Ep #29: Uncommon Perspective: Longevity

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Episode Summary

Jenna shares her thoughts on aging and longevity and the science behind it that could radically transform your world.

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Show Notes

What if everything you’ve been thinking about the stage of life you currently find yourself in was totally wrong? What if your thoughts about how much longer you have to work, live, and be with your children and loved ones were also wrong? How would things be different for you?

Today’s episode is a little different than usual, as rather than teaching you how to think, I talk about my own thoughts. I share how I think. It can be so powerful to get inside someone else’s brain, and the idea of expanding our minds is so fun for me. So this week, I’m making it fun for you too, and we’re diving deeper into the topic of longevity.

Our longevity is dramatically increasing; the science is there to prove it. This week, hear my thoughts about aging, the science that makes these questions ones we should consider, and what these questions mean for the population of the world. I share a stance on longevity that could radically transform your world and I also share how what I teach you today can have a positive impact on your life right now.

 

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

  • How to start thinking differently about aging and longevity.

  • Why I truly believe that age is just a number.

  • How my ideas of longevity have started to radically transform.

  • Why the way we have traditionally thought about aging is changing.

  • Three times in my life I noticed I was ahead of the curve.

 

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Full Episode Transcript:

What if everything you've been thinking about the stage that you find yourself in life was totally wrong? All of your thoughts about how much longer you have to work, how much longer you have to live, how much longer you'll be with your children and loved ones, what if it was wrong? What if you're actually going to live twice as long as you expect? What if you're going to live forever? How would you act differently? What would you be doing? How would your life be different? Today, we're going to talk about that. But we're also going to talk about the science that I believe makes those questions ones that we should be considering.

You're listening to The Uncommon Way Business and Life Coaching Podcast, the only podcast that helps you unlock your next level in business and life by prioritizing your clarity and your own Uncommon Way. You will learn to maximize your mindset, mission, messaging, and strategy in order to create a true legacy. Here's your host, top-ranked business coach, and reformed over-analyzer turned queen of clarity, Jenna Harrison.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to The Uncommon Way. I’m happy to have you here. I'm really excited because I'm getting ready to go on my mastermind retreat to Cabo. And so, I'm in the packing phase right now. And I just know, I mean, for those of you that are moms who have small kids, you know that even just the thought of being alone in a hotel room is so delicious.

I just know that I will be re-energized through this week. Also, it's in Cabo. And it's at this very high-end luxury resort. And so, I'm definitely going to be pampered. I'm going to be surrounded by beauty. I'll have all of that, in addition to expanding my mind and expanding my network, and learning from other like-minded women, bouncing off ideas and thoughts. And it will be so generative. I know I'll come back on fire; I always do. And I'll be really excited to bring all of that to you.

But today's podcast is going to be a little different. I'm basically going to be talking about myself the whole time, or at least I'm going to be talking about my thoughts. Rather than trying to teach you how to think, I've decided that I want to, at least once in a while, have this series where I just share how I think. And that's because it can be so powerful to just get inside someone's brain.

I've known for a while, but I think about things differently than other people. And definitely different than my clients. And usually, that's because, of course, I have built so many of the thoughts that they haven't yet built. And so, by sharing the way I think about it, I can help them collapse their timeline towards the kinds of thoughts that are going to generate different types of results for them.

So, for instance, I used to have a lot of money scarcity. I think I've told the story that I sat on Marie Forleo's list for four years before I actually purchased B-School, which was my first business investment. Because I just didn't think I was worthy of spending that $2,000 on, or something. And now, I drop $25,000 like it's candy, for my coaching.

I believe so fully in myself that I am my best bet, I’m my best investment, and my brain is where it's at. And that my investments always pay off. But all of that is very meticulously constructed thoughts that I didn't naturally believe, and I had to create for myself. So, the same thing with everything, pretty much, right?

My sense of owning my secret sauce, of understanding my clients, and the belief that I could really coach my clients and help them get results. I mean, everything. Everything that I teach in the Clarity Accelerator. And like I said, I think it took me longer than a lot of people as I was working through all different mindset issues.

Oh, sales, that was a big one, right? What it meant to be in sales. What it meant to be salesy. Is this right? Is this ethical? My brain would just go down the rabbit hole. So, I definitely have that body of constructed thoughts.

But I also have a body of thoughts that is because of what my brain has always been interested in. And so, the kind of questions it's been answering for itself. So for me, that has been a lot about kind of marching to your own drum. Separating yourself from conformist tendencies and really going out on your own way. Risk tolerance and increasing our risk tolerance.

