.jpg)
Inspire Someone Today
Inspire Someone Today
E130 | Beyond Lifespan: Thriving Health Span | Dr. Marcus Ranney
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Unlock the secrets to living not just a longer life, but a healthier one with Dr. Marcus, a leading authority on longevity and adventure. Learn from his vast experiences, including his thrilling work with NASA, as he explains the crucial difference between lifespan and health span. Dr. Marcus emphasizes the importance of adopting lifestyle changes that focus on enhancing our health throughout our years, advocating for a holistic approach that integrates both physical and mental well-being to achieve a fulfilling life.
Embark on a transformative exploration of preventive health strategies, as Dr. Marcus outlines three vital phases for achieving optimal health: adopting a mindset geared towards long-term health, discerning credible information amidst a sea of online content, and employing personalized health strategies to honor our unique biology. This episode challenges the reactive health paradigms of the past, advocating instead for proactive, data-driven measures that enhance both our lifespan and health span. From blood panels to functional assessments, discover how targeted interventions can empower your journey toward a healthier future.
Join us as we delve into Dr. Marcus's personal adventures, from scaling Everest to enduring the Arctic's extreme cold, and learn the invaluable life lessons these experiences have imparted. His narrative not only highlights the potential of human resilience but also the power of mentorship, role modeling, and the pursuit of knowledge. Be inspired by the stories of perseverance and growth, and find motivation to lead an active, meaningful life by embracing challenges and nurturing relationships. This episode promises to leave you inspired, equipped with tools to enhance your health, and ready to embrace life's adventures.
Have you purchased the copy of Inspire Someone Today, yet - Give it a go geni.us/istbook
Available on all podcast platforms, including, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify
Defining Longevity
Speaker 1I think it's very important for us to define what longevity needs, and for our listeners today we're defining it as increasing the health in your years as a byproduct of that potential side effect of that you may live longer. That's great, but at least can we achieve step one, which is the time that we have on earth Can we actually be healthy and as disease, disease free and pain free and symptom free for as long as possible. And that's where I invest most of my time, energy and efforts in the clinical realm and the world.
Speaker 2We're doing the work we're doing at human edge, the company that I started welcome to inspire someone today podcast, a show where we dive into the stories and insights that has the power to create ripples of inspiration in your life. I'm your host, Shrikant, and I'm thrilled to be with you on this journey of inspiration. Welcome back, my dear listeners. Today's guest is a longevity expert, a physician, best-selling author, biohacker and an adventurer. He's on a mission to create awareness about fitness. It's an absolute joy to have Dr Marcus on this episode of Inspire Someone Today. Welcome, Doc Good morning.
Speaker 1Good morning to all of you, and all I would say is I would change your one fit to healthy, otherwise everything else is the same.
Speaker 2There you go. So we are here to talk about healthy conversation, to talk about getting everybody to think about what does it mean to live healthy? And it's very interesting, doc. I was reading some articles. It said the longevity in the world has gone up by about 10 to 12 years in the last three decades, and the statement was very interesting. It said we are living longer, but the problem is that we are living sicker. Yeah, how about we getting started someday?
Speaker 1Oh, that's a good starting point and actually it's more than that. So a study, which is published by McKinsey, looked at global data starting from 1960 to 2019, just before the start of the pandemic and they found that in that period of time, the average global life expectancy increased by 19, one nine year. Some countries were higher, some countries were lower than that. So, roughly speaking, it's almost one year extended for every three years that has passed. In the geoscience world, in the longevity academic circles, we talk about this idea called the longevity escape. It's an idea that was put forward by Dr Audrey Gray, which is this idea that every year past, how many months have been extended to human lives? Because at some point he believes and others share his opinion the longevity escape velocity will be greater than one, ie you are basically extending more than you are consuming and therefore that puts humans on a path potentially towards immortality.
Speaker 1I don't subscribe to that school of thought individually, but there is a lot of people that are looking at this. I'm sure subscribe to that school of thought individually, but there is a lot of people that are looking at this. I'm sure our listeners have heard of people like Brian Johnson, dave Asprey, of course, dr Gray, audre de Gray, etc. So that's sort of one school of thought. But where I look at it from a lens of a frustrated physician is that whilst it is true that the average human is living longer, if you dig beneath the data and actually the McKinsey survey showed that over 50% of our years are spent in sick health and in moderate health so the quality of life index is actually declining, and it's declining quite rapidly in many parts of the world, india inclusive.
