The world is a frightening place right now. Frankly, there are few times in history when it hasn’t been.

Fear of the future has been ratcheting higher and higher since You-Know-Who entered office for the second time.

But fear lives in the minds of each of us regardless of geopolitics; it’s an emotion that we experience almost more than its opposite, love.

How do we deal with it? Especially if we are older adults with less time in front of us than behind us?

There are many ways and strategies that we can employ to continue to get joy out of our lives, no matter what is going on within or without.

Wayne Lehrer has been a frequent guest on The Art 2 Aging. His books, The Prodigy Within and The Art of Conscious Aging, describe our human experience in ways that open up new possibilities for all of us.

Wayne has become a good friend, so, who better to turn to, I thought, when I wanted to discuss how all of us can live lives free of fear.

We all know that physical activity goes directly to lifespan and, indeed, healthspan - how healthily we are living our lives.

That message has been embraced by those of us who are older adults; we get the connection between being strong and flexible and living a fit life.

That’s why many older adults will happily join a local gym, determined to regain strength or increase it.

Unfortunately, what do many find? Ageism. Not in the workplace this time. But in the fitness class, perhaps the last place they would suspect ageism to lurk.

Erin Eleu is a functional aging specialist and falls resiliency coach who leads and teaches physical activity programs for older adults and who is vehemently opposed to ageism in the gym.

She is also the host of the podcast series, AGEnts of Movement, and is our guest this week on Point of View.

Scott Fulton is an extremely talented individual. He’s a mechanical engineer by training who shifted into home design with older adults in mind, forming a company called Home Ideations. In fact, he custom built his own home in Virginia using the principles from Home Ideations.

He dug deep – and still does – into how to live better as we age.

Scott is well into his 60s, is very active and excels at physical fitness, competing in ironman triathlons and long distance running.

His abiding interest in healthspan and longevity impelled him to dive into a vast trove of health data to answer one simple question: what’s the most important thing people can do for their bodies and brains that can help them live longer?

By crunching many millions of bytes of data from 700 thousand adults, spanning 10 million person years, Scott has answered the question he posed and written a book called Function that lays out his findings.

The answer to the question he posed to himself will surprise you..

Settle in for a fascinating conversation.