LegendaryLife Blog

As my plan is to live well over a hundred years by following a very healthy lifestyle full of whole foods, vigorous exercise and lots of mental activities, I found this Ted talk by Dan Buettner rather interesting. Here is the embeded video followed by a summary of the talk’s key points. If you wish, you can read more about Dan here.

Lecture’s key points:

• based off the studies of twin lifespans, it’s been calculated that less than 10% of our longevity is based directly off our genes with 90% being dictated by our lifestyle.
• there is a lot of confusion regarding optimal health and lifestyle choices
• a team of experts visited and studied extensively the lifestyle of populations known to live a long, healthy life with few health complications. These four areas are known as blue zones and include Costa Rica, Okinawa, Sardinia and California
• longevity myth #1: you can’t wish yourself to live longer, no matter how hard you try because we are built to multiply, not live long. Your chances of living to 100 are 1 in 5 000 currently within America.
• longevity myth #2: treatments exist that can slow aging. Our bodies have 35 trillion cells… there is simply too much we don’t understand and that can go wrong to possibly know what works and what doesn’t. These cells are completely replaced every 8 years and each time, genetic and cellular damage occurs which builds up exponentially.
• a 65 year old senior ages 125x faster than a 12 year old child
• the capacity of the human body to sustain your life is about 90 years, slightly longer for woman

• in the highlands of Sardinia, there is a place where old age is a given, with 10x more centenarians than in America! They are also healthy, working and enjoying a vigorous lifestyle. Here, men live older than woman.
• diet consists mostly of plant based and whole foods made and found locally using naturally sourced products high in Omega-3 fatty acids
• they are mostly shepards, so they enjoy an active lifestyle throughout their lives
• they enjoy wine which has 3x the amount of polyphenols than any other type in the world (this is a strong anti-oxidant)
• the older you get, the more wisdom and acceptance you get within the social structure of the Sardinian society
• on the island of Okinawa, in the northern part of the island, the oldest female population can be found
• here they live a long time, die quickly with little health problems in between
• 5x the number of centenarians with a fifth of the cancer compared to America
• they have a mostly plant based diet that consists of smaller calorie dense foods – they stop eating once their stomach is 80% full
• isolation is known to shorten lifespan, so the Okinawans have a system in which they develop lifelong friendships
• American’s have adopted a lifestyle that can be divided into two categories, work and retirement but in Okinawa, there is no word for retirement. They simply live by a motto which means “the reason you wake-up in the morning is ___”
• in America, it’s the 7th Day Adventists found in California which live the longest, the study that the numbers come from tracked 70 000 people for 30 years
• they don’t eat a lot of meat, for 24 hours a week they stop everything and focus onto their social being and doing nature walks

• things that all these “high longevity cultures” have in common
• they all do daily physical activity that isn’t overly strenuous on their body or joints
• they have the right outlook on life and a purpose that drives them on a daily basis, they purposefully slow their lives down to deal with built-up stress
• they all take some “time off” to reflect or to relax on a very regular basis
• they eat food based on what is found around them and it forms the majority of their diet
• they eat mostly plant based foods, a little wine and rarely till they are absolutely full
• they put their families and relatives first in their lives and have strong social contacts
• longevity has no short term fix

The Bottom Line

A long, healthy life is a choice that involves incremental and small proactive steps through ones life.

I believe each person has their own special gift, not given to them… just by random chance, their brains got configured in a different manner than the rest of us and this leads them down very different paths. One such person is Kim Peek.

Legendary Savant

Thanks to the movie Rain Man, the existence of savants got some attention by the media and hence, the the general public. His brain was larger than the average and looked noticeably different than the average but somehow, it allowed him to enjoy the benefits of a true photographic memory (eidetic memory). Everything he had ever read or seen, he remembered instantly! I wrote about his special abilities briefly in my book titled “Transform your life from blah to Legendary!” (page 95) which included reading a book, two pages at a time, one eye per page in only a few seconds!

The Rain Man affect

Kim Peek was transformed after the movie came out, he opened up regarding his abilities and developed a more outward personality… he came into being his own, thanks to the dedication and love of his father. I never met Kim but he was on my list of people that I would have really enjoyed taking out to lunch.

His joy of life was incredible and in my book, he led a truly legendary life! May Kim Peek rest in peace, he was a truly original man with an incredible talent teaching others the amazing abilities of the human mind!

You can watch the video outlining his life at ABC News.

A designer whom I worked with on the site WoodMarvels.com (he designed the great looking planes on my site), Jerry, just had a heart attack and here is what he wrote so that this doesn’t happen to you.

Buzvia: Jerry’s Msg

I never heard of this band or the song before but being a fan of both electronic music and 3D animation, I was very impressed by this video. What I like the most is the originality, the sync between the music and aspects within the animation and the use of a “comic filter”. I would be surprised if they used anything but 3DS Max to produce this entire project… great job guys!

Mortality or Death (which ever makes you feel better) isn’t something to be feared nor used as an excuse for not getting what you want out of your one and ONLY life.

This guy isn't wasting a second, he is singing and playing the flute at the same time!

Most people think that free time is just that, well, it isn’t!

What is free time?

From the moment you are conceived, you are in a speeding car heading straight for a brick wall, this brick wall is called death and the road you are on only goes one way. As such, we do not have an infinite amount of time, there are no breaks on this car and it will sadly, never run out of gas. So, most people consider free time as a pause or “break” in life but what most people don’t realize is that this isn’t the case… whether you are sleeping, eating, going to the bathroom or even in love, this car you are in never stops, if anything, it accelerates as you loose track of time.

How to ease off the gas

Now, I used the analogy of a car on purpose, a car can go either fast or slow, even if you are heading towards a brick wall, you an choose, through your lifestyle and decisions in life, to ease off the gas a little. How? Well, don’t smoke, don’t drink, exercise, develop healthy relationships etc… theses might sound like small things but when you consider your body is in a constant state of decay, if you can slow down this process, ever so slightly, the dividends pay off big time later in life. So, if you live an unhealthy lifestyle, including everyday stress that makes your blood pressure rise, time to make some serious changes as, that car, sure isn’t going to stop.

Out of mind doesn’t mean it stops!

Another way people try to fool themselves is that they think that not realizing their own mortality will somehow allow them to escape these mortal coils that bind all of us. More specifically, they somehow think that they will be able to jump-out of the speeding car right before it hits the brick wall. I am sure mankind has tried this since we evolved and so far, considering how many billions of people have died, this approach is doomed to failure. Others deal with their mortality by squeezing every inch of it (and then some) out of everyday by partaking in risky or downright dangerous activities… sure, drinking the devil’s water is fun sometimes but not something that should be done on a regular basis. Basically, whether you wish to admit it or not, your fate will be the same as everybody else’s, rich or poor, educated or otherwise.

So… DON’T WASTE YOUR FREE TIME!

When ever somebody says “time out, you have free time”, take this as meaning you can do as you wish so you might as well dedicated it towards one of three activities:

1) improving your life or the lives of those around you

2) self-reflect on what you can change in your lifestyle in order to “ease off the gas”

3) educate yourself about the world around you

I think if everybody did one of these three little things instead of plopping in front of a television and wasting away hours of their lives on a daily basis… this would wouldn’t not only be far better but people’s lives would be vastly more rewarding in general.

The Bottom Line

You have one life, don’t waste any of it.