And then there's another group of thoughts, which I'm not able to explain as fully. But I remember when I was working with my Human Design coach, she said, “Jenna, on your chart here, you have this channel energy of freak genius. And so, you just get things, and you need to be sharing that with the world.”

I don't know, that could be it, right? And it could also be that I just have a knack for picking up on trends. And this is why it's so powerful for me with my clients, because I often can see, I can see the gold in them, I can see how their business will play out, I can see the potential they have, and what they're going to be growing into. But long before they do.

I don't always share that with them right away because, of course, I want to allow room for them to grow into it. But I always hold that space for them. And every once in a while, I'll just drop a nugget. And they'll be like, “I never even thought of that. I never even saw that for myself.” I can't tell you how many times I've talked to women that come on saying, “I want to make X amount.” And I say, “Well, what if you made Y amount,” right? Or, “I want to work X many hours?” And I say, “What if you worked Y hours?”

That idea of expanding our minds is just so fun for me. So, I want to just give you some background on what I mean by this. I'll give you examples of two times in my life when I noticed that I was kind of ahead of the curve. Okay, actually, I'm gonna give you three. One is definitely with The Uncommon Way. Even as a young child, I noticed that I was more interested in separating from the herd than other people around me.

Now, I grew up on a military base. These were people who really understood the value of all working together in a community, wearing the same kind of uniform, and developing this team spirit, right? Maybe in another environment, my inclinations wouldn't have stood out quite as much, but in that environment, they definitely did.

But another way I've seen this play out was when the internet started. I remember being with my boyfriend in Spain, and we were driving through the countryside and through this really quaint, little, old mountain town; very, very tiny. They have a word for it when it’s even tinier than a town.

And he was lamenting, “It's so sad that all of these towns are just going to be forgotten forever because everyone's moving to the city. And this old way of life is dying.” And I said, without even missing a beat, “Actually, no. With the internet now, people are going to be able to drastically change their lives and work from anywhere. And they're going to be repopulating little towns like this because they enjoy the quality of life.”

Now, okay, y'all, we are talking; let me think back, when would this have been? The late 90s. This was the late 90s. I mean, the internet had just come out. I remember I was using it in school. But it was still this clunky thing that we didn't understand.

And it was like, okay, cool. So we can get this book from this library at UPenn. Right? It's not available in our library. We can read it, or this journal article, or something, or we can have this little message chat thing with this other student at XYZ College. Okay, I guess that's cool.

But it hadn't sunk in in the way that it obviously has now. We didn't really know what it was going to become. And so, by the time that I was in Spain, living in Spain, obviously some years had passed. Companies were starting to put up websites. Like, it was a thing, but it still wasn't a thing. But I saw the writing on the wall.

Another one is the invasion of Iraq by the United States. I absolutely saw that coming at least a year before. And everyone was like, “What are you talking about? We're focused on Afghanistan. This is about Afghanistan. Why are you talking about Iraq?” And I was like, “Trust me.” And sure enough, the U.S. invaded Iraq.

I'm setting that up, just so that if what I'm saying now sounds a little weird, you may be just a little bit more open to hearing it. Oh, full disclaimer, I haven't always been right. I also was 100% sure that Donald Trump would not be elected as president, and he was. So, not always right. But I do believe when I have these thoughts about the future, that they have been uncannily accurate.

Okay, another little bit of background is I already, in terms of longevity, I already grew up with thoughts that were different from those around me. So, I did have some ancestors and near relatives that lived past 100. I always saw that within my realm of possibility. And my great-grandmother lied about her age by a full decade, ten years. She did that because she would not have been considered marriage material if she had told her true age.

I don't know if she told her husband. I don't think so. I don't think she told anyone. And the only way we ever found out about it is that when her children were planning her 90th birthday, she, at that point, wasn't reading her own mail anymore. And one of her daughters opened this letter and it was from the President, and it said, “Congratulations on your 100th birthday.”

She wasn't turning 90; she was turning 100. And that was the first her children ever knew of it, and that is when she finally told them the truth. So, I've also had this idea that age is very relative, and that as long as you are thinking of yourself as younger and everyone around you is thinking of yourself as younger, you're younger.

From there, I'm just going to tell you, I believe we're going to live a long time. I believe you have the possibility of living much longer than you expect. It's so funny, I always get into this with Ben because he very much has this idea that he will live to the standard life expectancy of 84.5, whatever it is. And I've always believed I'm going to live over 100.

So, we'll notice this where he'll say something about middle age, and I'm like, middle who? Who are you talking about? I'm going to live over 100. I'll be middle-aged, I guess when I'm 60 or so or 55. But I've heard people, out and about in the world, my clients, etc., talking about middle age and referring to late 30s or 40s.

