On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Dan Buettner and Ben Leedle: ON How to Design Your Life to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier

Episode Date: August 5, 2019

In today’s episode, I sat down with Dan Buettner and Ben Leedle to discuss Blue Zones, what they are and what we can learn from them. Blue Zones are places around the world where people statistica...lly live the longest, avoid common diseases, and all-around live extremely healthy lifestyles We talk about how modern exercise is a public health failure, why environment plays more into our longevity than genetics, and how each of us can improve our environments to live a longer, better life today. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:02:11 You be shocked how many of Middle Americans wake up in the morning, exhausted. They get breakfast for their kids, they go off to work at a long commute. 70% of Americans do not like their job. They come home tired, they don't have time, they make a crappy dinner for their kids, they watch as you pointed out to me today,
Starting point is 00:02:28 1.5 hours of Netflix every night, and that's after social media and watching Network TV. And then they go to sleep and they'll get enough sleep. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. Thank you so much for coming back to the podcast. I'm so excited because this week I'm with the Arthur and Blank Foundation. We're in West Creek. We're in this beautiful, beautiful ranch. It's in Montana. It's absolutely stunning. I wish you could see this view. We'll probably edit in some beer rolls so you can actually see the beautiful grounds that we're in. And we're here for a summit and a series and looking into health and well-being in America.
Starting point is 00:03:09 And as part of this, I found out that a group of people that I deeply look up to are here. And out of that, I have the honor of sitting down with two of them today. And their work has been huge. I've actually made videos on this work. I've mentioned it in several of my coaching sessions. I've credited it specific amount of times
Starting point is 00:03:28 in so many different talks that I've given. So to actually sit down with both of them is truly, truly meaningful to me. So let me give you a quick overview. Dan Buehner is an explorer, national geographic fellow, award-winning journalist and producer, and a New York Times best selling author. And Ben Lidl is a transformative business leader
Starting point is 00:03:46 who envisions and creates world-class companies. Together, they co-founded a company called Blue Zones that helps people live longer, better lives, by improving their environment. 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. And that's where I started to really uncover more about them.
Starting point is 00:04:08 But first of all, so grateful to have you here. Thank you for being on the podcast. Delight it. And you're the first duo we've ever had on. Diney, yeah, it was the pressure's aren't there. I think it's great. I think it's great. I want to start off and you both can choose who takes which question.
Starting point is 00:04:25 I'm just going to ask you both questions. You can decide who's the deeper ex-boyn, either one, because both of you are experts in your own right. 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? I can probably take that one. So blue zones are populations around the world where people live statistically longest. And we found five of them. This was began with the National Geographic Project. So we really did the homework. We spent three years with demographers who really do the homework to make sure people are living as long as they say they are. And we found the longest lived women in Okinawa, Japan, the longest lived men in the High
Starting point is 00:05:08 Lenses, Serginia, where you visit it. In Ikari, Greece, a population that not only lives among the longest, they elude dementia. So the lowest known rates of Alzheimer's disease in the world. In the Coeopaninsa 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. And then in the United States, we found them among the 7th-day Adventists in Lomily, to California. And the project Blue Zones and the company we run was based on the idea that, or based on actually the research that only about 15% of how long you live is your juice
Starting point is 00:05:55 explained by jeans. The other 85% or so is explained by lifestyle and environment. And we distilled a blueprint from these blue zones. And now we're putting it to work in how many cities now been 49 49 Americans. I can't even keep up. 49 48 in America. And we just launched our first outside the US project in Air Dree Canada in Alberta. So the first time. Wow, I love that. And that's that that you just mentioned there. 15% of our health and well-being and mindset is based on our genes. No, no. Specifically, it's how long we live.
Starting point is 00:06:35 How long we live, right? And by the way, that's in with certain biological limits. So let's just set it up right now. Your average listener is probably, given the science right now, probably will not live to 100. The maximum average life expectancy of people living in the first world right now is about 93. So if you do everything right, 93, maybe 95 for women, women, you know, do most things better than men, including living longer. So the value proposition that Ben and I are really evangelizing and putting to work in city is trying to get those 95 years without chronic disease, without heart disease, cancer,
Starting point is 00:07:16 diabetes, and dementia that foreshort in their lives. We're not in the sort of, We're not in the sort of, I guess, hopeful realm of trying to help you live to 120 because the science just isn't there yet. Right. Right. 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. Yeah, so we're looking for the common denominators that were the correlates, or what we believe,
Starting point is 00:07:53 explain longevity in all five places. We found nine of them, but I'll sum it up with just talking about four of them. Number one, and this is disruptive. In Blue Zones, people don't exercise, at least not in the way that we think of exercise. And I always say, and Ben hates when I say this, but exercise has been an unmitigated public health failure fewer than 18% of people in the developed world exercise enough. So it isn't working for the vast majority. 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
Starting point is 00:08:29 mindlessly into moving every 20 minutes or so. 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. They don't have a button to push for the housework and kitchen work. They're doing it by hand. They have gardens out there. 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. Number two, they're mostly a plant-based diet. 90 to 98% of what they put in their mouth is low-process plant-based foods. The four pillars of every longevity diet in the world are, Pillars of every longevity diet in the world are
Starting point is 00:09:06 When I'm gonna tell you now took me eight years to figure out So the four things are whole grains of every kind Greens Not's if you're a handful and not today. It's probably adding two years to your life expectancy and beans Beans about a cup of cooked beans a day are the pillar of every longevity die in the world. And if you're eating a cup of beans a day, it's probably adding about four years to your life expectancy. Wow. Jeff Beans a lunch.
Starting point is 00:09:32 I do. I did. By the way, I saw Jay eat beans today. So it's getting some food from the best guy. I have a full plum. Yeah. I licked a little blue star and put it on his forehead. Most people aren't old enough to remember those old stars.
Starting point is 00:09:46 I do. I remember them. The therapy for Black Girls podcast is the destination for all things mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. Here, we have the conversations that help black women dig a little deeper into the most impactful relationships in our lives, those with our parents, our partners, our children, our friends, and most importantly, ourselves.
