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We're not counseling the the boss on paying their employees more.
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We're counseling them, "Why don't you set up a sponsor happy hour or take a coworker to lunch or really create this environment where it's easy to meet that person across the hallway?"
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And it's not always just a commercial relationship or a business conversation.
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It transcends into the real life um and the big picture.
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Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose.
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Thank you so much for coming back to the podcast.
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I'm so excited because this week I'm with the Arthur M. Blank Foundation. We're in West Creek.
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We're in this beautiful beautiful ranch. It's in Montana.
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It's absolutely stunning.
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I wish you could see this view.
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We'll probably edit in some b-roll so you can actually see the beautiful grounds that we're in.
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And we're here for a summit and a series and looking into health and well-being in America.
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And as part of this, I found out that a group of people that I deeply look up to are here.
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And out of that, I have the honor of sitting down with two of them today.
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And their work has been huge.
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I've actually made videos on this work.
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I've mentioned it in several of my coaching sessions.
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I've credited it specific amount of times in so many different talks that I've given.
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So to actually sit down with both of them is truly truly meaningful to me.
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So let me give you a quick overview.
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Dan Buettner is an explorer, National Geographic Fellow, award-winning journalist, and producer, and a New York Times best-selling author.
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And Ben Leedle is a transformative business business leader who envisions and creates world-class companies.
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Together, they co-founded a company called Blue Zones that helps people live longer, better lives by improving their environment.
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And the reason why this is so so meaningful to me because of both of you is because I actually got to visit a Blue Zone last year in Sardinia.
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And that's where I started to really uncover more about them.
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But first of all, so grateful to have you here.
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Thank you for being on the podcast. Delighted.
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And and you're the first duo we've ever had on.
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Don't mess Yeah, the pressure's on, Ben.
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I think it's I think it's great. I think it's great.
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I want to start off and you both can choose who takes which question.
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I'm just going to ask you both questions.
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You can decide who who's the deeper expert on either one because both of you are experts in your own right.
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So, I'd love to start off by just explaining to my audience in a broad way what are blue zones and how did you first get introduced to them?
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I I can probably take that one.
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So, b- blue zones are populations around the world where people live statistically longest.
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And we found five of them.
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This is began with a National Geographic project.
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So, we really did the homework.
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We spent 3 years with demographers who really do the homework to make sure people are living as long as they say they are.
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And we found the longest-lived women in Okinawa, Japan, the longest-lived men in the highlands of Sardinia where you visited.
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Uh in Icaria, Greece, a population that not only lives among the longest, they elude dementia.
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So, the lowest known rates of Alzheimer's disease in the world.
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Uh in the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica, we found a population that has the lowest rate of middle-age mortality, which means 50-year-olds have the best chance of reaching a healthy age 92 or 93 without disease, which is what we want.
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And then in the United States, we found them among the Seventh-day Adventists in Loma Linda, California.
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And the project Blue Zones and the company we run uh was based on the idea that or based on actually the research that only about 15% of how long you live is your just explained by genes.
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The other 85% or so is is explained by lifestyle and environment.
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And we distilled a blueprint from these blue zones and now we're putting it to work and how many cities now, Ben? 49. 49 American cities. I can't even keep up. 49.
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48 in in America and we just launched our first outside the US project in Airdrie, Canada in Alberta.
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Uh I said it would be the first ever, yeah. Wow, I love that.
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And and that stat that you just mentioned that 15% of our health and well-being and mindset is based on our genes. No, no.
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It is specifically it's how long we live. we live, right?
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the way, that's in with certain biological limits.
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So, let's just set it up right now.
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The your average listener is prob- given the science right now, probably will not live to 100.
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Uh the maximum average life expectancy of people living in the first world right now is about 93.
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So, if you do everything right, 93, prob- maybe 95 for women.
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Women, you know, do most things better than men including living longer.
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Um so, the value proposition that Ben and I are really evangelizing and putting to work in city is um trying to get those 95 years without chronic disease, without heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and dementia that foreshorten their lives.
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We're not in the the sort of um I guess hopeful realm of trying to help you live to 120 because the science just isn't there yet. Right. Right.
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And and tell me about some of the things that you found when you were traveling in the different regions and what you uncovered about what was making sure that people were living longer and more importantly what you said free from disease because I think that's the most fascinating part.
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Yes, so so we're looking for the common denominators that were the correlates or the what we believe explain longevity in all five places.
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We found nine of them, but I'll sum it up with just talking about four of them.
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Number one, and this is disruptive.
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In blue zones, people don't exercise.
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At least not in the way that we think of exercise.
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And I always say and Ben hates when I say this, but exercise has been an unmitigated public health failure.
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Fewer than 18% of people in the developed world exercise enough.
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So, it isn't working for the vast majority.
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In blue zones, however, people are getting plenty of physical activity into their 90s and into 100s because they live in environments that nudge them mindlessly into moving every minutes or so.
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So, every time they go to work, every time they go to a friend's house, every time they go out to eat, it occasions a walk.
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Uh they don't have a button to push for all the housework and kitchen work.
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They're doing it by hand.
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They have gardens out back.
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So, they're in constant mindless movement, which is the what what I believe we need to start thinking about if we're going to make healthier cities.
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Number two, they eat mostly a plant-based diet.
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90 to 98% of what they put in their mouth is low-processed plant-based foods.
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The four pillars of every longevity diet in the world are what I'm going to tell you now took me 8 years to figure out.
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Uh so, the four things are whole grains of every kind, greens, nuts.
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If you're eating a handful of nuts a day, it's probably adding 2 years to your life expectancy. And beans.
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Beans, about a cup of cooked beans a day are the pillar of every longevity diet in the world.
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And if you're eating a cup of beans a day, it's probably adding about 4 years to your life expectancy. Wow.
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Do you have beans for lunch? I do. I did. Yeah, we did today. Yeah, today.
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By the way, I saw Jay eat beans today, so so he's Yeah.
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I'm also a plant-based guy.
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I have a full plant-based diet.
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Yes, I licked a little blue star and put it on his forehead.
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Most people aren't old enough to remember those old stars, but I do. I remember them.
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Let's dive into these a bit.
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Let's dive into Before you tell me what the I think it's so fascinating. Go ahead, dive.
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I think we should dive into them.
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Let's Let's talk about the exercise one.
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So, you're actually telling us that this whole culture of going to the gym, weight training, hit workouts, high intense you know, all of that world, you're actually saying that that doesn't necessarily lead to optimal health, but you were seeing it more in these regions through natural activities of the day. That's right.
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So So, exercise, by the way, is a great idea.
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And for the you know, the 20% or so people who actually get it, uh it's great.
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But it's just, you know, in our countries we see obesity on the rise in most countries.
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Um the school kids aren't moving enough.
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It It's just not been a successful uh strategy to deal with the health care problems. It sells a lot of books.
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It sells uh gym memberships and gadgets and TV shows and and um uh yoga classes.
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Great It's a great uh business.
