Why to love getting older.

The Next Big Idea Daily newsletter (SUBSCRIBE) is written by me, Michael Kovnat, and gathers insights from today’s leading non-fiction authors. It’s a companion to our Next Big Idea Daily podcast, available on Apple or Spotify.

I'm still kind of shocked it's happening.

I keep thinking maybe there's a hack, a way to reverse the march of time, a pill or implant that could restore my waist and hairline to what it was in my 20's. Yeah, I know people claim there are such products, but they all feel like scams to me.

And there are plenty of books that will tell me how to live longer and better, many of them championed by us here at the Next Big Idea Club. But what's the point of that if the overall trend toward decrepitude and senility remains inevitable?

Time to flip the script. Time to focus on what's actually getting better in my life as I get older, because some things certainly are. I'm more comfortable with myself than ever before. My relationships are better. I'm more financially secure. And I've got more self-discipline than I ever did as a young man.

These are some of the bonuses of aging, and they're among the ones cataloged by Chip Conley in his new book Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age.

Chip is aging pretty gracefully himself. After launching the Joie de Vivre chain of boutique hotels and serving as Airbnb's Head of Global Hospitality & Strategy, he co-founded the Modern Elder Academy, a "midlife wisdom school" dedicated to career and life transformations. While helping others through the transition into later life, he's kept himself sharp with things like learning to surf and speak Spanish in his late fifties. And he's committed himself to exploring the mental, physical, and spiritual upsides of aging.

Hear Chip explain what gets better as you get older:

We heard a lot of other big ideas this week as well, including:

• How to cultivate a mindset of co-creation, from leadership coaches Chris Deaver and Ian Clawson .
• What diabetes tells us about medical blindspots, from health journalist Gary Taubes .
• How the moon shaped religion, science, and politics, from science writer Rebecca Boyle.
• What we can learn from the history of a Jim Crow asylum, from NBC correspondent Antonia Hylton .

I recommend listening to these episodes and absorbing all you can. After all, if you have to get older, you might as well get wiser.

By the way, if you're interested in having these and thousands of other big ideas right in your pocket, download the Next Big Idea app.