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Starting point is 00:11:45 Listen to city of the rails on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, or cityoftherails.com. I'm Eva Longoria. I'm Maite Gomez-Rajón. We're so excited to introduce you to our new podcast, Hungry for History. On every episode, we're exploring some of our favorite dishes,
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Starting point is 00:12:54 Let's dive into these a bit. Let's dive in before you tell me what I think is so fascinating. Go ahead. I think we should dive into them. Let's talk about the exercise one. So you're actually telling us that this whole culture of going to the gym, weight training, hit workouts, high intents, you know, all of that world. You're actually saying that that doesn't necessarily lead to optimal health, but you're seeing
Starting point is 00:13:16 it more in these regions through natural activities of the day. That's right. So exercise, by the way, is a great idea. And for the 20% or so people who actually get it, it's great. But it's just, in our countries, we see obesity on the rise in most countries. Their school kids aren't moving enough. It's just not been a successful strategy to deal with a healthcare problem. It sells a lot of books.
Starting point is 00:13:47 It sells gym memberships and gadgets and TV shows and yoga classes. It's a great business. What it's not doing the job. And nobody, I feel like the Emperor's new cause by pointing out it ain't working. And it's a good idea, but. It's one of our first moments on stage together. Dan makes that announcement and he's explaining exactly what he's saying. My master's degree is in exercise physiology. And people that know me know that I'm a big fan of exercise. But I think what struck me about dance discoveries
Starting point is 00:14:28 in the blue zones was he calls it they were nudged constantly. But this idea that here in this country, people go exercise, they might kill it for an hour, maybe two. And then the rest of the day, almost nothing. In the blue zones, people were moving about every 20 minutes. And there is no exercise prescription for that. And so the point that Dan is making, even the hardest core scientists, which you have some of the world leaders gathered with us out here this week, it's just a different mind shift in 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
Starting point is 00:15:18 of any one period of time, but a consistent pattern of movement through the day. Amazing. And the second one through the day. Amazing. And the second one was the Plomb based diet. Let me just add on that exercise one thing. So Ken Cooper's here. I don't know if you're going to interview him, but he's a legend in exercise. And just to just to point out the power of walking, people think they have to go pump iron or run triathlons or do, you know, break a sweat,
Starting point is 00:15:46 but actually walking gives you about 90% of the physical activity value of training for a marathon. And Ken Tomayn, he's on top of all this data, that if you're 80 years old and you can walk a mile and under 17 minutes, it adds about six years to your life expectancy. Over and out. So just the act of walking. Now, I could ask you, Jay, or any of your audience, to, you know, get out there and get your exercise. But if I can just create your city,
Starting point is 00:16:20 so it's easy to get to your coffee shop, your kid's school, to work. You're going to get that walking that's going to get you 90% of the physical activity you need. Absolutely. And then Ben, that's the project where you are really building. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:16:38 Exactly. Exactly. When you talk about those 49 locations. We bring in, you actually try to construct cities in ways we walk more. That's exactly right. So explain how you do that specifically for that. We have experts who have spent their entire careers looking at how movement happens in our environments
Starting point is 00:16:54 and particularly in cities and understanding transportation, how cities have been engineered and constructed. And most in America, the communities have been built for the automobile. 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. And so those experts go in, do very deep assessments think through design constructs, hold
Starting point is 00:17:35 shurets or summits with the leaders who are committed to creating the change and present them with an evidence-based list of menu items with understanding not all have equal impact, but collectively looking for city leadership, business leadership, civic leadership, to stack hands around enough changes so it creates a tipping point in what we're talking about. And sometimes that's just creating sidewalk and trails. And sometimes it's a matter of connecting neighborhoods or from neighborhoods to downtown areas. And if you look at how America has evolved or the last 30, 40, 50 years, it's all been toward the attention of favoring automobiles
Starting point is 00:18:11 and instead of human transportation, the natural way. Yeah, that's absolutely incredible. I actually feel when I used to live in New York, I used to walk a lot more. Yeah, you're here. And you're doing that and that's all you do. Yeah, that's what I lived in Manhattan and that's a lot more. And the reason I... Made that and that's all you did. Yeah, that's what I lived in Manhattan, and that's all I did.
Starting point is 00:18:26 And the reason I did it was also because of the way the streets were numbered. So I think because of the grid system, it made me want to walk more. Because I knew that I was on first avenue and I was trying to get to six avenue and I knew I was on first street and I was trying to get to 20 of street,
Starting point is 00:18:41 or whatever it was. And just because of that simple calculation, I used to walk 45 minutes to get somewhere, instead of jumping in a car for eight minutes because it just felt easier. By the way, that wasn't a coincidence that you were walking. Bloomberg, when he was a mayor of New York, he made a very hard push for walkability.
Starting point is 00:19:02 And he hired a person who kind of an ambassador walkability, bikeability. So now New York sidewalks are cleaned up. They're safe. There's little subtleties the way sidewalks are designed how wide they are. Are they dangerous? Are you stepping off a big curb or is there a nice ramp?
Starting point is 00:19:20 The bike share program, they ease traffic there and unleashed this army of bikes that just about anybody can take. That's how you get a population. And not coincidentally, the obesity rate of New York City is about a third of what it is in middle America. 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. That's been in our approach, rather than trying to get 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. I'm totally impressed and fascinated right
Starting point is 00:20:04 now. Like this is awesome. I'm so glad that this is happening because I couldn't agree with you. The more natural we can make it for people to get moving, the more... Or get on conscious. To make it unconscious, absolutely. To make it unconscious. I love that. That's incredible. Dan always talks about people's individual will and how it can be motivated and but but that it fatigues. And that's why you see so much recidivism from people who start exercise programs, diets, other things. 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 for that time. Absolutely. And it's so interesting because even in the media space,
Starting point is 00:20:46 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. But when you provide people with healthy media, but that tastes good and looks good, like healthy food, you can switch off to it. You can switch up to it immediately when it's there in the same places. And so I'm seeing that habit- changing people as well, that people will go for a better alternative if it's presented correctly and it's available. And that's one of the biggest challenges is accessibility and availability. That's absolutely brilliant. That's the absolute right idea. Make it easy,
Starting point is 00:21:19 make it accessible. And quite honestly, you have to compete with the other alternatives out there. Yeah. But we can do it. We're doing it right now. So this is awesome. I love this. This is fantastic by the way. 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... He's looking good. That happy. I am very happy right now that this work is happening in the world because yeah, what you're both doing is going to change lives of millions of people in the future, so, and hopefully sooner too. A good way to learn about a place is to talk to the people
Starting point is 00:21:54 that live there. There's just this sexy vibe in Montreal, this pulse, this energy. What was seen as a very snotty city, people call it Bos Angeles. New Orleans is a town that never forgets its pay. A great way to get to know a place is to get invited to a dinner party. Hi, I'm Brendan Francis Newton and not lost as my new travel podcast
Starting point is 00:22:15 where a friend and I go places, see the sights, and try to finagle our way into a dinner party. We're kind of trying to get invited to a dinner party. It doesn't always work out. I would love that, but I have like a Chihuahua who is aggressive towards strangers. I love you, dogs. We learn about the places we're visiting, yes, but we also learn about ourselves.
