know, we're all going to die. We don't know when, but we're all going to die. So, why worry about it? It's something that happens to everyone and everything. So, don't worry about that point in the future. It's inevitable. So, live in the right now. That's what it does. It focuses the mind. Live for the now, not for the future.
Retirement shouldn't be a passive fade-out, especially early retirement. I mean, that's why you've retired early, to do something. If anything, the message I try to get across on this channel is this is act two of your life. Some say act three, but the point is, it's the next level, the next stage of your life, level 50. You've maxed out on those XP points, as I like to say, and you've conquered the game of life. So now you can just go and do different things in the game, and know that you can do it with all that XP points and all that experience. Retirement should be a strategic allocation of the most non-renewable resource you have, your time. Don't be that kind of ant from the fable who works all summer and never actually eats the food he gathered. We're at level 50. The game has changed. So, the question is, what are you going to do with your next 1,000 days? Tell me in the comments down below. I'd like to see what you've got to say and what your thoughts are.
And of course, as ever, there you go. If you like this video, please hit the likes, because I like it, YouTube likes it, and it helps people like you find content just like this. And if you are new to my channel, then do me the great honor, please. Can you hit that subscribe button? Toggle that notification bell, and that way you'll know when I go live with videos just like this. Talking of videos just like this, why don't you check out the videos here? You see the ones here? Yeah, that one there and that one there. You'll love them. Thanks for watching. Cheers.