Speaker 1Even though we have a very young population, we're seeing the average age of onset of first disease chronic disease happening at a younger and younger age. The average individual is living with multiple diseases as they get older and therefore the quality of life and the morbidity of life is being affected by that. So when we have conversations like I think it's very important for us to define what longevity means, that for our listeners today we're defining it as increasing the health in your years. As a byproduct of that potential side effect of that you may live longer. That's great, but at least can we achieve step one, which is the time that we have on earth can we actually be healthy and as disease free andfree and symptom-free for as long as possible, and that's where I invest most of my time, energy and efforts. In the clinical realm and the world. We're doing the work we're doing at Human Edge, the company that I started.
Speaker 2So it is focusing more on the health span than the lifespan. If the health span is kind of taken care, the lifespan will automatically be taken care.
Speaker 1Yes, and that's the term which has entered the common parlance of the zeitgeist is the terminology of health plan. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 2And what will be the most transformative trends. Two things right. One, when you say that the generation is becoming more unhealthier and we are also living longer, what is the root cause for we falling sick more, and what is that people can do to ensure that that element is taken care so that the longevity cycle continues?
Speaker 1I think the biggest cause is our lifestyle. When we look at the contributions of longevity and the division between nature versus nurture, our genes and our genetic makeup roughly contribute around 18 percent Numbers vary somewhere between 12, 16, 18% of our probability of living to be an old person. Now there are people who are lucky. They have the longevity genes that allow them to become super centurions, and a lot of the work globally that have been done on blue zones this concept of places or pockets on earth where people live to be extraordinarily older is suggested that there are certain genes that are protective for old age, call them longevity genes. There are people who are unlucky and they have genes which are predisposing them to major illnesses and sicknesses, like cancer being one example, or neurodegenerative disorder, early stage Huntington's disease, alzheimer's disease, dementia, etc. So those instances, lifespan is cut short because of the presence of these genes. But for the vast majority of us, the 80-82% remaining the probability of living old is because of three things we live, the people that we hang out with and the lifestyle decisions that we make.
Speaker 1And the lifestyle decisions include how sedentary is your life? Are you spending your life mainly sitting at your seated, at your desk, or are you spending time moving and exercising and just being active through the day? What are the choice of calories that you're consuming? Are you consuming too much energy than what your body requires? And are those energy molecules ones which are harmful to your body, ie, plenty of carbs, high glycemic index, high fructose, corn syrup foods, trans fatty acids laden with salts, etc. Or are they the better forms of macronutrients, which are protein, low glycemic index, complex carbohydrates and good fat? How much sleep are you getting every day? Is your body being allowed the opportunity to rest and recover and develop the sensitivity that it needs to insulin and other molecules? Or are you living a life which is continuously in an exhaustive fatigue state high cortisol, high systemic inflammation, high amounts of ghrelin, low amounts of leptin, high amounts of insulin and therefore leading to those complex metabolic dysfunctions that we're seeing? So I could go on and on like this from a lifestyle perspective, but I wanted to make sure that our viewer and listener really understand that when we're talking about nature versus nurture, it is so much more in our control to make the right decision and today, hopefully, in the conversation, we can talk about what those right decisions are, how we measure those decisions from a biomarker perspective and the benefits it can have to your health span and then, hopefully, your longevity as well and we'll jump right into that particular element of it.
Navigating the Journey to Optimal Health
Speaker 2Today, doc, as you see it, there is no dearth of information coming towards. It's coming towards at a very rapid pace. The number of health tech companies that has kind of come to the fore has kind of mushroomed and is mushrooming by the day. So there is a lot of information available, but I don't think there is a demarcation amongst our listeners, so to say, to see what is right information, what is good information, how do they go about? I know all of these things, but how do I go about doing this? How do we prevent? How are we kind of be proactive with it? How can we kind of take measures that will help individuals to kind of move?
Speaker 1forward. Yeah, I kind of break up the problem into different phases along the journey. I think the first phase that needs to be addressed is the mindset. Is the individual in the mindset that they appreciate that doing the hard things today that others don't will allow you to, doing the hard things today that others don't will allow you to do the easy things tomorrow that others can't right? It's this idea of investing in yourself. Once that mindset is in place that you appreciate the benefit of long-term gratification versus short-term reward, then we can move on to phase two.