Starting point is 00:22:33 I don't spend as much time thinking about how I'm gonna die alone when I'm traveling. But I get to travel with someone I love. Oh, see, I love you, too. And also, we get to eat as much... I'm very sincere. I love you, too. My ex we get to eat as much... It's very sincere. I love you too. My life's a lot of therapy goes behind that.
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Starting point is 00:23:31 need with guidance three times a week and we talk about debt pay off. If, let's say you've had a particularly spend thrift holiday season, we also talk about building up your savings, intelligent investing, and growing your income, no matter where you are on your financial journey, how do monies got your back. Millions of listeners have trusted us to help them achieve their financial goals. Ensure that your resolution turns into ongoing progress. Listen to how to money on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In the 1680s a feisty oppressing or burned down an unnery and stole away with her secret lover.
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Starting point is 00:24:42 day. I learned something new about women from around the world and Leve feeling amazed, inspired, and sometimes shocked. Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tell me about the blonde-based diet. So any added points to that, I know we already mentioned the old bean today. So there's an army of scientific research out there that will support anything you want to eat.
Starting point is 00:25:15 There's research that butters good for you. There's research that these paleo or keto diets, you can eat a steak a day or bacon. But here's what I know. And I would argue I know better than anybody else on earth. The longest live people in the world. If you look back for the past 100 years, my team aggregate at 155 dietary surveys done in each of the five blue zones.
Starting point is 00:25:41 You can't just, by the way, ask a hundred year old what they ate to live 100. They don't remember. If I asked just, by the way, ask a hundred year old what they eat, ate till a hundred. They don't remember. If I asked you, and I'm gonna ask you actually, say, what did you have for lunch a week ago Tuesday? Oh, I'm not good at passing it on. Okay, I'll tell you why, because I have a very regulated diet. I pretty much eat the same thing every day
Starting point is 00:26:00 if I have to ask everybody else to pass it on. That answer for that. I vote toast. That's like my avocado on toast is like my, go to lunch. You'll have to 100. Okay, I'll ask everybody else out there, what they ate and we could go to,
Starting point is 00:26:11 is they 90 eight out of 100 can't tell you. So you can't really ask 100 year old, what they ate and all the last time. You're 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.
Starting point is 00:26:31 So mostly plant based, I talked about the four pillars. They do eat meat, but on average only five times a month. They fish on, they're not big fish eaters as you would expect, even though they're on islands, they live inland away from the seas. They're eating fish only two or three times per week, a no cow's dairy in any blue zone, which I found striking. They do have some sheep cheese, milk, like feta or some pecorino from sheep's milk. And then when it comes to drinking, drinking, they're drinking about six glasses of water a day, herbal teas of all kinds, even black tea, coffee. One of the best beverages you can consume, and people are going to love me for this. It's coffee.
Starting point is 00:27:16 I love you for 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 what a bunch of caramel sauce in there and cream, your cup of coffee is a net positive, try to drink it before noon, and then wine. So most blues owns their drinking one, two,
Starting point is 00:27:36 one place, maybe three, glass of the wine a day, usually with their meal though, and among friends, they're not slugging it down in their room by themselves. So that's really, if you average these five places over the last 100 years, that is the diet that is manifestly getting people to 100 or 95. I'm bad at it. Oh, go on, no, go on. I was just going to say there's also the things that you observe around their strategies for not overeating. around their strategies for not overeating. Oh, yeah, tell us about that. I'll go ahead. Well, I mean, in Okinawa, there's a term,
Starting point is 00:28:11 Harayachi Bu, which they said before all their meals, which basically centered them around what I think of as mindful eating. 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 they're eating. And you know, they're stopping, when you think about the translation of their term, it's basically, they're kind of stopping
Starting point is 00:28:38 when they feel about 80% full. And those strategies were key. You won't see the big family-style bowls of food sitting in front of people where they're heaping on big, huge portion sizes. They ate off a smaller plates. They plated the food. The kitchen took it to where they ate, stored all the rest away. So there's a whole set of things that have been learned from those cultures that you are an easy to institute in your own home. Yeah, absolutely. It's so fascinating to me because it's so similar to Monk Life. So we were training that when I lived as a monk for three years, 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.
Starting point is 00:29:23 Yes. 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 your plate what you would eat. Nothing could be wasted. And so there was no food waste either. And so you never wanted to over-earn be in that position. So same, that 70%, you said 80%, but who's 75% for us was eat till you're 75% full.
Starting point is 00:29:54 And that's why breath and air and water were such important components of feeling full. And ready. So now I love it. But it's also a former collaborator of ours, Brian Wonsink, showed that if you put food out a smaller plate, you perceive the same amount of food as bigger. Yes. Sends of the visual cue to your brain. You're having a big, small amount of food here. So people tend to eat 20 to 25% fewer calories
Starting point is 00:30:23 when they're eating off a 10 inch plate, then they are, you know, the garbage can live and plates that Americans eat off of these days. Amazing. So we can trick ourselves into eating healthier by buying smaller plates at home. Yes. So head over to Crayon, Barrel, or wherever else. Ten years. Ten years.
Starting point is 00:30:40 Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, I love that. This one seems harder to eat in the minute cities. So I understood about reconstructing cities for walking, like walking to school and walking to work, et cetera, but how do you incorporate the plan based on all these diet options into a city? Well, there's work that you can do with policy where people spend their time.