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But it's not doing the job and nobody I I I feel like the emperor's new clothes by pointing out it ain't working.
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And and uh it's a good idea, but It's one of our first moments on stage together. Yeah.
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Dan Dan makes that announcement and he's explaining exactly what he's saying.
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My master's degree is in exercise physiology. Okay?
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And And people that know me know that that uh uh I'm a big fan of exercise, but I think what what struck me about Dan's discoveries in the Blue Zones was he he calls it they were nudged constantly, but this idea that uh um here in this country, people go exercise, they might uh kill it for an hour, maybe two.
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And then the rest of the day, almost nothing.
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Um in the Blue Zones, people were moving about every 20 minutes.
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And there is no exercise prescription for that.
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And so, the point that Dan is making, even the hardest core uh uh scientists, which you have some of the world leaders uh gathered with us out here this week it's just a different mind shift and how to think about and I think about it less as exercise and more as answering the question how physically active were you today rather than the intensity of any one period of time but a consistent pattern of movement through the day. Amazing.
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And the second one was the plant based diet.
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Let me just add on the exercise one thing. So Ken Cooper's here.
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I don't know if you're going to interview him but but but he's he's a legend in exercise and just to just to point out the power of walking.
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Um people think they have to go pump iron or run triathlons or do you know break a sweat but actually walking gives you about 90% of the physical activity value of training for a marathon.
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And Ken told me and he's on top of all this data that if you're 80 years old and you can walk a mile in under 17 minutes it adds about 6 years to your life expectancy. Overnight.
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So just the act of walking.
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Now I could ask you Jay or any of your of your audience to you know get out there and get your exercise but if I can just create your your city so it's easy to get to your coffee shop your kids school to work you're going to get that that walking that's going to get you 90% of the physical activity you need. Absolutely.
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Absolutely and then Ben that's the project where you're really building.
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Like that's what you're creating when you talk about those 49 locations.
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You're actually trying to construct cities in ways we walk more. That's exactly right.
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So explain how you do that specifically for that.
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we have experts who have spent their entire careers looking at how movement happens in our environments um, and particularly in cities, and understanding transportation.
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How uh cities have been engineered and constructed, and most in America, the communities have been built for the automobile.
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And these experts go in with an eye and an understanding and bring a whole menu of evidence-based approaches that can tilt the built environment back in favor of walkability and bikeability.
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and bikeability. Um, and so, uh, those experts go in, uh, do very deep assessments, um, think through uh design constructs, hold um, charrettes or summits with the leaders who are committed to creating the change and present them with an evidence-based list
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of menu items with understanding not all have equal impact, but collectively looking for um, city leadership, business leadership, civic leadership to stack hands around enough changes so that creates a tipping point in in what we're talking about. And sometimes it's
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And sometimes it's just creating sidewalk and trails, and sometimes it's a matter of connecting neighborhoods or from neighborhoods to uh downtown areas.
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And if you if you look at how America has evolved over the last 30, 40, 50 years, uh, it's all been toward the attention of favoring, um, automobiles, uh, instead of human, um, uh, transportation, uh, the natural way.
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Yeah, that's absolutely incredible.
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I'm I I actually feel when I used to live in New York, I used to walk a lot more.
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Yeah, you live in Manhattan, that's all you did.
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Yeah, that's I I lived in Manhattan and that's all I did.
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And the reason I did it was also because of the way the streets were numbered.
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So, I think because of the grid system, it made me want to walk more. Yeah.
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Because I knew that I was on 1st Avenue and I was trying to get to 6th 6th Avenue, and I knew I was on 1st Street, and I was trying to get to 20th Street or whatever it was.
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And just because of that simple calculation, I used to walk 45 minutes to get somewhere instead of jumping in a car for 8 minutes because it just felt easier.
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By the way, that's it wasn't a coincidence that you were walking.
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Bloomberg, when he was mayor of New York, he made a very, um, hard push for walkability.
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And he hired a person who, kind of a an ambassador, walkability, bikeability.
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So, now New York sidewalks are cleaned up, they're safe.
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If There's little subtleties the way sidewalks are designed, how wide they are, are they dangerous?
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Are you stepping off a big curb or is there a nice ramp?
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Uh, the bike share program, uh, they've eased traffic there and and unleashed this army of bikes that just about anybody can take.
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That's how you get a population.
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And not coincidentally, the obesity rate of New York City is about a third of what it is in middle America.
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So, you can actually raise the physical activity level of an entire city by 30% by just optimizing streets for walkability and bikeability, cleaning up parks, and making sure people can take public transportation.
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That's been in our approach, rather than trying to get uh, 8 million New Yorkers to get down to the gym, which you're never going to do, we just make it easy for them to go get their coffee.
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I'm totally impressed and fascinated right now. Like, this is awesome.
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I'm so glad that this is happening because I can agree with you, the more natural we can make it for people to get moving, the more To make it unconscious.
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To make it unconscious, absolutely. To make it unconscious. I love that. That's incredible.
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Dan always talks about people's individual will and how it it can be motivated and but, but that it fatigues. Yes.
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Um, and and that's why you see so much recidivism from people who start exercise programs, diets, other things.
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This is just the intervention is where you spend your time and who you spend your time with and what the cultures and policies are like Yes. for that time. Absolutely.
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And it it's so interesting because even in the media space and what I'm trying to do is the same that I feel that if you just supply people with junk media, just like junk food, they'll eat it.
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But when you provide people with healthy media, but that tastes good and looks good, like healthy food, you can switch off to it.
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You can switch up to it immediately when it's there in the same places.
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And so I'm seeing that habit change in people as well that people will go for a better alternative if it's presented correctly and it's available.
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And that's one of the biggest challenges is accessibility and availability.
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That's absolutely brilliant.
15:54
That's the absolute right idea.
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Make it easy, make it accessible.
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And quite honestly, you have to compete with the other alternatives out there. Yeah. But we can do it.
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We're doing it right now. So this is awesome. I love this.
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This is fantastic by the way.
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Anyone who's listening or watching right now if you're listening right now and you cannot see my face, I just want you to know that I am She's looking good.
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I am very happy right now that this work is happening in the world because yeah, what what you're both doing is going to change lives of millions of people in the future.
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So and hopefully sooner, too.
16:23
Tell me about the plant-based diet.
16:26
So any added points to that?
16:26
I know we already mentioned the olive bean today, but So you know, there there's an army of scientific research out there that will support anything you want to eat.
16:37
You know, there's there's research that butter is good for you.
16:39
There's research that these paleo or keto diets so you can eat a steak a day or bacon.
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But um here's what I know.
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And I I would argue I know it better than anybody else on Earth.
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The the longest-lived people in the world, if you look back for the past 100 years, my team aggregated 155 dietary surveys done in each of the five blue zones.
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You can't just, by the way, ask a 100-year-old what they eat ate to live 100. They don't remember.
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If I asked you, and I'm going to ask you actually, say, "What did you have for lunch a week ago Tuesday?"
17:16
Oh, I I'm not I'm not a good person to ask. Okay.