Speaker 1Right, phase two is about the overwhelm and the confusion which exists in society today, because much of that education and awareness is being driven by social media and technology content platform and you can spend 15 minutes online and be thoroughly confused because you'll have individuals without the right scientific background and knowledge right scientific background and knowledge spreading misinformation, disinformation, and the end user is being subjected with everything from magnesium to psychedelic mushroom, from cold showers to intermittent fasting and everything in between. So they don't know what is scientifically correct and if they want to start, where should they start? So that's sort of phase two and there's phase three. Is that, once I've started this journey, how do I measure the efficacy of what I'm doing? Because I understand that N equals one, that my journey is very different to yours and very different to the third person, and what may work for me may not work for you. So what is it that I can measure in order to track progress, to measure impact, so that I know that I could keep doing those things, and if it's not working for me, then I can switch to something else. So that's sort of the three phases to this journey, at least how I sort of think about it, when it comes to engaging and working with various clients, athletes and patients. So let's assume that an individual has crossed that first hump, that they've appreciated that.
Speaker 1Prevention, proactivity, personalization and participatory I call these my four Ps, the medicine 3.0 approach. They're ready for being the recipient to this information. Now they need to cut through all the BS that is available online, right, but try and find trusted sources of information where people who are talking about things from a really scientifically credible perspective are looking at the various pros and cons and then allowing you to make a final decision about what should be the way to go, because a lot of this is also science and discovery, like good science is always loose a strong conviction convictions loosely held. So you're opening up or you're holding yourself accountable for new data, and if the new data is suggestive that that's no longer the case, then you can change your mind and move forward. There are many handles available. There are many educational and awareness building websites, podcasts, content houses, etc. That you can visit in order for this to happen podcasts, content houses, etc. That you can visit in order for this to happen.
Speaker 1The second aspect is that start by doing simple tests. First, understand your biology. Hopefully, everyone who's listening and watching this has a blood test every year at a minimum to measure their various biomarkers of health. What are the cholesterol markers that a person needs to measure In addition to the standard profile or panel which is provided by the lab? You need to add more nuanced testing to this, like an apolipoprotein B or a lipoprotein A, etc. And I'm not sure how much detail to go into in this piece, but the end point really is get tested by your bloods. Look at some of your functional assessments as well. So some of the bare basics around this is a treadmill test, a coronary calcium score, a Doppler ultrasound of your carotid arteries, a DEXA scan looking at body composition, a chest X-ray, an ECG etc. And your doctor can have a conversation with you to ensure that you're covering all the right bases. Because once you have your data available, then you will be guided to understand. This is what I need to do. Everybody doesn't need to be on a vitamin B and a vitamin D and a magnesium tablet. Everybody doesn't need to be on a vitamin B and a vitamin D and a magnesium tablet. Everybody doesn't need to be on a lipid lowering agent or metformin or a glucose control medication. But based on your data, you can make an informed decision and then you have a data point to then track.
Speaker 1Let's say, your cholesterol markers were off and we tried a lifestyle approach first.
Speaker 1I always prefer a lifestyle approach first, so we would put you on a low-carbohydrate diet, high-protein, high-fat. We would start you on an exercise program which increased the amount of zone to exercise in the day so that you're burning more fat. Naturally, we'd look at starting on some very specific supplements which will improve the amount of good fat in your blood, in your body, like an omega-3 supplement, maybe a berberine to improve insulin sensitivity, etc. So we'd start that approach. But if we find that that's not working and we need to now start you on a lipid lowering agent at least. We then know what your cholesterol markers were first, what your heart health was, and then how much have you responded to that over a period of time, so that we can titrate the dose and measure our efficacy and our effect as well. So that's my approach and I encourage everyone to adopt that approach, because our biologies are very different from one another and what works for one person may not necessarily work for the other and to put all of this in context.
Speaker 2context, the idea of doing all of this is to kind of take care of preventive health. It's not about the myth a lot of the folks have, doc, is that 10 years back none of this existed. Now there are a lot of companies that is doing all of this work. They're trying to market it, but the reality of it is like we spoke. The lifespan has increased. If you have to have a good health span, you got to be aware of it. So this is more preventive measures than being reactive to it.
Speaker 1Absolutely. But with that I would also remind people that 95% plus of all the individuals who I test for come with a positive finding. 40% of Indians today are either insulin resistant diabetic or have diabetes. 25 to 30% of Indians today have grade one or grade two fatty liver disease. One in five people today suffer from stress, anxiety or a mental health challenge over the course of 12 months. Right, I could rattle off many of these statistics. So the base reality is that we are sick, we're not healthy. So it is true that we're taking a preventative approach to optimize, but there are the vast majority of us actually even have to get started by managing the disease that we currently have, which we may not even know that we have because we've never tested for in a composite, holistic manner.