Starting point is 00:30:59 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. And there are policies and cultures that govern food, food accessibility. It just simple things in the schools and Albert Lee were Dan did the first translation work was to know food allowed in the classroom in the hallways, made a huge impact in terms of affecting BMI of the students. And I think the other opportunity is when we're out and about in our communities, we do work with restaurants, grocery stores,
Starting point is 00:31:47 helping to create healthier choices so that where the places are that you spend your time around food, that healthy choice is about. And then finally, there are an individual pledge that we ask people to do that's a list just like we do with the city around built environment. individual pledge that we ask people to do that's a that's a list just like we do with the city around built environment we
Starting point is 00:32:10 do that and drive awareness 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 foods consumed and the types of foods that are consumed in their homes. Amazing. That's awesome. So, the organizing principle behind blue zones, in none of these
Starting point is 00:32:30 places are people on diets or exercise programs or doing any of the things that we do to live longer. And the big a-ha for me, this came after about six years. I've been studying these blue zones for 15 years. Is they never tried to live a long time. They didn't pursue it the way we pursued it. It ensued from the right environment. These people live in a long time in Sardinia or Okinawa. They don't have better discipline than we have. They don't have better individual responsibility. They don't have better diets or exercise have. They don't have better individual responsibility.
Starting point is 00:33:05 They don't have better diets or exercise program. They simply live in an environment where the defaults are happen to be healthy. That's the easiest and cheapest. So how do we translate that? So when Ben and I take on a city, we have three teams, people, places, and policy. So the policy team, there are top experts in the world who know how to
Starting point is 00:33:26 work with cities with policy menus for best practices, for food, favoring fruits and vegetables over burgers and fries and sodas. Built environment has been talked about favoring the pedestrian over the car and favoring the non-smoke over the smoke. And one of the things we're talking about at this conference, the possibility of adding a happiness policy bundle. And we don't ram it down people's throat. We just say, here's a menu of policies that have worked elsewhere, city council, Mr. Mayor
Starting point is 00:33:56 or Mrs. Mayor. Pick eight of them will help you get them done. If you get them done, we'll give you blue zone certification. Second team, the place team. We have Blue Zone certification for schools, restaurants, grocery stores, workplaces, and churches. 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. The third team, and this is the
Starting point is 00:34:22 team that talks about smaller plates, is we have a very simple blue zone pledge for people. We give them a check, we try to get 15% of the population, and we have people to help. They take checklist into their homes, and we ask them to do things like get ready your big plates and change them off for small plates. We ask them to make sure you have a junk food drawer this out of the way. We make sure to ask them to make sure they have comfortable shoes and bicycles. So at least if you're moved, it's easy to do it. It's a number of things like that. We ask them to join what we call a MOI, a connected social network. We bring people and organize them around walking and around eating plant-based food. It isn't a program for walking or plant-based food.
Starting point is 00:35:06 It's more a program to get people connected. And we have a secret sauce to make sure people make new friends. The loneliness, as you know, is a huge problem in America. And then finally, and really to the point, I think of of this podcast is we have a very effective purpose workshop. Yeah, this is a big third. So this is the people. So the people are doing the checklist, the the Moai,
Starting point is 00:35:34 and then they're doing a purpose workshop. And the purpose workshop, you'd be shocked how many of Middle Americans wake up in the morning, exhaust it, exhausted, tired. They get breakfast for their kids. They take a, they go off to work at a long commute. 70% of Americans do not like their job. They come home tired.
Starting point is 00:35:56 They don't have time. They make a crappy dinner for their kids. They watch as you pointed out to me today, 1.5 hours of Netflix every night and that's after social media and watching Network TV and then they go to sleep and they'll get enough sleep. So the taking time to help people identify what they like, what they're good at, what their passions are, we take an hour to do this
Starting point is 00:36:24 and what an outlet for that, because it ain't going to be work most of the time. So then to make sure that they have an outlet for it, we do these curated volunteer opportunities. So you know, just fling them at some volunteer opportunity. We make sure then there's a half a dozen volunteer opportunities in these cities, and we speed date people with a volunteer. So if you like animals, you're walking dogs. We have the human society.
Starting point is 00:36:50 If you have a passion for care, we might couple you with the better woman's organization. If you, like old people, you can help you volunteer with the elderly. So we get people activating their purpose. And you know when people who have a sense of purpose are living about eight years longer than people don't. So once you get it started,
Starting point is 00:37:12 it has a sort of self-propeptuating. Is that the thing? Yeah, it is the longest you've mentioned there. Is that the is purpose, Carlite to the... So this comes the very first director of the National Institutes of Aging in the United States. It's got him Robert Butler.
Starting point is 00:37:30 And he's the one who looked retrospectively at writing. And he found that people who could articulate their sense of purpose were living about eight years longer than people were runnerless in life. So that's the best study I know. It's the longest term, biggest cohort, big study I've known. But a knock coincidentally in blue zones, they actually have vocabulary for purpose. You go to Nikoya, Costa Rica, it's Plandevita. And when you ask people that, they know it off the tip of their tongue.
Starting point is 00:38:00 In Okinawa, it's Iki-Gai. We were identifying Iki-Gai 15 years ago as the key. By the way, in Okinawa, there's not even a word for retirement. There's none of this sort of language for the artificial punctuation between your useful life and your life of repose. Your whole life is imbued with Ikigai, the reason for which I wake up in the world. It's way more important than people think because I believe you can't package it and marketers can't sell it to you. It can't make a lot of money off a purpose like you can't buy it or supplement or exercise program. The purpose is really the great undersell rate it. Let me put it this way. If it were a drug, it would be a
Starting point is 00:38:47 blackbuster drug. Absolutely. That's why the podcast is called on purpose. Yes, you should be packaging it, you know, for example. Yeah, it's for scratching. No, I'm not. I totally agree with that. But the Sanskrit word is Dharma for purpose. I didn't know that. And it's the same thing. 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 Ike guys says. Yeah. If I could just make it, that's a great point.
Starting point is 00:39:17 If you said this would be conversation, so I just learned. Yeah, it isn't conversation. But one of the things we've learned, you know, one of our biggest blue zones project is with HMSA and Hawaii. Every place is different and they're in there all the same. But Hawaiians have very strong cultures. We introduced Moai and I mean, Ikei, we introduced, you know, Plundivida and they kind of got it, but actually they have a word for it, which is Ohana. And Ohana means not just following your own little passions or your own hobbies or whatever. There's also a component of responsibility and you also see that in the blue zones. It's when you get older, your purpose always has an element of giving back.