17:18
I'll tell you why, because I have a very regulated diet.
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I pretty much eat the same thing every day for breakfast.
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else who's listening to this to answer that. for that. I have avocado.
17:25
That's like my Avocado on toast is like my go-to lunch. You'll live to 100.
17:29
Okay, I'll ask everybody else out there what they ate a week ago Tuesday.
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98 out of 100 can't tell you.
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So, you can't really ask a 100-year-old what they ate in over the last 100 years.
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So, we found dietary surveys done when these people were 10 and when they were newly married and when they were 50 and newly retired and when you aggregate in this process called a meta-analysis, what emerges is a very clear pattern. So, mostly plant-based.
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I talked about the the four pillars.
17:59
They do eat meat, but on average only five times a month.
18:03
They eat fish on They're not big fish eaters as you would expect.
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Even though they're on islands, they live inland away from the sea.
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So, they're eating fish only two or three times per week.
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And no cows' dairy in any blue zone, which I found striking.
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Uh they do have some sheep cheese milk, like feta or some pecorino from sheep's milk.
18:22
Um and then when it comes to drink drinking, they're drinking about six glasses of water a day.
18:28
Uh herbal teas of all kinds, even black tea, coffee.
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One of the best beverages you can consume and this people are going to love me for this. Is coffee.
18:39
Uh it it is the biggest source of antioxidants in the American diet, which is probably more commentary on the American diet than the virtues of coffee, but nevertheless, as long as you're not putting a bunch of caramel sauce in there and and cream, uh your cup of coffee is a net positive.
18:51
Try to drink it before noon. And then wine.
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So, most blue zones they're drinking one, two, one place maybe three glasses of wine a day.
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Uh usually with their meal though and among friends.
19:03
They're not slugging it down in their in their room by themselves.
19:08
Um so, that's really if you average these five places over the last 100 years.
19:12
That is the diet that is manifestly getting people to 100. Wow. Or 95. And Ben has Oh, go on. No, go on. Please.
19:20
I was just going to say and there's also the things that you observed uh around their strategies for not overeating. Mhm. Um Oh, yeah.
19:25
Tell us about that because Go ahead, Ben. Yeah.
19:29
Well, I mean in in um in Okinawa uh there's a term hara hachi bu which uh they um said before all their meals which basically centered them around uh what I think of as mindful eating.
19:42
They weren't like many of us Americans who just grab it on the go and slam it down and don't even realize how much uh they're eating and um you know, they're they're they're stopping and when you when you think about the translation of their term, it's basically they're kind of stopping when they feel about 80% full. Mhm.
20:03
And um those strategies uh were key.
20:08
Um you won't see um the big family-style bowls of food sitting in front of people where they're heaping on big huge portion sizes.
20:16
Um they ate off of smaller plates. They plated the food.
20:18
The kitchen took it to where they ate, stored all the rest away.
20:22
So, there's a whole set of things that uh have been learned uh from those cultures that you are easy to institute in your own home. Yeah, absolutely.
20:31
It's so fascinating to me because it's so similar to monk life.
20:34
So, we were we were trained in that when I lived as a monk for 3 years.
20:39
The plates that we were eating from were smaller and it was the same reason that my portion size shrunk because of the size of my plate. Yes.
20:45
And then when I was traveling and visited the US many times and I started to see like when you went to get like soda and you just see like the extra extra large option and you just think wow, because that's available that's now attractive and we never had that availability and it was the same that you ate what was on your plate and you only took on on plate what you would eat. Nothing could be wasted.
21:05
And so there was no food waste either.
21:08
And so you never wanted to overeat and be in that position.
21:11
So same that 70 You said 80% but it was 75% for us was eat till you're 75% full.
21:16
And that's why breath and air and water were such important components of feeling full.
21:20
And and really so now I love it. I love that idea.
21:27
former collaborator of ours Brian Wansink showed that if you when you put food on a smaller plate you you you perceive the same amount of food as bigger.
21:35
It sends a visual cue to your brain you're having a big big amount of food here.
21:41
So people tend to eat 20 to 25% fewer calories when they're eating off a 10-in plate than they are you know the garbage can lid plates that Americans eat off of these days. Amazing.
21:53
So we can trick ourselves into eating healthier by buying smaller plates at home. Yes.
21:57
So head over to Crate & Barrel or wherever else you can find deeper and then yeah go and get I love that idea.
22:04
This one seems harder to implement into cities.
22:06
So I understood about reconstructing cities for walking like walking to school and walking to work etc.
22:12
but how do you incorporate the the plant-based diet and all these diet options into a city?
22:18
Well there's there's work that you can do with policy where people spend their time.
22:21
So where do you think if you're getting a recommended amount of sleep then half your waking life as a kid is in schools and half your waking life for good part of your adulthood is at work.
22:36
And and there are policies and cultures that govern food food accessibility.
22:38
It just simple things in the schools in Albert Lea where Dan did did the first translation work was to know food allowed in the classroom and the hallways.
22:54
Made a huge impact in terms of affecting BMI of the students.
22:58
And I think the other um opportunity is when when we when we're out and about in our communities, we do work with um restaurants, grocery stores, Right.
23:10
um helping to create healthier choices so that where the places are that you spend your time around food, um that it that healthy choices abound.
23:18
Uh and then finally, there are um an individual pledge that we ask people uh to do.
23:26
That's a That's a list just like we do with the city around built environment.
23:30
We We do that uh and drive awareness and and ask people to take the pledge in their own home, and they may not make all of the changes in it, but a lot of those changes are stacked in favor of helping to impact how food's consumed um and the types of foods that are consumed in their homes. Amazing. That's awesome.
23:48
So so the the organizing principle behind Blue Zones, in none of these places are people uh on diets or exercise programs or doing any of the things that that we do to live longer.
24:00
And the big aha for me, this came after about 6 years.
24:04
I've been studying these Blue Zones for 15 years.
24:09
Is they never tried to live a long time.
24:13
They didn't pursue it the way we pursued it.
24:15
It ensued from the right environment.
24:18
These people living a long time in Sardinia or Okinawa, they don't have better discipline than we have.
24:25
They don't have better individual responsibility.
24:26
They don't better diets or exercise program.
24:29
They simply live in an environment where the defaults are happen to be healthy.
24:32
That's easiest and cheapest.
24:34
So, how do we translate that?
24:37
So, when Ben and I take on a city, we have three teams.
24:41
People, places, and policy.
24:42
So, the policy team, they're our top experts in the world who know how to work with cities with policy menus for best practices for food, favoring fruits and vegetables over burgers and fries and sodas.
24:56
Uh built environment has been talked about favoring the pedestrian over the the car and favoring the non-smoker over the smoker.
25:05
One of the things we're talking about at this conference is the possibility of adding a happiness policy bundle.
25:09
And we don't we don't ram it down people's throat.
25:12
We just say, "Here's a menu of policies that have worked elsewhere, city council, Mr. Mayor or Mrs. Mayor. Um pick eight of them.
