by Peter Diamandis: How long you live is a function of many factors, including your mindset. You can will yourself to death — or will yourself to a longer healthspan…
My mission is to transform the way you think — to transform your mindset around many factors including longevity.
The best way for me to do this is to give you overwhelming evidence of the massive medical advancements that can and will extend your healthspan.
I want you to go from thinking: “That sounds possible” to thinking: “Oh my god, I can’t believe what’s happening!”
In my next few blogs, I’ll take a deep dive into some of the most exciting breakthroughs around CRISPR, Gene Therapy and Stem Cells, just to name a few… the most exciting technological advancements driving increased longevity.
Today, I’ll discuss what it means to have a Longevity Mindset, and what you can do to maximize your health span.
Let’s dive in.
The Opposite of a Longevity Mindset
One way to understand something is to understand its opposite. The opposite of a Longevity Mindset is accepting the societal norms that life expectancy for females is 81.2 years and for males 76.4 years, and that there is nothing you can do about it. Just accept the cards you’re dealt.
Now that’s fine if that’s what you want, but there is another option. And it’s sad that most people spend all of the savings in the last 5 percent of their lives fighting disease with extreme measures.
The mindset of “mortality is normal and expected” is pervasive in society. For many years, it has been taboo in medical and research circles to talk about extending the healthy human lifespan, or the idea that “aging is a disease.” Scientists proclaiming this doctrine were shunned, and feared that their grant funding might evaporate.
This negative mindset also permeates life outside the lab. You can see its effects everywhere. So much of society is structured around people dying in their sixties, seventies, and eighties. As well as the belief that anyone making it to 100 meant a wheelchair and a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. Government policies, insurance, medicine, religion — they’re all organized around this mindset and its assumptions.
So what’s changed?
Now more than ever, during a period of exponential medicine, you don’t have to accept the cards you’re dealt. Technologies like genome sequencing, RNA transcriptomics, Wnt pathway modifiers, vaccines, CRISPR, liquid biopsies, CAR-T cells, Gene Therapy, exosomes, and stem cells are just some of the technologies in development.
Please remember that human beings were never designed to live past age 30 (the point at which you had passed on your genes, and had helped your children grow to child-bearing years). The fact that we routinely double or triple that life expectancy is miraculous.
Because of this reality, after 30 years of age, much of our body’s systems (specifically gene expression) go into dysregulation and we begin to accumulate significant cellular damage. As a result, our bodies develop a multitude of diseases which we now call aging.
Ultimately, aging is a disease — a disease that many are beginning to believe can be slowed, stopped and perhaps even reversed (more on this in future blogs).
To date, we’ve seen maybe 10% of all the possible longevity-extending technologies that will impact us in the decade ahead… Get ready for a massive acceleration coming from AI and the arrival of Quantum computers able to model molecular interactions within cells and on the cell surface.
Given all of these exciting developments, the right mindset to have is one that’s optimistic and focused on maximizing your health and adding decades of healthy years onto your life.
That’s the spirit of the Longevity Mindset. And here’s what it looks like in practice.
Do You Have a Longevity Mindset?
During my Abundance 360 program, I lead coaching sessions with entrepreneurs, executives, and investors to help them develop a Longevity Mindset (as well as an Exponential and Abundance mindset).
So what shapes your Longevity Mindset? It may seem obvious, but we regularly ignore shaping our mindset and just accept what we have.
Let me share 6 key areas that you can impact today:
#1) What You Believe: At one end of the spectrum, you see life as short and precious — you’ll consider yourself lucky if you make it to 75. At the other end, you’re focused on making “100 years old the new 60.” You see aging as a disease, and you actively track breakthroughs in biotech (e.g., CRISPR, cellular medicines) that have the potential to slow or even reverse aging.
#2) What You Read / Your Media Consumption: The type of media you consume (e.g., books, blogs, news, movies) directly affects your outlook on life — for better or worse. Are you reading the obituaries to track old friends? Or reading books like David Sinclair’s “Lifespan,” blogs like this one, or news feeds like FutureLoop? Are you staying updated on the latest developments in longevity?
#3) Your Community: The people you spend time with shape who you are and what you do. At one end of the spectrum, you only hang out with older people who constantly talk and worry about death. It’s just a matter of time… But at the other end, you spend time with people who are optimistic and youthful, and who actively pursue longevity.
#4) Sleep: Sleep is fundamental, and critical. A great book that details this is “Why We Sleep” by Dr. Matt Walker. We actually, physiologically *need* 8 hours. Do you believe the motto that “There’s plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead”? Or do you prioritize sleep and use the best techniques to help you achieve 8 healthy hours of sleep?
#5) Diet: There is truth to the saying that “You are what you eat.” Do you eat whatever you want, whenever you want? Are you overweight, eating way too much sugar? Have you intentionally shaped your diet, with a no-sugar/keto or vegan diet? Or have you explored and mastered intermittent fasting to maximize your energy and longevity?
#6) Exercise: Along with your mindset, sufficient sleep, and a healthy diet, exercise is fundamental to longevity. The latest research on longevity makes it clear that increasing muscle mass is critical. At one end of the spectrum, you don’t exercise at all. But at the other end, you consider exercise a must. You exercise at least three times each week, for example interval training and weightlifting. Perhaps you even take peptides to manipulate your growth hormones to increase muscle mass.
Do you desire a Longevity Mindset? Where can you improve? What would it take to improve?
Ultimately, science is going to continue to extend human life. Our job is not to die from something stupid in the interim…
Final Thoughts & Join Me at Abundance 360
If a Longevity Mindset is important to you… If tracking the latest breakthrough tech in this area is something you desire, then consider joining my Abundance 360 Mastermind.
Every year, my team and I select a group of 360 entrepreneurs and CEOs to coach over the course of a year-long program. A360 starts each January with a live event and continues every two months with Implementation Workshops, in which I personally coach members in small groups over Zoom. (In 2021, you have a choice of live “in-person” or “virtual” participation. See the A360 website for more info).
My mission is to help A360 members identify their massively transformative purpose, select their moonshot, and hone an Abundance, Exponential, and Longevity Mindset. Together we will actively select and reinforce your preferred mindsets.