Starting point is 00:40:06 Yes. It's making sure kids grow up well. It's making sure that they're helping them may or make right decisions because they've been around for 90 years and they've seen it all. It's making sure that other people and their family get through periods of difficulty because they have the resiliency of having survived all these decades. Absolutely. And so those are three that we've been through. We've been through the natural exercise or the organic forms of exercise that come in the day to day. Then we have the plant-based
Starting point is 00:40:36 diet with the four pillars. And then we've had purpose. What else was the key trends that you found? What else was the key trends that you found? So, we now know that if your three best friends are obese and unhealthy, there's 150% better chance you're going to be overweight. So, health behaviors are as contagious as catching a cold. Alcoholism is contagious, smoking is contagious, drug use is contagious, even loneliness is contagious. If you go out to eat with somebody who's lonely, you can actually feel lonely than you would be if you just ate alone. Not laughing, not laughing, but it sounds funny, but it's sad. my grandmother used to say to me, show me your friends and I'll tell you your future.
Starting point is 00:41:27 And you see very clearly in blue zones with these Moais, like in Okinawa, a curated group of friends who you surround yourself with, they drive your long-term behavior more than anything. So the people in blue zones, people they're hanging out with, their idea of recreation is gardening, or it's taking a daily walk.
Starting point is 00:41:49 They tend to eat well. So when they go over to each other's house, they're not confronted with baby-backed Rebs or a burger. They're all, well, canal, they're eating this, they cooked 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. So 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. I wouldn't
Starting point is 00:42:26 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. But I will tell you that if you proactively bring some people into your social network, whose idea of recreation and physical activity or, yeah, and by the way, it wouldn't hurt to have a few couple of vegetarians and vegans into your immediate social network because they'll do more to influence your behavior than any diet well over the long term.
Starting point is 00:42:57 Yeah, Ben, did you want to add anything to that? No. No, okay. No, I mean, I'm intrigued by, I think a lot of that. Yeah, well, I mean, intrigued by, I think people aren't used to seeing people come together because we're like, okay, well, what do they talk about? Like, when do you think about people coming together? We think about people talking and sharing and discussing like, we're all doing this week.
Starting point is 00:43:16 And I think a lot of people find that their own circles, we end up doing things like complaining, comparing, criticizing, gossip, right? We spend it. Otherwise, not as bitching. Right. Yeah, exactly. And so we spend a lot of time in our circles, often in that space.
Starting point is 00:43:33 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 conversation with so many people, different age groups, different backgrounds who've said to me, yeah, yeah, when I get together with my girlfriends or when I get together with my friends, this is, we've said to me, yeah, yeah, when I get together with my girlfriends or when I get together with my friends, this is what we end up talking about. How did you find that their conversation, was it more elevated or no? Was it actually at that level
Starting point is 00:43:52 and that worked out for just fine? Yeah, I do think there is room for us to vent. But there's a difference between being able to vent with your friends every once in a while and those who are chronically complaining and the chronic complainers, is why I say don't necessarily dump your old friends because they might need you.
Starting point is 00:44:09 But I will say that's gonna be contagious. The approach we take in our cities, we learn this very powerful ID and Okinawa, known as the Moai, committed social network. These four or five people you surround yourself for, and you really commit to them and thicken thin. So here's the secret Those people there they might be lonely or they might have who they think are talked at friends
Starting point is 00:44:36 We take them through this process so that they can identify people We'd like to hang out with people like us. I hate saying you know, this is a beautiful idea of a diverse world But you know know, most people end up picking people kind of look like them, share political beliefs, share religion, etc. Who share interests. You know, it's very hard to have the golf or hang out with a tennis player and what are we going to do together, you know, like a club, like a bracket. So we don't try to, we don't try to beat that barrier down. And then people's schedules have to line up. So in our cities,
Starting point is 00:45:05 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. And that's long enough for people to really make friendships. After about six weeks, there's a tipping point. Like, if you and I hang out, you and I have seen each other twice now. You know, I like you and I call you 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. So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a, there's actually terminology for it's called homophily.
Starting point is 00:45:39 We kind of like people who are like us. If we hang out with them long enough, perpink-witty, they tend to become our friends. Absolutely. I think of his best friends too. They've done a lot of work looking at the measurement of well-being with the projects that we do. There's an interesting question that asks whether you have a best friend at work or not. For those that do, their well-being is so much higher than those who just simply don't have that. And it's maybe not so much in the workplace.
Starting point is 00:46:11 Oh, that's a statistic for gal, then. Which one? The one about two million people being interviewed and what the most important driver of whether or not a person likes their job. Well, it's gonna be whether they have the best friend at work and whether or not they like their boss.
Starting point is 00:46:26 Right. What kind of relationship they have. So did you hear that? Yeah. You didn't hear pay. You didn't hear vacation. You didn't hear promotion. Yep. I think it's so huge.
Starting point is 00:46:35 Yeah. I remember, remember as a kid, you had a best friend somewhere, right? Yeah. And as we grow up as adults, everything gets busy. Things get oriented around work, family, kids. And I think we lose this idea that we have a best friend and Dan's work, a galops study, knows that, do you have on a really bad day, three people
Starting point is 00:46:59 that you know you could call unconditionally, they're gonna respond to support to you. So when we do these blue Zone projects and we're creating these bewise, we're introducing people to a new network that are beyond their current network and they're built around, you know, health and common interests. And to Dan's point, 10 weeks plus, you start seeing behaviors turn to habits. People are expanding their network of what they would call friends. And the more 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.
Starting point is 00:47:36 Absolutely. And this is what Jan was saying, right? You don't leave your job, you leave a bad manager. Right? You leave your manager, you're saying that yesterday. Probably not leaving the company. Yeah, you're not leaving the company. You may be not even leaving the work that you do. Yeah. You just don't like the relationships. Yeah, absolutely. That makes so much sense.