25:21
We'll help you get them done.
25:21
If you get them done, we'll give you Blue Zones certification."
25:25
Second team, the place team.
25:25
We have Blue Zones certification for schools, restaurants, grocery stores, workplaces, and churches.
25:34
And the idea there is to make those environments 30% healthier by nudging people into move and presenting healthier food choices and more social interaction.
25:44
The third team, and this is the team that talks about smaller plates, is we have a very simple Blue Zones pledge for people.
25:51
We give them a checklist We try to get 15% of the population and we have people to help.
25:56
Um they take checklists into their homes and we ask them to do things like get rid of your big plates and change them out for small plates.
26:02
We ask them to make sure you have a junk food drawer that's out of the way.
26:06
We make sure to ask them to make sure they have comfortable shoes and bicycles.
26:09
So, at least if you're moved, it's easy to do it.
26:14
It's a number of things like that.
26:15
We ask them to um join what we call a Moai, a connected social network.
26:20
We bring people and organize them around walking and around eating plant-based food.
26:27
It isn't a program for walking or plant-based food.
26:28
It's more a program to get people connected.
26:30
And we have a secret sauce to make sure people make new friends.
26:35
Loneliness, as you know, is a huge problem in America.
26:38
And then finally, and really to the point I think of of of this podcast, is we have a very effective purpose workshop.
26:49
And purpose is the third. This is among the third. So, this is the people.
26:51
So, the people people are are doing the checklist that the the Moai um and then they're doing a purpose workshop.
26:59
In the purpose workshop you'd be shocked how many of middle Americans wake up in the morning exhausted, tired, they get breakfast for their kids, they take a they go off to work on a long commute.
27:14
70% of Americans do not like their job. They come home tired. They don't have time.
27:19
They make a crappy dinner for their kids.
27:21
They watch as you pointed out to me today 1.
27:23
5 hours of uh Netflix every night and that's after social media and watching network TV.
27:28
Uh and then they go to sleep and don't get enough sleep.
27:32
So, um the taking time to help people identify what they like, what they're good at, what their passions are.
27:44
We take an hour to do this and what an outlet for that cuz it ain't going to be work most of the time.
27:49
So, we got So, then to make sure that they have an outlet for we bring we do these curated volunteer opportunities.
27:57
So, you don't just fling them at some volunteer opportunity.
27:59
We make sure then there's a half a dozen volunteer opportunities in these cities and we speed date people with a volunteer.
28:07
So, if if you like animals, you're walking dogs.
28:12
Uh we have the Humane Society.
28:12
If you if you have a passion for care, we might couple you with the Better Woman's um uh organization.
28:19
If you like old people, you can we'll help you volunteer with with the elderly.
28:24
So, we get people activating their purpose. Mhm.
28:27
And you know when peop- people who have a sense of purpose are living about 8 years longer than people who don't.
28:33
So, once you get it started, it has a sort of self-perpetuating.
28:37
Is that the 8 years is the longest you mentioned there?
28:40
Is that the is purpose correlated to the So, so this comes the very first director of the National Institutes of of of uh aging in the United States is a guy named Robert Butler. Mhm.
28:51
And he's the one who looked retrospectively at writing and he found that people who were could articulate their sense of purpose were living about 8 years longer than people were rudderless in life.
29:03
So, that's the best study I know.
29:05
It's the longest term, biggest cohort biggest study I I've known.
29:10
But, and not coincidentally, in blue zones, they actually have vocabulary for purpose. Mhm.
29:15
You go to Nicoya, Costa Rica, it's plan de vida.
29:20
And you when you ask people that, they know it off the tip of their tongue. In Okinawa, it's ikigai. Mhm.
29:23
We were identifying ikigai 15 years ago as the key Yeah.
29:31
By the way, in Okinawa, there's not even a word for retirement. Mhm.
29:33
There's none of this sort of language for the artificial punctuation between your useful life and your life of repose. Yeah.
29:42
Uh your whole life is imbued with ikigai. Mhm.
29:44
The reason for which I wake up in the world.
29:47
It's way more important than people uh um think because I believe you can't package it, and marketers can't sell it to you.
29:56
There's no can't make a lot of money off a purpose like you can a diet or a supplement or exercise program.
30:02
But, purpose is really the great under celebrated uh let let me put it this way.
30:06
If it were a drug, it would be a blockbuster drug. Mhm. Absolutely.
30:12
That's why the podcast is called On Purpose.
30:14
Yes, you should be packaging it, you know, He is packaging Yeah, he's prescribing it to our listeners.
30:19
I totally agree with that, but the Sanskrit word is dharma for purpose. know that. And it's the same thing.
30:25
And so, dharma sometimes can be made into duty that we live with, but it's also eternal duty, that which we are internally eternally connected to, that reason for being as ikigai says.
30:36
Yeah, if I could just make a That's a great point.
30:39
If you said this be a so I just learned something. is a conversation. Sorry.
30:42
But but one of the things we we've learned and you know we one of our biggest Blue Zones project is with HMSA in Hawaii. Mhm.
30:48
And um you know you we Every place is different and and and and and they're in there all the same.
30:57
But but you know Hawaiians have very strong cultures and you know we introduced Moai and we I mean Ikigai we introduced you know Plan de Vida and they kind of got it but actually they have a word for it which is Ohana. Mhm.
31:09
And Ohana means not just following your own little passions or your own hobbies or whatever.
31:16
There's also a component of responsibility.
31:21
And you also see that in the Blue Zones.
31:23
It's when you get older your purpose always has an element of giving back. Yes.
31:29
It's making sure kids grow up well.
31:31
It's making sure that they're helping the mayor make right decisions cuz they've been around for 90 years and they've seen it all.
31:37
It's making sure that uh other people in their family get through periods of difficulty because they have the resiliency of having survived all these decades. Mhm. Absolutely.
31:48
And so those are the those are three that we've been through.
31:51
We've been through the natural exercise or the you know the organic forms of exercise that come in the day-to-day.
31:58
Then we had the plant-based diet with the four pillars and then we've had purpose.
32:01
What else was the key trends that you found?
32:05
So we now know that if your three best friends are obese and unhealthy, there's a 150% better chance you're going to be overweight.
32:14
So health behaviors are as contagious as catching a cold.
32:19
Um alcoholism is contagious, smoking is contagious, um drug use is contagious, even loneliness is contagious.
32:26
If you go out to eat with somebody who's lonely, you you can actually feel lonelier than you would be if you just ate alone. Huh.
32:35
So so um the the the really important Not a laughing matter actually at all.
32:41
So but Yeah, but it sounds funny but it it's sad.
32:43
The um uh my grandmother used to say to me, "Show me your friends and I'll tell you your future."
32:48
And you see very clearly in blue zones with these Moai's like in Okinawa a curated group of friends who you surround yourself with, they drive your long-term behavior more than anything.
33:02
Um so the people in blue zones people they're hanging out with their idea of recreation is gardening or it's it's taking a daily walk.
33:11
Uh they're they tend to eat well.
