I was at wealthAt this year’s Global Forum in Riyadh, I was completely minding my own business, sitting in the back row, writing emails, and listening. Then Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov told the Lifespan and Healthspan Panel…
“What has the biggest impact on your health is the number of answers you give to the questions. “
ah?
Antenna points up. Can you guess the question? I don’t!
“How long do you think you can live? “
Read it again, think about it, and say your answer out loud.
The longer you expect to live, the younger you’ll act and the better you’ll take care of yourself.
Dr. Zavoronkov went on to say that some people believe that even in the next few years, artificial intelligence and super artificial intelligence will fundamentally affect our life span and health span. They will accelerate research, find breakthroughs, cure cancer, reverse aging, and more.
But he said: “Our forecast is for the next 10 years, which is no will happen.
But in the 10 years since then, will“.
He then looked around at the audience and said, “A lot of you are going to get to 130.” (You can watch the video wealth interview here.)
Okay, you have my attention, Doc, closing my laptop.
Shocked silence. Our reaction to hearing this is the same as your reaction to reading it.
The paradigm has just shifted.
But that’s the funny thing about paradigms, they happen to you except when you happen to them. Your answer to the life expectancy question can affect your health. If you think you may only live to be 75 (when we suddenly lost my dad), you may subconsciously make decisions that will help you achieve that goal.
But what happens to your mind if you think that progress could potentially allow you to live to be 130? What changes would you like to make in your work, career, and life?
We in the audience then discussed the issue and I sat next to Alex at lunch. First, do we believe it? All, some or none at all? What would happen if it were even and, as my friend John Nugent said, “directed in the right direction”?
Well, it kind of changes…everything. How you eat and sleep. How you view your financial situation. your job. your family. Your legacy. world. How you perform your exercise.
How has it changed you?
What I learned while coaching CEOs is that no one can do it alone. To make it sustainable, make it social. My wife Maria and I have been taking HIIT classes 2-3 days a week for years. For the first few weeks, it was all I could do not to throw up. Every time the instructor turned the other direction, I would stop until they started turning towards me! Despite the inevitable failures and regressions, we persevered and both lost 15 pounds, gained muscle, and felt 10 years younger. For me there are some moral principles but most importantly the discipline to keep going and not be alone but social.
Whatever you want to maintain, make it social. I remember organizing volunteer projects with friends after college on campuses across the country, and one of our philosophies was that “half of social justice is social.” If volunteering was drudgery, heck, who would want to do it? But if there’s laughter, colour, food, fashion, music and fun, then it’s enjoyable and that’s key to sustainability. This is the same as your “play time”.
Whether you enjoy dancing, exercising, hiking or walking/jogging/biking, the most important factor is to find your tribe, your friends, to do it with. Social = sustainable. Never learned these activities? Oh, sorry, if you still have decades left, what excuse do you have for not having time to learn new things? Hmm. I’m sure we can find some good excuses somewhere…
You may have a few “10,000 hours” left unspent. No matter what you’ve never learned or done, just turn on the paradigm switch. Lifelong learning begins with expectations. What do you want from your life? What’s canceled? No matter what goals you had or may be resetting now, the stronger your learning mindset is, the more you will accomplish.
Another big thinking shift brought about by longer lifespans is how we think about stress. If we had a year or two left that we never planned for, this big crisis we might be experiencing right now (at work or at home) would appear in a new light. Even years from now, you might look back and say, “Okay, that was tough, but it was something that had to be faced.”
No one knows exactly their “time,” but if you Do Have more time than you think?
I was asked to speak on the phone with the superintendent of the California education system. He called me the next day and said, “I’m really doubtful about calling the coach and I want to apologize. You asked me a question that I thought was cheesy, and I gave you a flippant answer, but thought about it a lot last night. The answer I gave you wasn’t the answer I wanted.” My cheesy question is, if your career was a mountain, are you going up or down?
Everything is changing. I can also give you 130 reasons why you should change.