Starting point is 00:47:51 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 a proactive way? It may be great already. It may not. And the other one of just in your personal life, having three people that you could call that you know are going to respond. And I think
Starting point is 00:48:14 that's, yeah, very high percentage of American adults that can't name three people that would unconditionally help them. I can't bend to be my friend. So I got one. I'm really paying you. But yeah, no, I think this is really powerful stuff because I feel like, you know, what you've uncovered in these blue zones is what's directly affecting not just our longevity. And I wanted to draw at that point that you're,
Starting point is 00:48:43 what you're saying is this isn't just about living a longer life or a healthier life. It's also about living a happier life. Is that connect true as well? Or are we just talking about longevity and health? There's about an 80% overlap on the. So as a rule, the same things that will get you to a healthy 95 will also ensure you enjoy the journey. 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 is to offer lessons for people. 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.
Starting point is 00:49:27 So this notion that Ben just got done talking about that your best friends are gonna make a, a friend at work is gonna be more important than pay. So when we work, you know, we have, we certify workplaces and when we go to workplaces, we're not counseling the boss on paying their employees more. We're counseling it. Why don't you set up a sponsor happy hour or take a cold worker to lunch or really create this environment where it's easy to meet that person across the hallway.
Starting point is 00:49:59 And it's not always just a commercial relationship or a business conversation. It transcends into the real life in a bigger picture. Are you seeing workplaces want to create blue zones in the workplace? Absolutely. As a matter of mind, I can say it being very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
Starting point is 00:50:20 very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, And Accenture is 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. In different ways, we were using a lot of these concepts. And so I can definitely see it being an amazing place for people.
Starting point is 00:50:34 Tell me about some of the experiences you've had in the Spanish organization. You should tell them a little bit about your business. This guy is a legendary past. It's been 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. The number two, line item on any corporation's budget are big organizations that are self-insured
Starting point is 00:51:04 are healthcare costs. And then that's not even counting things like loss productivity and how engaged or unengaged people are distracted when they show up at work. Wellness is a term that I think of that it's a bit different than what we're pursuing with blue zones. And we made a shift away from wellness because all the things that Dan has talked about is that 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, 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.
Starting point is 00:51:50 Or, you know, you can make a phone call and someone will work with you. But essentially, it's education, guidance, and then a plan that you're supposed to do. And the same statistics hold true that Dan talked about. And 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 plan. And if you take blue zones into the workplace
Starting point is 00:52:19 to the 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. It's doing those purpose workshops. It's creating mullies in the workplace. It's making the extended effort for the workforce to be able to, with their purpose better, known and understood 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
Starting point is 00:52:58 about a three-year process to 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 colleagues outperforming kind of traditional wellness in the workplace type of models and people are very excited about it. For the residents in these blue zones, how much was success, ambition, achievement, relevant in their life at all?
Starting point is 00:53:28 Not at all. Right. Now, you have before we go into a city, we interview the mayor, the city managers, superintendents of schools, this big CEOs, the police chief, and we show them, we open the commona. We are coming in to create an environment where healthy choices are easier, and quite honestly, we open the commona. We are coming in to create an environment where healthy choices are easier
Starting point is 00:53:46 and quite honestly, we're gonna limit freedoms to do unhealthy crap. And if they're not signed up for that, we go to the next city. We've had over 400 cities ask us to do it. 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 resources elsewhere.
Starting point is 00:54:03 Right. Let me tell you why Ben and I are such a good partners if I can. Yeah, well, again. I came back from blue zones and I blue zone, one little city called Albert Lee, Minnesota. It was a big success. And Ben's wife, Liz Lito, Ben couldn't sleep one night and she had my book, Blue Zones.
Starting point is 00:54:21 And Ben was playing at Kuntzley. And Liz says, Ben, here, read this is a good book. And Ben reads my book book Blue Zones and Ben was playing it closely and and Liz says, Ben, here, read this is a good book and Ben reads my book Blue Zones at the time. Ben is a pioneer in wellness. 25 years, he built a billion and a half dollar company. He alleged in a CEO legend. He's the one who started, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. He's the one who got behind Gelps, well, being indexed, which all the Nobel Prize winners use now. It came out of his, he was the man who got made it happen. And he reads my book and he calls me up and says, Dan, I love what you do.
Starting point is 00:54:57 This is the future of healthcare. Let's team up. There's no way I could have built this out to the size I have without Ben's gift and talent for management, for vision, for bringing the most important people to the table. So you know, this is like you and your partner. You know, it's like if you don't have a yang and a yang, it just, it, it carines out of control. That's an awesome story. It's an awesome story.
Starting point is 00:55:23 It's an awesome story. And the thing is, is that the research and the brilliance of Dan's work is that he's a master synthesizing really complex things. And when you start looking at what he's done, he's basically boiled down the secrets of life for people who live longest, happiest, best you know, boiled down the secrets of life for people who live longest, happiest, best, into these nine core principles. And health can in our country is so complicated. And it's just a morass of waste and poorly spent resources. And it was just like this bright light.
Starting point is 00:56:02 And it's like I had spent almost 30 years, you know, working like crazy to figure out how to perfect the wrong model. And instantly saw that this was going to be a way that would redefine. And it breaks all the rules. It breaks all the rules. And it breaks the chops of all the things that we've thought were fact-based, but actually, I think of Dan as introducing really inconvenient truths to the establishment, and it's so much fun to go mix it up and take his wonderful, beautiful work and have a chance to put it into motion and partner with them to do that. It's the most exciting part of my career in life doing this work.
Starting point is 00:56:49 Yeah, I can say. I can tell it's love. It's beautiful to watch. No, but it's awesome. 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 your achigai and your, you know, your purpose in life. You know, we're here at this wonderful event that Arthur blank put on. It's aluminum for and there's so much theoretical horsepower in that room, but it's so hard for academics to often put their work into to work in the real world. And so that's what Ben has been able to do. So it's really, really, you know, it's just a blessing from having that I met Ben. Absolutely. No, it's amazing to hear this story and put all the connection.
Starting point is 00:57:41 Actually, my wife will get my wife. The credit. Yeah. She's look at all this. She goes in the. How does she get it? Did she buy it from a store where she just fascinated? How does she get it? She, her reading list is always eclectic and good and minds, typically science stuff.