33:11
So when they go over to each other's house, they're not confronted with baby back ribs or burger.
33:17
You know, they're all Okinawa they're eating this they cook this wonderful stir-fry and there's not an influence the Adventists you know, they're really big on prayer, a spiritual support, when you're down taking care of you.
33:32
So Uh the the big prescriptive here the takeaway and probably the biggest thing you can do today to add years to your life is think about who the closest people are to you.
33:48
I wouldn't necessarily tell you to dump your old friends you know, if they're toxic and you know, smoke too much and sit around and drink Mountain Dew and watch reruns of Breaking Bad.
33:59
But I will tell you that if you proactively bring some people into your social network whose idea of recreation is physical activity or yeah, and by the way it wouldn't hurt to have a a few couple vegetarians and vegans into your immediate social network because they'll do more to influence your behavior than any diet will over the long term. Yeah.
34:20
Ben, did you want to add anything to that? No. No, okay. That was yeah.
34:24
Well, I'm intrigued by I think people aren't used to seeing people come together because we're like, "Okay, well what do they talk about?" Right?
34:33
Like, when you think about people coming together, we think about people talking and sharing and discussing, like we're all doing this week.
34:39
And I think a lot of people find that their own circles, we end up doing things like complaining, comparing, criticizing, gossip, right?
34:47
We spend Otherwise known as bitching. Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
34:51
And so, we spend a lot of time in our circles often in that space.
34:55
I'm not saying always and I'm not saying all the time, but that can take up a significant I've had one-on-one conversations with so many people, different age groups, different backgrounds who've said to me, "Jay, yeah, when I get together with my girlfriends or when I get together with my friends, this is what we end up talking about."
35:08
How did you find that their conversation?
35:10
Was it more elevated or no?
35:13
Was it actually at that level and that worked out just fine?
35:15
You know, I I I do think there is room for us to vent.
35:20
But, that there's a difference between being able to vent with your friends every once in a while and those who are chronically complaining.
35:25
And the chronic complainers, this is why I say, don't necessarily dump your old friends cuz they might need you.
35:30
But, I will say that's going to be contagious.
35:32
The approach we take in our cities, we learned this very powerful idea in Okinawa known as the Moai, committed social network.
35:42
These four or five people you surround yourself with and you really commit to them in thick and thin. So, here's the secret.
35:50
Tho- Those people, they they might be lonely or they might have who they think are toxic friends.
35:54
We take them through this process so that they can identify people.
35:59
We like to hang out with people like us.
36:03
I hate saying it, you know, this beautiful idea of a diverse world, but you know, most people end up picking people who kind of look like them, who share political beliefs, share religion, etc. Who share interests.
36:12
You know, it's very hard to, you know, have the golfer hang out with the tennis player and what are we going to do together, you know?
36:17
I like a club, you know, not a racket.
36:19
So, so we don't try to we don't try to beat that barrier down and then people's schedules have to line up.
36:25
So, in our cities, we bring huge numbers of people together and we take them through an hour-long process so they find people like them and we just challenge them to walk or to eat plant-based foods for 10 weeks.
36:39
And that's long enough for people to really make friendships.
36:43
After about 6 weeks, there's a tipping point.
36:45
Like if you and I hang out, you and I have seen each other twice now and you know, I like you and I call you a really good acquaintance, but I'll bet one more time of having I'll bet and if we still like us, we're probably friends.
36:55
So, um it it's the it's it's a There's actually terminology for it. It's called homophily.
37:00
We kind of like people who are like us.
37:03
If we hang out with them long enough, propinquity, uh they tend to become our friends. Mhm. Absolutely.
37:10
I think of his best friends, too.
37:10
Um they've done a lot of work looking at the measurement of well-being uh with the projects that we do and um there there's an interesting question that that asks whether you have a best friend at work or not.
37:24
And for those that do, um their well-being is so much higher uh than those who just simply don't have that.
37:30
And and it's maybe not so much in the workplace. Gallup, then. Which one?
37:34
The one about 2 million people being interviewed and what the most important driver of whether or not a person likes their job.
37:43
Well, it's going to be whether they have the best friend at work and whether or not they they like their boss.
37:47
What kind of relationship they have with their boss. you hear that? You didn't hear pay.
37:53
You didn't hear vacation.
37:53
You You didn't hear promotion. Yep.
37:56
I think it's so huge and Yeah.
37:59
Remember Remember as a kid, you want you had a best friend somewhere, right?
38:03
And and as we grow up as adults, everything gets busy, um things get oriented around work, family, kids.
38:07
And and I think we we lose this idea that we have a best friend and Dan's work at Gallup's study knows that um you know, do you have on a really bad day, you know, three people that you know you could call unconditionally they're going to respond to support to you.
38:24
So when we do these Blue Zone projects and we're creating these mawais and we're introducing people to new network that are beyond their current network and they're built around, you know, health and common interests and and to Dan's point, 10 weeks plus you start seeing behaviors turn to habits.
38:45
People are expanding their network of what they would call friends and the more of that you can get the greater chance you have when you hit trouble on bad days to be supported in a way that creates resiliency that you otherwise wouldn't have if you were alone.
38:58
Absolutely and this is what Jan was saying, right?
38:59
You don't leave your job, you leave a bad manager. Right?
39:03
You leave your manager who's saying that yes they not leaving the company.
39:06
Yeah, you're not leaving the company.
39:07
not even leaving the work that you do.
39:09
You just don't like the relationships. Yeah, absolutely.
39:12
That makes so much sense and I think that's a great reflection for everyone who's listening and watching right now to have that reflection in your life and just think of that really simply like who's that go-to person in the workplace, you know, how could you better your relationship with your manager in in a proactive way?
39:28
It may it may be great already, it may not.
39:29
And the other one of just in your personal life having three people that you could call that you know are going to respond.
39:35
And and I think that's yeah, really interesting.
39:38
high percentage of American adults that can't name three people that would unconditionally help them. Yeah.
39:44
I'd pay Ben to be my friend. So I got one.
39:52
But yeah, no, I I think this is really powerful stuff because I I feel like you know, what you've uncovered in these Blue Zones is what's directly affecting not just our longevity and I and I wanted to draw out that point that you're what you're saying is this isn't just about living a longer life or a healthier life.
40:09
It's also about living a happier life. Right?
40:11
Is that connect true as well?
40:13
Or are we just talking about longevity and health?
40:15
The There's about an 80% overlap on Okay.
40:20
the So, the the as a rule, the same things that will get you to a healthy 95 will also ensure you enjoy the journey.
40:27
I also wrote a book called Blue Zones of Happiness and a cover story for National Geographic that took the same approach of finding statistically happiest places and then reverse engineering what they did as to offer lessons for people.
40:40
And it turns out, you know, as we heard today that most of what we think brings us happiness is misguided or just plain wrong. Absolutely.
40:49
So, this notion that Ben just got done talking about that your best friends are going to making a a friend at work is going to be more important than pay.