Speaker 2Yeah, and what has been your personal experiences? What shaped you to kind of start something like this and what have you seen, both by science and by actually interacting with a lot of your patients? I do what.
Speaker 1I do because of three things a sense of frustration, a personal journey that happened with myself and a deep anxiety about the future. Frustration because, as a medical doctor, I'm hugely frustrated that the world over we practice the sick model of health. It's actually a very disease-centric paradigm and we don't allow, we haven't created the right approach where we can optimize and allow people to live in their optimal state. Right Prior to medicine, I spent the early part of my career in the armed forces studying human physiology in extreme environments and spending time in many very remote, very extreme parts of the world. Right Something that I still continue to do till today. Right this time last month I was just about to leave for a massive Himalayan expedition, which perhaps we can talk about, and that period of time and exposure showed my brain, or opened my brain, to this idea that human beings are limitless. We can stand on the top of Everest, we can stand on the moon, we can run an ultramarathon, we can survive in the Sahara desert. We can do incredible things, but at the same time, my first job as a medical doctor, as a young house officer working in London in the NHS, was intensive care. Then I did urology, then I did geriatric medicine. So I was faced with this juxtaposition of extreme health and frailty and disease. So it's that frustration which forced me to do what I do today. The second was a personal journey when I suffered from COVID-19 the first time as a front stage, as a frontline warrior, working in slums in the city that I work in in Mumbai, and I became very sick with that original strain of the virus in Mumbai and I became very sick with that original strain of the virus. My body was subjected to many drugs and steroids and antibiotics and antimicrobial agents and I became very, very sick through this whole process and I discovered for myself that it was the lifestyle changes that I made which ultimately allowed me to achieve a level of health which was far superior than even my baseline because of the importance I put in recovery, in nutrition, in movement, in mental faculties, in my environment around me, et cetera. So that personal journey through a functional approach to health was also part of this why I do what I do.
Speaker 1And the third, as I shared, is this massive sense of anxiety for the world ahead. I've got very young children. My children are almost nine and six years old If I look at the young people of India and I get great opportunities to work with many corporates around the country and travel and meet aspirational young employees who are looking to really build for their future. Their future is a bleak future because whilst we have a young population today, we're also a very sick population today, and if we don't heal that population starting today, over the next decade we will cripple our healthcare infrastructure in India to the level that we won't be able to afford to take care of them. An advanced country like the US spends $4 trillion every year on their health. That's more than our GDP, right? If we don't fix these problems today sustainably, starting at the source, we will not be able to become that middle-income, aspirational, tech, entrepreneurial, all the good things that we talk about to the rest of the world. So because of these three things, I do what.
Exploring Human Potential and Adventure
Speaker 2I do, let's say, great rally cry for people listening to it. We can aspire to become whatever you want to become. If the health is not supportive of that, all those aspirations means nothing. That's the message out there, absolutely. And, doc, you mentioned about the various roles that you have played, starting with being a physician to having had students with the royal air force, an author, a businessman, all of it. So just walk us through for the curiosity of all of our listeners. How did this whole journey start for dr Marcus? What made you to kind of change those trajectories or have different trajectories and doing what you're doing today? And how are you finding this new role of one the mission and two, that business person that you are shaping, how to?
Speaker 1be human and I allow myself the luxury of experimenting and playing. Ultimately, I'm a student of science. I am deeply, deeply passionate about human biology and physiology and psychology and consciousness and those aspects that make us who we are. And I've just found that my career has allowed me to sort of zig and zag in various wearing different hats, to enjoy the various assets that exist. So I keep reminding and telling everyone that I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, and I hope I'm never doing the same thing for too long a period of time, otherwise something has clearly failed or broken down.
Speaker 1I've become an entrepreneur accidentally because of what I just described, because the frustration, the personal journey and the deep sense of anxiety and ambition to sort of change things for the better.
Speaker 1And through this journey we as a company have taken the leap from being a services business and providing, designing first of all and then providing the country's first ever longevity program where we can measure, diagnose an individual, including their biological age, and then set them on a path towards living healthier for longer and hopefully becoming younger.
Speaker 1Because of that, as we've scaled that capability and continue to work with organizations and corporates and sports teams and athletes. We have increasingly started to build more technology so that we can scale this ability, and my hope is that in the next 12 to 18 months, we reach a point of technological maturity that a lot of the work that is currently done by our human team of experts internally our endocrinologists, our functional doctors, our nutritionists, our exercise scientists, et cetera can be done by a digital intelligence, so that the average person using their phone, integrating it with a wearable device, uploading it with their annual or biannual blood tests, will be able to get the same level of expertise and information and start them on a journey towards good health. And that, for me, is the true democratization of what it is that we want to achieve and it's what the company has set itself out in terms of our ambition and our approach.