Starting point is 00:57:58 And there's just time where you just don't want to read heavy science. Really? Yeah. And she toss me a total serendipity. I love that. And, And I started reading it, thought I would fall asleep in a few minutes and got out of bed. She goes, where are you going? I go, I'm going to go read the rest of this book because this is what we've been searching for. And it came right on the heels of having spent time with that advisory group of scientists on the Gallup
Starting point is 00:58:22 Wellbeing Index in Washington, D.C. And asking the question, if you didn't just want to measure well-being 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 are the levers to pull? Yes. And so I traveled home and as Dan said, I was running a big company and we had, there were like five things. You have to give individual knowledge, tools, and ways that they can work on this themselves.
Starting point is 00:58:57 And we got that. There was access to experts, all kinds of experts. We had more networked experts than you could take a stick as I can, check the box. And it was like, how good are you at helping people create new social connections? And we just kind of paused. And then it was like, how well do you have ways
Starting point is 00:59:15 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? And I'm like, I don't know if they do that. And then finally, it was the big things. How do you affect law on policy and culture? What do you have for that? And so I was looking at this scoreboard flying home. And I'm like, really want to change well being and pursue it. It's deep passion. And it was that same night when I got home, then my wife tossed
Starting point is 00:59:42 me in a book. And then I'm reading this this thing and I'm like, oh my gosh, this damn butenrich guy has crafted the master plan for not just longevity but for well-being. Yes. And, you know, he didn't answer the phone on the first rang either. He was guard, well guarded
Starting point is 01:00:01 from corporate America leaders. He wanted to take his call. He would take my call. I called and called and called and called. And finally, his gatekeeper, I thought I would wear him down. And finally, I just said, okay, this is it. I go, this is the last time I want you just to listen for two minutes.
Starting point is 01:00:20 And I'm gonna describe to you. Wait, wait, wait. 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, he took the meeting. He just went to the desk and he just shared up without an invite. I wasn't, I had never talked to him and I, all right.
Starting point is 01:00:42 So the dance fame is for walking meetings. So we met for a little while and he's a little restless. He's taking notes, we're asking questions. He's so good at interviewing and investigating kind of techniques. And finally, he said, man, let's go for a walk. And his office was in an area that was close
Starting point is 01:00:59 to Mississippi River 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 blues on America shook hands and yeah, and went after it and and Note to the handshake the end of the day. We've had a we have very complex You know, we work with cities and insurance companies in every place the the mayors have to agree and we have a partner sharecare and we have you know, it's ultimately the Blue Cross Blue Shield Planner, the hospital. So they're they're labyrinthine contract. Ben and I shook hands almost nine years ago. We have a big contract that underpins, but we have always he's through, you know, I was, he didn't always, we didn't always work together.
Starting point is 01:01:41 We were on the, he was a partner company and I was, you know, partner companies off and have to get through a lot of, of work a lot of things through, and there can, all these layers, then and I have always operated, where first of all, we had a handshake, we looked each other in the eye and we said, okay, you got my word. And 120 pages of contract,
Starting point is 01:02:02 don't matter, it doesn't matter, we're gonna work it out. And now, three years ago, Ben became available or two years ago, and now he's CEO of BlueZones, and you can imagine the thrill it is for me to have such a talented, executive powerhouse running a company that had two people, what are three people when we first met?
Starting point is 01:02:27 So now we're growing, growing, and it just shows how we can use such a diverse range of skill sets, of interests and backgrounds to want to do more meaning for work in the world, and how actually all your experience is so powerful for this use. You've got to find partners, and I partnered to do this, but we have to go find partners in the communities themselves, too. So this thing is a connected link of really deep partnerships, and it's a leadership model. And it's not a surprise if you go look at our 49 communities, you will find 49 groups of just incredible leaders who wanted a partner with Dan and I. So, you know, it's, it's fun.
Starting point is 01:03:11 I've got two more questions for you before we round up. One was, how much has this all impacted your own personal lives? How much of this are you trying to practice and using your day-to-day lives for yourselves. Well, most of it, I would say of the nine power nine blue zones. I do eight of them pretty regularly. So I mostly plant-based diet. I do my role for physical activities. I do something fun every day. I know exactly my sense of purpose.
Starting point is 01:03:44 It's this work here and I do this work. It's very hard to get me to do something that outside those certain boundaries. I have let go a few friends in my network because I knew that they weren't healthy for me and I proactively added a few new friends. I don't go to church as much as my mother would like me to go to. This is one of the things. But I do, I keep investing my family, which is another really big and important one. And, you know, I do happy hour, which is coming right up here. It is. It is. My profile is pretty similar. So I always think about where can I work and I add? One thing we didn't talk about, well, what we did talk about purpose,
Starting point is 01:04:29 this idea of downshift. And that's taking time purposely to reflect. You heard some of it discussed today, the gratitude, the pieces. So that's what I'm working on the most right now because what we do in our partnership, what we're doing is really busy. I get it. And I think your happiness research would point out that well-slept people are much happier and we even heard data this morning about you could knock out a bunch of mental health illness
Starting point is 01:05:06 if people just slept right. So my two things that I'm working on in addition to the good things that I'm doing out of dance work is purposely downshifting each day, which is hard to do for me and getting the right amount of sleep. Absolutely. And tell me about that family piece. And the reason I saved it to last is
Starting point is 01:05:26 I wanted to answer this question was, I feel so many people today struggle to find their home with their family. Board games. Right? That's the solution. It's epic in our household. Really?