40:57
So, when we work, you know, we have we certify workplaces and when we go into workplaces, we're not counseling the the boss on paying their employees more.
41:09
We're counseling, "Why don't you set up a sponsor happy hour or take a coworker to lunch or really create this environment where it's easy to meet that person across the hallway.
41:21
And it's not always just a commercial relationship or a business conversation.
41:25
It transcends into the real life um and a bigger picture.
41:32
Are you Are you seeing workplaces want to create blue zones in the workplace? Absolutely.
41:37
I can see it being very attractive.
41:39
I worked for 2 years at Accenture. Yeah.
41:41
And Accenture was an organization that really wanted to do more for the health and well-being of its employees and was trying to put so many different things in place and in different ways we were using a lot of these concepts and so I can definitely seeing it being a amazing place for people.
41:57
What Tell me about some of the Well, experiences you've had implementing in your organization.
41:59
20 20 You should tell him a little bit about your This guy's a legend. legendary past.
42:06
spent 20 years with the Fortune 1000 companies in this country trying to identify the right ways to be able to improve health in their workforce for all sorts of reasons.
42:19
The number two line item on any corporations budget or big organizations that are self-insured are health care costs.
42:28
And then and then that's not even counting things like lost productivity and how engaged or unengaged people are distracted when they show up at work.
42:38
Um Wellness is a term that I think of that is a bit different than what we're pursuing with Blue Zones.
42:49
And and we made a shift away from wellness because all the things that Dan has talked about is that uh when when programs were offered in the workplace, most of them were oriented around a model of the individual gets connected with an expert, a coach,
43:06
a professional, a plan is designed, and then the person's encouraged to go follow the plan, and you know, if you need help, here's some digital tools, or you know, you can make a phone call and someone will will work with you. But
43:16
But essentially, it's education, guidance, and then a plan that you're supposed to do.
43:22
And the same statistics hold true that that Dan talked about.
43:24
In in fact, it's about single-digit percentage of the effectiveness of this type of an approach where it's all about the individual and expert type of of plan.
43:38
And if you take Blue Zones into the workplace to chief financial officers, to the CEOs, to health benefits leaders, and heads of HR human resources, it's such a very different model because it is really setting up their environment differently.
43:55
It's doing those purpose workshops.
43:55
It's creating Moais in the workplace.
44:00
It's it's making the extended effort for the workforce to be able to with their purpose better known and understood and and clear time away to be able to do volunteer just a whole different array of an approach and we are seeing those organizations that go through about a three-year process to
44:23
make these type of changes and institute their own policies in their own environment on the things that they can control in the workplace on behalf of their their colleagues um outperforming kind of traditional wellness in the workplace type of models and and people are very excited about it. For the for the residents in these
44:40
For the for the residents in these blue zones how much was success ambition achievement relevant in their life at all? Not at all. Right.
44:51
Now you have before we go into a city we we interview the mayor the city manager superintendent of schools this big CEOs the police chief and we show them we open the kimono we are coming in to create an environment where healthy choices are easier and quite honestly we're going to limit freedoms to do unhealthy crap.
45:11
And if they're not signed up for that we go to the next city.
45:15
We've had over 400 cities ask us to do it we're we've only done it to 49 because if we can't get the buy-in of all the top leaders they should go spend their their resources elsewhere. Right.
45:26
Uh let let me tell you why Ben and I are such good partners if I can. Absolutely again.
45:29
I came back from Blue Zones and I Blue Zoned one little city called Albert Lea Minnesota it was a big success.
45:35
Um and Ben's wife Liz Lledo uh Ben couldn't sleep one night and she had my book Blue Zones and Ben was complaining he couldn't sleep and and Liz says to Ben here read this it's a good book and Ben reads my book Blue Zones.
45:51
At the time Ben is a pioneer in wellness.
45:55
Uh 25 years he built a billion and a half dollar company uh he a legend a CEO legend.
46:02
He's the one who started if you can't measure it you can't manage it.
46:06
He's the one who got behind Gallup's well-being index which all the Nobel Prize winners use now that came out of his he was the man who got made it happen.
46:15
And he reads my book and he calls me up and says Dan I love what you do.
46:18
This is the future of health care. Let's team up.
46:22
There's no way I could have built this out to this size I have without Ben's gift and talent for management, for vision, for bringing the most important people to the table.
46:35
So, you know, this is what it's like you and your partner.
46:38
You know, it's like if you don't have a a yin and a yang it just it it careens out of control. story.
46:44
I wish you told me that at the start.
46:45
And and the thing is is that the the research and the brilliance of Dan's work is that he's a master at synthesizing really complex things.
46:56
And when you start looking at what he's done he's basically you know, boiled down the secrets to life for for people who live longest, happiest, best into these nine core principles.
47:09
And health care in our country is so complicated and it's just a morass of of waste and and poorly spent resources and it was just like this bright light.
47:24
And it's like I had spent almost 30 years you know, working like crazy to figure out how to perfect the wrong model.
47:32
And instantly saw that this was going to be a way that would redefine. It breaks all the rules.
47:40
It breaks all the rules and it breaks the chops of all the things that we've thought were fact-based but actually I I think of Dan as introducing really inconvenient truths to the establishment and it's so much fun to to go mix it up and and take his wonderful beautiful work and have a chance to put it into motion and partner with him to do that.
48:03
It's It's um it's the most exciting part of my career um and and life uh doing this work. Yeah, I can see it.
48:13
I can tell it's It's love fest. to watch. No, but it's awesome.
48:15
I love seeing it because I think that it just proves to the fact that this is so much more meaningful and purposeful and deeply connected to what both of you believe is is your ikigai and your you know your purpose in life.
48:31
You know, we're here at this wonderful um uh event that Arthur Blank put on. I salute him for it.
48:36
And there's so much theoretical horsepower in that room.
48:41
Um but it's so hard for academics to often put their work into to to work in the real world. Correct.
48:48
And so that's what Ben has been able to do.
48:51
So it's really really um I you know, it's it's just a a blessing from heaven that that I'm I met Ben. Absolutely.
48:58
No, it's amazing to hear the story and and put all the connections together. actually.
49:04
My wife will Liz Little get It's your wife gets the credit. Yeah, of course.
49:08
She's She's looking at all this.
49:08
She goes and then How did she get it?
49:10
Did she buy it from the store or she just fascinated?
49:13
How did she get the She her her reading list is always eclectic and good and mine's typically science stuff.
49:20
And there's just time where you just don't want to read heavy science. Totally, yeah.
49:24
And she tossed me a total serendipity. I love that.
49:26
And and I started reading it, thought I would fall asleep in a few minutes and got out of bed.
49:32
She goes, "Where are you going?"
49:32
I go, "I'm going to go read the rest of this book cuz this is this is what we've been searching for."
49:37
And it came right on the heels of having spent time with that advisory group of scientists on the Gallup Wellbeing Index in Washington, D. C.
49:46
and and asking the question if if you didn't just want to measure wellbeing and report the state of it, but you actually wanted to at scale improve well-being for large groups, for populations, for countries, you know, what what are the levers to pull? Yes.