Speaker 2And in terms of your stint at the Royal Air Force or your journey as a physician, what are some of those pivotal points that also shaped your thinking as to what you would want to do?
Speaker 1The Air Force was a place for me to discover the beauty of flight. I was a young medical student walking down one of the corridors at the university that I trained in, university College of London and I remember seeing this big sign in front of me learn how to fly and get paid. And I remember seeing this big sign in front of me learn how to fly and get paid. And I immediately went up to that and signed up and spent four incredible years in the volunteer services for the Air Force. I got the opportunity to fly airplanes and spend time with fighter pilots and all kinds of incredible things, learning about aviation medicine, which was hugely, hugely challenging and informative for me. I spent time working at Kennedy Space Center. So whilst I was at my final year of study, I had to pick an area of focus and I decided that I wanted to investigate what happens to the heart and the cardiovascular system when a human being is suspended in a low gravitational environment, like being the International Space Station and orbiting the Earth, because there are some fundamental deteriorative changes that happen across human physiology and if anyone is really interested, I encourage them to pick up a copy of my book At the Human Edge because of the chapter of spaceflight I talk about this and some of the other chapters looks at other things as well. So I got invited to work at NASA and I spent time at Kennedy Space Center as part of the emergency medical support team for a space shuttle mission team for a space shuttle mission, where we sent six incredibly brave human beings on board the space shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station. I was with them on the launch pad. I was there looking at the space shuttle take off at Kennedy Space Center. It is an incredible feeling because your whole body resonates because of the force that the space shuttle exerts on the earth in order to create enough escape velocity to escape our gravitational force and make its way up to the international space station. We then monitored them for a period of four weeks whilst they were living on board the space station, and then I was there on the runway when the space station and then I was there on the runway when the space shuttle came back into land and watching that massive aircraft break the sound barrier twice and there's this huge sonic boom. I was incredible, incredible, that whole experience of science and adventure wrapped in. And then, of course, I completed my dissertation and published it.
Speaker 1So these are just some of the formative experiences that I've had. I've spent many, many months living in high altitude environments, a month on Everest. I've just spent two weeks in the Himalayas, again leading up to the summit of India's highest trekkable mountain, around 21,000 feet. So I tried to. I mean, I've spent time in the Arctic twice the Siberian Arctic and the Swedish Arctic as well studying the effects of extreme cold minus 30 degrees Celsius on the human body and the stress response. So these are just some of the adventures that I've had, and I hope that there are many, many more adventures, because it reminds me who I am as a human. It reminds me of the humility when faced with the extreme outdoors and just how precious and fragile we can be, but how incredibly resilient, adaptive and extreme the human condition can also be.
Speaker 2I definitely wish you have many more such adventures. Doc, I could definitely see the twinkle in your eye when you're talking about the Kennedy Space Center and your experience there, if you were to kind of look at all of these things in hindsight and to say what is one or two things that you've been able to draw for you to be the person that you are, either personally or professionally. Are there anything that kind of strikes the cause?
Speaker 1okay, actually this helped you to shape up who you are today I imagine the answer would be picking up the biochemistry textbook for the first time and falling in a sense of deep awe and wonder of how incredible the human body is. I I think that moment, whenever it happened, that, whatever young age that I was in, whichever library, was probably the first step, because I've fallen in love with the great outdoors, because of the textbooks, because of trying to understand how is it that we can do all of these incredible things, and I've just been fortunate to be at places and take the opportunities or make the opportunity to study them firsthand as well.
Speaker 2But that might probably be the first moment Nice, and you touched upon two elements. One is your book authoring your book, human Edge, and then your recent summit, and you have been on some of these summits. So two broad questions here. As you're putting this book together, was there anything that surprised you through all the research you did, through all the cases that you looked into, that really, really surprised you?
Speaker 1yeah, the big surprise, and it was a very unintended, unintended chapter which ultimately became the final chapter of the book, which is what I called mind over matter. My thesis going in was to study and document the physiological adaptations that the human condition goes through when faced with various extreme environments. So there's a chapter on running a full marathon, there's a chapter on surviving the heat of the Sahara Desert, there's a chapter on surviving the cold of the South Pole, there's a chapter on putting a human being on the surface of Mars, there's a chapter on standing on the summit of Everest, etc. All of their approach was always about the physiological adaptations, the respiratory changes to the low oxygen environment, the cardiovascular adaptation to running for that period of time, the bone and muscle changes responding to a low gravitational load of being on Mars or the moon, etc.