Starting point is 01:05:39 When you say we're doing board games, everybody comes out of the woodwork and it is fun and we have, you know, we exchange gifts at birthdays and holidays. Christmas, there's always new who can find the newest, best, most challenging board game to play. Yeah, okay. That's a good idea. I like that. It's interesting because it creates this social construct for the family and creates a whole different atmosphere for conversation and the board game itself creates an equivalency just about it. So it's a great time. It's not TV. It's not even going to
Starting point is 01:06:22 do something but just time together. Yeah. Any other thoughts on that one? Well, I do see in blue zones people are keeping their aging parents nearby. And which in parts not only, more life expectancy, one of the surest ways to see the life expectancy of your mom or dad drop is put them them put him or her in a retirement home. Shaves off two to six years of life expectancy. In blue zones, that would shame the family. So aging mom, dad stay home, but that not only helps aging mom and dad because they feel
Starting point is 01:06:56 a sense of purpose and they get out of bed in the morning and they, they are more likely to stay active. But also, there's something called the grandmother effect that has shown that in households where there's a grandparent involved, the kids are healthier and lower rates of mortality and they even do better in school. 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 into the family to try to keep people together is really a worthwhile endeavor for longevity and for happiness. Amazing. 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. The same problems that
Starting point is 01:07:40 are killing us today, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, our starting to hit the blue zone. So the National Geographic Photographer I work with, David McClein and I went back to all five blue zones and we got older women, 70, 80 years old to cook the traditional foods that they've grown up on. So this is the food that people eat and live to be a hundred. And I sat on a stool with a computer and captured the recipes, captured the techniques. National Geographic photographer
Starting point is 01:08:13 captured the images, the context, the foods and the ingredients. And the result of Blue Zones Kitchen, which comes out in December, is a hybrid of a national geographic article and a cookbook. A hundred recipes, a little bit of a hundred. I'm super excited about it. It's me back to my journalistic roots, plus I did a whole lot of good eatin'. My wife is going to absolutely love it. My wife's a dietician nutrition and vegan recipe developer. Oh my gosh, it's the music to my ears. Yeah, and she's fascinated by Ayurveda. So she's an Ayurveda practitioner.
Starting point is 01:08:46 So like healing your body through food is like her addiction. So she's, she gets the first copy there. Yeah, yeah, she's gonna love learning about that too. I love that. Yeah, we'd love to talk about that. 100% audience would love that genuinely. Be amazing. And I hope all of those things are accessible and available
Starting point is 01:09:01 and all the stores in the US too. It's on Amazon.com right now. The book's not out yet. It's not out. You can pre-order. Yeah. Okay, great. If anyone wants the book, you can pre-order the book right now.
Starting point is 01:09:12 That's amazing. It's on Amazon and the name is Blue Zones Kitchen. Okay. Blue Zones Kitchen. A hundred recipes that lived 100. I love it. And you mentioned the connection to National Geographic article that you're writing to. Yes. There should be an article out the January issue of national geographical,
Starting point is 01:09:29 be about why these foods help you up to 100. Amazing. I love it. Check it out, guys. If everyone's listening and watching right now, make sure you're going to take a look at that. Yeah, that sounds awesome. More things for us to go implement. Oh, 100%. Yeah. But I love the way some jobs can get more complex. I love the way it's still. Amazing. So we have what we call the final five, which we end every
Starting point is 01:09:50 interview with. This is a quick fire, rapid fire round. So you can only answer questions with one word or one sentence maximum. Oh, goodness. One word or one sentence? Yeah, I have one word. Linean.
Starting point is 01:10:00 Are they dual folk? Because you both have just two. This has become easily one of my favorite interviews I've ever done. So, on that basis... I've seen this on ESPN before. Yeah, okay. It's kind of like that, but they stole it from Jay. Yeah, I'm sure.
Starting point is 01:10:13 And it went... Ah, question number one is, what's the best piece of well-being advice you've ever had? Curate your best friends. Know your purpose. Nice. Okay, second, what's the worst piece of well-being advice you've ever had? Get rich. Count on other people that deliver it to you. Nice. Okay. Third question is, if you could give the whole world one habit to practice for 30 days, what would it be? Love. Can the social connection? Okay, amazing.
Starting point is 01:10:59 The fourth question is, where do I want to go with this? This is two foot, oh, out of all the blue zones, if anyone wants to travel to one, which ones should they visit and why? You should go to Fayus guest house in Icaria, specifically in the city of Nost, that wasn't one word, but that's not why I said why. No, I'm opening it up because I want to know why that one. So that is the best place I know. This is this beautiful guest house and the a GNC 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 There's no better place to see it than the simple little guest house in Nasik idea
Starting point is 01:11:44 Nekoi and Peninsula Costa Rica. People there, no matter where you turn, are genuinely happy. And I think Dan's book underscored it. You know, there's there's pride that feeds into happiness and purpose. It feeds into happiness, but there's also pleasure. the feeds into happiness and purpose, the feeds into happiness, but there's also pleasure. And the country with pleasure and the blue zone is Costa Rica.
Starting point is 01:12:10 Amazing. I love that. Question number five, fast, last 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, and for in terms of a city that you've worked on, that you're working on
Starting point is 01:12:25 for them to start seeing that happen. You don't have to go to far. If you're, you're going to Naples, Florida, Fort Worth, Texas, Hawaii, the island of Maui, the Hawaii, the Hawaii's undergoing a blue zone, I would say, upgrade. My favorite are the beach cities in South LA. Hermosa, Manhattan, Radano Beach. Amazing. Awesome. Thank you both so much. Thank you. And Dan, you're the best. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I'm such an inspiration for both of you. Just incredible. I can't wait for my audience to learn more about you, find out more
Starting point is 01:12:58 about you and hopefully help in some way too. If there's any way... Partner with us. Yeah, absolutely. We should figure that out. I'm so passionate about the work you're doing. And I'd love to learn more and more and more. So this is definitely the first of hopefully many conversations and walks. Next time we can go on a walk together. I like walking meetings too. Yeah, so that's nice. Legendary about that.
Starting point is 01:13:17 It's hard to do it for a conchuse on the sound, right? I don't like getting walking podcasts, but we can do walking meetings. But thank you both so much for your time. I'm very grateful. I'll be delight, thank you. Thank you. Everyone who's watching this,
Starting point is 01:13:28 make sure you share this on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, wherever you're active, because I'd love to see what are the key nuggets that you took away. I want you to think about the one thing that you can try and practice for the next week. So take something out of this conversation, see what resonates with you,
Starting point is 01:13:42 and see what you can put in as an experiment into your life for the next week, Dan and Ben. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being guests, and thanks everyone for watching and listening. Take care. end of that episode. I hope you're going to share this all across social media. Let people know that you're subscribed to on purpose. Let me know. Post it. Tell me what a difference it's making in your life. I would love to see your thoughts. I can't wait for this incredibly conscious
Starting point is 01:14:17 community we're creating of purposeful people. You're now a part of the tribe, a part of the squad. Thank you for being here. I can't wait to share the next episode with you. I'm Munga Shatekler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in major league baseball, international banks, kpop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer,
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