50:04
And so, uh I I traveled home and and as Dan said, I was running a big company and we had uh there were like five things.
50:13
Like you have to give individual knowledge, tools, and and ways that they can work on this themselves.
50:19
And then we checked that, we got that.
50:21
Um there was access to experts, all kinds of experts.
50:23
We had more networked experts than you could shake a stick at.
50:27
I was like, yeah, check the box.
50:29
Then it was like, "How good are you at helping people create new social connections?"
50:32
And we just kind of paused and then it was like, "How well do you have ways to be able to influence people's surroundings, the man-made surroundings, and make semi-permanent and permanent changes in those that yield and nudge people to better health?"
50:46
And I'm like, "I don't have that either."
50:48
And and then finally it was the you know, the big things.
50:50
How do you affect law and policy and culture?
50:54
And what do you have for that?
50:54
And so, I was looking at this scoreboard flying home and I'm like, "I really want to change well-being and and pursue it." This deep passion.
51:01
And it was that same night when I got home that my wife tossed me that book and then I'm reading this thing and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this Dan Buettner guy has crafted the master plan for not just longevity, but for well-being."
51:15
Um and you know, he didn't answer the phone on the first ring, either.
51:22
He had He was guard well guarded from corporate America leaders.
51:25
He He wanted no part of it.
51:28
He wouldn't take my call.
51:29
I called and called and called and called and finally I his his gatekeeper I I thought I would wear him down and and and finally I just said, "Okay, this is it."
51:38
I go, "This is the last time.
51:40
I want you just to listen for 2 minutes.
51:43
And I'm going to describe to you Wait wait wait.
51:45
He flew the corporate jet up from I had exactly two employees and he ran a company with 3,500 people and he flew his corporate jet up and showed up at the office and then of course it's uh He took the meeting.
51:59
He just showed up without an invite?
52:01
I I wasn't I had never talked to him and I had all right.
52:05
So then Dan's famous for walking meetings.
52:06
So we met for a little while and he's a little restless. He's taking notes. We're asking questions.
52:10
He's so good at interviewing and and investigative kind of uh techniques and finally he said, "Hey Ben, let's go for a walk."
52:18
And his office uh was in an area that was close to Mississippi River where where there were paths and it was close to three or four hours later after a long walk that we just said, "Let's go Blue Zone America." Shook hands and Yeah. and went after it.
52:34
And and note to the handshake at the end of the day we've had a we have very complex, you know, we work with cities and insurance company and every place the the mayors have to agree and we have a partner Sharecare and we have uh you know, it's ultimately the Blue Cross Blue Shield plan or the hospitals.
52:48
So they're they're they're labyrinthine contract.
52:52
Ben and I shook hands almost nine years ago. Yeah.
52:55
We have a big contract that underpins, but we have always he's you know, I was he didn't always we didn't always work together.
53:04
We were on the he was a partner company and I was a you know, and partner companies often have to get through a lot of of work a lot of things through and they're can all these layers and um Ben and I have always operated where you first of all we had a handshake.
53:18
We looked each other in the eye and we said, "Okay, you got my word and 120 pages of contract don't ma- don't matter.
53:26
We're going to work it out."
53:26
And uh now three years ago Ben became available or two years ago and and now he's is CEO of Blue Zones and uh you can imagine the the thrill it is for me to have such a uh uh uh talented you know, executive powerhouse running a company that had two people when three people when when we first met.
53:49
So and now we're growing growing like crazy and it just shows how we can use such a diverse range of skill sets and interests and backgrounds to want to do more meaningful work in the world and how actually all your experience is so powerful for this use You got to find partners and Dan and I partnered to do this but we got we have to go find partners in the communities themselves too.
54:11
So this thing is a is a connected link of really deep partnerships and it's a leader it's is a leadership model and it's it's not a surprise if you go look at our 49 communities you will find you know 49 groups of just incredible leaders who wanted to partner with Dan and I.
54:31
So you know it's it's fun I've got two more questions for you before we run out.
54:35
One was how much has this all impacted your own personal lives?
54:39
How much of this are you trying to practice and use in your day-to-day lives for yourselves? well most of it.
54:50
I would say of the nine power nine blue zones I I do eight of them pretty regularly.
54:55
So I mostly plant-based diet I do my my rule for physical activities I do something fun every day I know exactly my sense of purpose it's this work here and and I do this work and it's very hard to get me to do something that outside those certain boundaries.
55:15
I have let go a few friends in my network cuz I knew that they were weren't healthy for me and I proactively added a few new friends.
55:26
I don't go to church as much as my mother would like me to go to is one of the things but I do I keep invest in my family which is another really big and important one and you know, I I do happy hour.
55:40
Which is coming right up here.
55:43
My profile is pretty similar.
55:43
I so I always think about where can I where can I add and one thing we didn't talk about well well we did talk about purpose.
55:49
Um this idea of downshift.
55:54
Um and that's taking time, you know, purposely to reflect.
55:57
Um you heard some of it discussed today.
56:01
Um you know, the gratitude and the other pieces.
56:03
So, um that's what I'm working on the most right now because what we do in our partnership and what we're doing is really busy. I get it.
56:13
Um and you know, I I think your your happiness research would point out that well slept people are um are are much happier and and you and you we even heard data this morning about um you could you could knock out a bunch of mental health illness if people just slept right.
56:29
So, you know, my two things that I'm working on in addition to the good things that I'm doing out of Dan's um work is purposely downshifting each day, which is hard to do for me, and and getting the right amount of sleep. Absolutely.
56:44
And tell me about that family piece.
56:46
And the reason why I saved it to last is I I wanted to answer this question was I feel so many people today struggle to find their home with their family. Board games. Right?
56:56
That's that's the solution. That's it.
56:59
It's epic in our household. Really?
57:02
When you say we're doing board games, everybody comes out of the woodwork and it is it is fun and and we we have um you we exchange, you know, gifts at birthdays and holidays. Yeah.
57:15
Christmas, um there's always new who can find the the the newest best most challenging board game to play. Okay. That's good. I like that.
57:25
because it creates this social construct for the family and and creates a whole different atmosphere for conversation and um you know the the board game itself kind of creates an equivalency um uh just about it.
57:40
So we So it's great time.
57:42
It's not TV, it's not even you know, going and doing something but just time together. Yeah.
57:48
Any other thoughts on that one?
57:48
Well, I do see in Blue Zones people are keeping their aging parents nearby. Mhm.
57:52
And which in parts not only uh more life expectancy one one of the surest ways to see the life expectancy of your mom or dad drop is put them put him or her in retirement home. Mhm.
58:09
Shaves off two to six years of life expectancy.
58:10
In Blue Zones that would shame the family.
58:13
So aging mom dad stay home but that not only helps aging mom and dad because they feel a sense of purpose and they get out of bed in the morning and they they more likely to stay active but also there's something called the grandmother effect that has shown that in in a household where there's a grandparent involved the kids are healthier. Mhm.