Speaker 1But as I studied, as I interviewed, as I documented and as I experienced a lot of this myself through my own field research and expeditions, I discovered that the real magic happens up here the ability of the mind to, or rather the ability of the brain to transform the mind, to propel the body to do these things and do these hard things today, oftentimes with the unknown potential of a mortality event.
Speaker 1We've all read those incredibly brave, courageous stories of humans doing things, even with the knowledge that their bodies might be put to the test and they may lose their life because of that, but they still do it. There is something magical that happens inside of the brain, whether it's the curiosity, whether it's the deep sense of adventure, whether it's the human spirit and soul that is constantly striving to achieve something. That, for me, was where I really discovered the magic, and then I decided I couldn't complete the book without looking at some of the science of neuro adaptive changes, for what is happening inside of the brain, potentially to the mind, to allow the human being to achieve these incredible tasks. And that, for me, was the great learning of all of it.
Speaker 2Wonderful, and with that you recently came back from your summit. If you were to take a couple of snippets from your summit diaries, the first thing would be the summit day itself.
Unleashing Human Potential Through Challenge
Speaker 1I have done summits before, of course I've done, and I've done many, many hard things before, and I was mentally prepared for having a very hard day. We woke up around 9 30 at at night. It was deeply cold, it was probably just a couple of degrees above zero, the air was thin, the sky was clear, we were in the dark and we could see the entire stars just wrapped around us. And we started to get ready and put on those five layers of clothes, the down jackets and everything else, and we huddled into the mess tent to try and put some food into the stomach, because the next meal we would be having was probably going to be 20 hours away. And then we set off and we started and the mountain was relentless. It was uphill almost from the beginning, at a 30 degree incline, and it just went on for hours and hours and hours. And we were a climbing team of nine. Four people decided to turn back at various stages until five of us were left, and it was just cresting onto the top of a glacier at 6,000 meters, around 20,000 or just under 20,000 feet, odd. And then the sun started to come up and you're at that stage where you can begin to appreciate the curvature of the earth and you can see the mountains fall away to either side and we were climbing around the area of the Hemis National Park and there were three glaciers that sort of surrounded us and the sun coming up with that deep sense of orange and pink and the white and the silver and the deep blues of the glacier. It's a transformative life experience that you instantaneously connect with some higher power, whatever that power is. It's deeply emotional and you can't help but tear. You can't stop the tears from flowing.
Speaker 1But from that stage on we still had two and a half three hours to reach the summit and it was brutal, you know, I was vomiting. I felt the intense headache of the high altitude, low oxygen throbbing inside of the head. You take one step forward, two step forward and then you've got to stop and breathe for five, six deep breaths and every cell in your body is saying stop, stop, stop. Except one cell, one cell somewhere is saying no, you got to keep going, you got to keep going and as a team, five people you know everyone motivating each other, egging us on we got there and we sat on the summit and it's such a cathartic moment that you can't help but think about what it is that you've just achieved. But you also know you also know, shrikant that the journey is only half done Because getting to the summit is optional, making it home is mandatory.
Speaker 1You've got to come back down and it's a long, long walk down. It took us another five hours to get down. So by the time we reached our camp and I remember walking into the camp and the four and four people who turned around and the other guides and the porters and the cooks, they all ran towards us and we all sort of hugged each other and high-fived, and then it was such an incredible feeling. And finally you make your way into the tent and you're just so physically exhausted you just lie down with all your clothes on, you can't even think about putting food in, and you're just so physically exhausted, you just lie down with all your clothes on, you can't even think about putting food in, and you just want to just sleep and try and just get some recovery.
Speaker 1And it was a long day. We made it back for 2 pm, so we left the tent at 10 pm and then we got back at 2 pm, and that's a long day. That's 16 hours without any water, without any food. You've just walked 10 hours up to 21,000 feet. You then just come all the way back down again and your body is like man, I'm done, I need some rest.
Speaker 2Thank you for sharing that. That was like reliving your experience through your story For all the listeners. Dog listening to this. Why should somebody kind of do a summit in their lifetime? And secondly, when you were put into this kind of extreme situation mind over matter, like you said right what do you do to overcome that mind inhibitions, to say that don't do it, this is enough, don't push any further? And how do you channelize to kind of get to that point? And and this is Summit as a metaphor it happens to us through our daily lives as well. So how do you build that muscle?
Speaker 1It is about building muscle. It's about the recognition that comfort is a bad thing. We celebrate comfort in society today, our entire existence, protected from these four walls of concrete temperature controlled through air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter, etc. It's all protecting our biology and we think that these materialistic comforts are good. But that's not how we've evolved. Our entire evolution, right from that single-celled organism you know, almost a billion and a half, two billion years ago, has happened because of the exposure to stress, because of facing a discomfort, a discomfort which doesn't destroy the organism, but hard enough that the organism learns to adapt and grow. And it's in that growth that the magic happens.
Speaker 1So I always encourage people to do something uncomfortable every day.
Speaker 1You define what that uncomfortable thing might be.
Speaker 1It could be an area of mental discomfort, it could be physical discomfort, it could be emotional discomfort, whatever it is discomfort, it could be physical discomfort, it could be emotional discomfort, whatever it is.
Speaker 1But it's in that discomfort that the magic happens. And the more times you expose your body to discomfort, the more opportunity there is for the body to recognize that it can learn and become a better version of itself when faced with an even more uncomfortable situation. So if I were to just go and try and climb a mountain today from ground zero, it would be impossible. But it's the years of training and understanding and exposing and learning and therefore growing that has allowed me to reach the stage that I can do these hard things and have fun along the way as well. And my wife and I, we both understand the importance of role modeling this to our children around us as well, so that they understand how important it is to do the hard things in life, because that's where the real magic and existence and maybe even the purpose of what it means to be a human being really requires.
Speaker 2Do you want to unravel the magic letters to the world?
Speaker 1I mean it's all there for people to read. What Shrikant is, I think, referring to is the letter that I write to my son on his birthday every year. It's a mini time capsule. It's a habit that I formed right from when he was born as a way of, hopefully, when he's much older, maybe learning from the mistakes and the experiences that his father has had and his mother, as we try and sort of put our message together and act as a time capsule and some sort of legacy to leave behind. And what I love most about sharing it because I decided to be public and share it right from the beginning is A there might be experiences in there that others may learn from. But more interesting and what I really love is all of those parents who then message me separately and say because of this effort, I now do the same thing for my children. Oh, sweet, and you know, that's what the world's about. It's that we can all be a positive force, starting with one step at a time.
Speaker 2Absolutely no. This has been fantastic conversation. I want to keep going on and get as much insights from you, and I'm also mindful of the time that we have together. So we slip into a segment in this conversation, what I call it as the power of three round together. So we slip into a segment in this conversation, what I call it as the power of three round. First of the power of three round question, doc, is three micro experiments that you would recommend our business towards longevity.
Speaker 1Okay, I'm going to focus on sleep, because sleep has to be the first step. I have a three to one rule, so it sort of fits into your magic number as well. Three hours before you intend to go to bed, stop doing any strenuous exercise or activity. Allow the body to cool down and enter a state of relaxation. Two hours before you go to bed, stop consuming any calories. Stop putting any food inside of your stomach so that your body and your metabolic rate can slowly digest and relax itself. And one hour before you go to bed, stop consuming any forms of electronic media. The light exposure, the stress levels, etc. So these three things, simple but not so easy to do, will help you improve your sleep, and that's the first step towards living a healthier phenomenon.
Speaker 2Nice. So we briefly touched upon the letters that you write for your son. If you were to write a letter for your future self, what three things would you tell your future?
Speaker 1self. I hope you're still having fun doing what you're doing and I hope you're not doing the same thing as you're doing right now. So that's sort of the first bucket that I would fit in. The second thing that I would write to myself is that I hope you're spending even more time in nature than you are right now, because for me, that is the most embracing and precious thing that I hope your kids are still able and willing to give you a big hug and a kiss on a date, on a, on a as daily basis as you can. Yeah nice.
Speaker 2What has been the three best advice that you have received from your mentors?
Speaker 1okay, learn how to say no. Ie declutter life. It's very easy, especially today when we're just bombarded with so many things, and you know especially you know being an entrepreneur, you're so enthralled in new projects etc. But you know, focusing on doing the basics really well is very, very important.