58:32
And lower rates of mortality and they even do better in school.
58:36
So it's this beautiful virtuous circle and I know not all families get along but I will say investing in trying to keep that the end of the family um to try to keep people together is really a worthwhile endeavor for longevity and for happiness. Amazing.
58:52
So one of the tragedies of the Blue Zone is the standard American diet hit in the 1970s and 80s and now they're disappearing.
59:01
The same problems that are killing us today diabetes, heart disease, cancer are hitting are starting to hit the Blue Zone.
59:07
So the National Geographic photographer I work with David McLain and I went back to all five Blue Zones.
59:16
And we got older women 70 80 years old to cook the traditional foods that they've grown up on.
59:22
So this is the food that people eat to live to be 100 and I sat on a stool with a computer and captured the recipes, captured the techniques.
59:33
National Geographic photographer captured the images, the context, the foods, and the ingredients.
59:38
And the result Blue Zones Kitchen, which comes out in December, is a hybrid of a National Geographic article and a cookbook.
59:48
100 recipes to live to 100.
59:50
I'm super excited about it.
59:52
It gets me back to my journalistic roots, plus I did a whole lot of good eating.
59:57
My wife is going to absolutely love it.
59:59
My wife's a dietitian, nutritionist, and vegan recipe developer.
1:00:01
Oh my god, it's music to my ears.
1:00:03
Yeah, and she's fascinated by Ayurveda, so she's an Ayurvedic practitioner, so like healing your body through food is like her addiction.
1:00:11
So she's going to get She gets the first copy, then.
1:00:13
Yeah, yeah, she's going to love learning about that, too. I love that.
1:00:16
Yeah, we'd love to talk about that.
1:00:17
100% Audience would love that, genuinely. Be amazing. Thanks.
1:00:21
And I hope I hope all of those things are accessible and available in in all the stores in the US, too. I know it's on amazon. com, right? not out yet.
1:00:29
It's not out, but you can You can pre-order it. Yeah. Okay, great.
1:00:32
If anyone wants the book, you can pre-order the book right now. That's amazing. It's on Amazon. And the name is? Blue Zones Kitchen.
1:00:36
Okay, Blue Zones Kitchen.
1:00:40
100 recipes to live to 100. I love it.
1:00:42
And you mentioned the connection to National Geographic article that you're writing, too.
1:00:47
Yes, there should be an article out the January's issue of National Geographic will be about why these foods help you live to 100. Amazing. I love it. Check it out, guys.
1:00:57
If anyone's listening or watching right now, make sure you go and take a look at that.
1:01:00
Yeah, that sounds awesome.
1:01:00
More things for us to go implement. Oh, 100%, yeah.
1:01:05
But I love the way you Amazing.
1:01:09
So we have what we call the final five, which we end every interview with.
1:01:13
This is a quick fire, rapid fire round, so you can only answer questions with one word or one sentence maximum.
1:01:19
One word or one sentence? Yeah, I I I I'm lenient.
1:01:21
I'm going to do a Faulknerian sentence.
1:01:23
You both have just This has become easily one of my favorite interviews I've ever done.
1:01:27
So, on that basis this on ESPN before. Yeah, okay.
1:01:30
It's It's kind of like that, but they stole it from Jay.
1:01:35
Yeah, I'm sure I did when uh Question number one is what's the best piece of well-being advice you've ever heard?
1:01:49
Curate your best friends. Know your purpose. Nice. Okay, second.
1:01:54
What's the worst piece of well-being advice you've ever heard? Get rich.
1:02:01
Count on other people to deliver it to you. Nice.
1:02:04
Okay, third question is if you could give the whole world one habit to practice for 30 days, what would it be? Love.
1:02:18
Can uh social connection. Okay, amazing.
1:02:22
Uh the fourth question is Where do I want to go with this? This is too fun.
1:02:27
Oh, out of all the blue zones, if anyone wants to travel to one, which one should they visit and why?
1:02:33
You should go to Thea's Guesthouse in Ikaria, specifically in the city of Nas.
1:02:39
That wasn't one word, but That's not one word. And why?
1:02:40
No, I'm opening it up because I I want to know why that one.
1:02:44
So, that is the best place I know.
1:02:44
This is this beautiful guesthouse in the Aegean Sea, very simple, very cheap, but they cook blue zones food, and it's now it is attracted people from all over the world who are seeking also longevity.
1:03:01
There's no better place to see it than this simple little guesthouse in Nas, Ikaria. Amazing.
1:03:07
Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica.
1:03:10
People there no matter where you turn are genuinely um happy.
1:03:16
Um and I think Dan's book uh underscored it.
1:03:19
You know, there's there's pride that feeds into happiness and purpose that feeds into happiness, but there's also pleasure.
1:03:27
And and the the the country with the pleasure and the Blue Zone uh is Costa Rica. Amazing. I love that.
1:03:33
And question number five fi- fost- I don't know I lost one of the final five is what's the best place for people to visit to see the Blue Zones in the modern world in our world in for in terms of a city that you've worked on that you're working on for them to start seeing that happen.
1:03:48
You don't have to go to far.
1:03:50
If you're If you go to Naples, Florida, Fort Worth, Texas, Hawaii, the island of Maui, the whole island of Maui is undergoing a Blue Zone uh uh uh I would say a upgrade.
1:04:02
My favorite are the beach cities in in South LA.
1:04:04
Um, Hermosa, Manhattan, Redondo Beach. Amazing. Awesome. Thank you both so much.
1:04:12
Ben and Dan, you're the best. Thank you so much.
1:04:13
That was genuinely It's an honor.
1:04:14
I mean, I conversation and both of you are just incredible.
1:04:18
I can't wait for my audience to learn more about you, find out more about you, and hopefully help in some way too if there's any way that with us. Yeah, absolutely.
1:04:25
We should figure that out.
1:04:26
I'm I'm so passionate about the work you're doing and I'd I'd love to learn more and more and more.
1:04:31
So, this is definitely the first of hopefully many conversations and walks.
1:04:35
Next time we can go on a walk together.
1:04:36
I like walking meetings too.
1:04:36
Yes, it's legendary about that.
1:04:40
It's it's hard to do a walking podcast and get the sound right.
1:04:41
I don't like I don't like getting walking podcasts, but we can do walking meetings.
1:04:45
But, thank you both so much for your time. I'm very grateful. Quick delight. Thank you. Thank you.
1:04:49
Everyone who's watching this, make sure you share this on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, wherever you are active because I'd love to see what are the key nuggets that you took away.
1:04:58
I want you to think about the one thing that you can try and practice for the next week.
1:05:01
So, take something out of this conversation, see what resonates with you, and see what you can put in as an experiment into your life for the next week.
1:05:08
Dan and Ben, thank you so much for being here.
1:05:10
Thank you for being guest and thanks everyone for watching and listening. Take care.
1:05:13
If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here.
1:05:19
I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book Think Like a Monk from think like a monk book. com.
1:05:27
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