Speaker 1The second thing that I actually know on many mentors and it fully aligns with the way I live my life is that always put family first. People have either learned it the hard way or they have crafted it through their journey, but they remind me especially maybe talking to me, knowing that I have young kids and how much my family and children mean to me is just always make sure that you always put your family first, regardless of any other potential outcome. And the third thing that mentors say, which maybe I resonate with because of a positive bias, is particularly those who invested in their physical health to keep their body and their brain sharp so they can keep doing what they're doing for longer into their older years as well. Right, so those are sort of three things that I've appreciated. What lovely advice.
Speaker 2There's doc doc three book recommendations for podcast in the area of longevity or pushing the human potential.
Speaker 1Okay, so every author must always mention their book. So I will, tongue in cheek, say please read or listen to now, because it's available on Audible at the human edge, and so that would be sort of one in there. But other three and I really enjoyed, and you know, some of these are longevity, others may not be. The first one is a book called Man's Search Meaning by Dr Viktor Frankl, and it teaches you about the power of the mind and, more importantly, the opportunity to create purpose even in suffering. And I won't talk a lot more about the book because I want people to read it, but that's definitely one of my most favorite books that I've ever read.
Speaker 1The second favorite book that I've read and I picked this up at the Thick Say Monastery in Ladakh, which for me is sort of my soul place is a book called the Book of Joy and it's a conversation between the late Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama as they celebrated their 90th birthdays. They spoke about what is it that it means to be alive and how is it that they live their lives, and to all of the little messaging it comes down to joy, and I think joy is just so, so important for all of us in our lives, irrespective of how much you run, and whether you smoke or not, and how much you sleep and what you eat, have joy and create purpose. Those are the two big longevity pillars. So that's why I mentioned these two books Now specifically, if there was one book that a person could pick up from a longevity perspective.
Speaker 1Something which is very popular today and he has an incredible podcast as well is Dr Peter Atiyah's podcast called the Drive and his book called Outlive. He's taken very deep scientific information in the book Outlive and he's tried and he's done it quite effectively to make it easy for the lay reader to consume. Right, his podcast is much deeper and more scientific and probably better suited to people from the scientific community, but certainly this is one of my favorite podcasts and something that I listen to on a weekly basis.
Speaker 2Wonderful. One of your favorite podcasts, along with Inspire Someone today. Is that right, Absolutely Wonderful. The last of the power of three round question Doc. This is not a question, actually, I want your last of the part of three round question, Doc. This is not a question, actually, I want your kind of commentary on it. I'll give you three words. Go go gum.
Speaker 1Go go gum. It's G-U and that stands for get up. G-u stands for get up, g-o stands for get out and G-M stands for get moving. In the pandemic, when the world was in lockdown and we were all forced to be in these small walls, one of the escapes that my wife and I allowed ourselves from time to time, when allowed so, was to go on these long walks, and those long walks allowed us the opportunity to have long talks with each other, and some of the best relationships are built on long walks and long talks, and through that journey we discovered ourselves again.
Speaker 1I knew how much we enjoyed being in the outdoors and being active and role modeling this for our friends, to inspire them, and for our family and our children as well. And so a dear friend of us came up with this hashtag, because we kept saying you know, get up, get out, get moving. And he said oh, that's GooGooGum. And so GooGooGum became our hashtag and we called the GooGooGum couple and this expedition. We were just done. We called it the GooGooGum expedition because we had a lot of our friends with us as well, and that's what we do every day. Every day, we get up, we get out and we get moving, because that's what it means to be alive and that's where we are.
Speaker 2Wonderful. I hope all the listeners out there adapt this as a mantra every day and start practicing it. Dog, this has been one heck of a conversation. Like we do with all of our guests, before we sign off I asked my guests what's their inspire someone today?
Embracing Inspiration for a Meaningful Life
Speaker 1message to all the listeners I think what's been lovely about this conversation is you teased out a lot of the things that I would have ordinarily have asked or reminded people to do so, including some of the more spiritual aspects of life, like purpose, like joy, like experiences, like nature as well. Perhaps I'll just leave our listeners with the thoughts and the reminder that we have this one life. Let's make it as healthy, as joyous and as purpose-led as possible, and you can only do that when your body and mind is kept clean and fresh. So spend time every day cleaning up and freshening up your body and mind.
Speaker 2Wonderful. On that note, doc, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, and hopefully all of our listeners will get something out of this, and then we'll go out, get up, get moving and make a life that matters.
Speaker 1Thank you so much for having me, and I wish everyone well.
Speaker 2Thank you for joining us on this episode of Inspire Someone today. This is Srikant, your host, signing off. Until next time, continue to carry the repulse of inspiration, stay inspired, keep spreading the light.