I can see that my thoughts are so different about this. I'll hear Ben say things like, “Oh, I'm getting old.” And I'm like, “Don't say that. Why are you saying that?” And it's funny; my dad is exactly like me. He's married to a woman who also thinks about getting old more and more. And Dad's always like, “I feel great. I’m good.”

This topic has been coming up for me lately for a specific reason, which I'm about to tell you. I want to let you know that I had planned to come out and talk about this on the podcast, and specifically, my thoughts about aging and how weird it may seem to some of you all. But I really think I need to plant this seed. You can, of course, take it or leave it, but it's worthwhile to plant the seed because just thinking in this way, I think, can have positive outcomes in your life right now.

But then, just recently, just yesterday, actually, I read an article that is about a study that has just come out of Harvard, cutting-edge research, that is talking about the ability to turn back the clock. So, I'll get to that in a second.

First, to let you in on the human level, Ben and I would like to adopt a daughter. Now, we've held back on this for several years because of how we've been working through our thoughts about it. And we really wanted to make a clear, conscious decision in the best interest of our daughter about whether we should go forward with this.

So, what is it going to mean that when she's graduating from college, we’ll be in our 70s? By the way, I'm turning 50 this year. Whoohoo! Y'all have to put this in context. So, I'm turning 50 this year, and so is Ben. And we're now thinking about adopting a daughter.

What does that mean for her that we will be aging parents? What does it mean for her that, like I said, when she's graduating college, although I don't really even think… That's another one of my things. I don't think traditional institutions will be as popular as they are nowadays, for that upper-level education experience. But that's a story for another time.

But if she does choose to go to college, then of course, when she's graduating, you know, Ben and I will be in our 70s. What does it mean that maybe she won't have as many years with us? Is this fair? Is this ethical? All the things. And even as Ben and I have been talking, I've had a slightly different timeline than he has. And through this level of inquiry, and based on my previous mindset, which I explained to you, I've been drawing in evidence into my sphere to help support me in moving forward with this deep, deep desire that I have to bring this daughter into my life.

Which, by the way, I've had since I was a child. I've had a very clear knowing of who she is. So, one of those things, is I've been seeing more and more, everywhere, that children of Dylan's age will very likely live to be 130.

And so, that's really set me up into this scientifically-backed belief that our longevity is dramatically increasing. And also, there's a very famous study; I’ll see if I can find it. But it was, I think, also out of Harvard. And what they did is they took a group of elderly people and they put them in a town that was designed specifically to look like how a town would have been when they were in their 20s; the same type of music was playing, and the same type of cars.

And what they did, is they treated these people, the entire time, as if they were 20. So, they had to carry their own suitcases and bags up to the rooms they were staying in. What they noticed at the end of the study was that biometric markers had changed with these people. They were standing taller. Their, I think, blood pressure was different. I don't know. I don't want to make inaccurate claims. But there were, bottom line, remarkable differences in these humans after just mindset changes.

But there's more, my friends; there’s so much more. Another thing that's come across my radar is a podcast from TED Talks. And it's specifically about CRISPR gene editing. So for those of you that don't know, CRISPR is a new type of gene editing technology that's, I think, maybe within the last ten years.

It's open source and readily available to everyone. And it's already being implemented. It's been implemented in cancer treatments and all sorts of different ways. They're holding back on unleashing it because the bioethicists and everybody, they're having a big conversation about what this means for us, for humans. And what kind of constraint do we want to have with this technology.

Because it will allow us, for instance, to regenerate organs. It will allow us to go in, and in fact, this has already been done in China, where we can edit the cells of our future children. So that, for instance, they don't carry some sort of genetic disease. I mean, it's truly remarkable. But if we can start to see that organ generation, regeneration, is just around the corner for us... I have seen my ideas about longevity really start to transform radically.

But let me tell you about what recently came out, because it is absolutely paradigm-changing. It is, I believe, going to change our world. Obviously, not perfect, yet, but what they've actually been able to do is to rewind the clock biologically for mice.

Apparently, the way we've always thought about aging is that over time, our cells mutate. There are DNA mutations that lead to us not functioning as well and performing as well, I guess, as we do when we're children. And that over time, our cells just become more and more and more degraded, and then we die.

Well, what they found out is that is not an accurate portrayal. What's actually going on, is that through epigenetics, through the instructions that our body gives the individual cells, that tells them, “Okay, you go and turn into a kidney cell. And you go ahead, and turn into a skin cell,” that information gets corrupted over time.

And so, when they can reintroduce, because, of course, every cell has the blueprint for the entire body, right? And when they can reintroduce the correct instructions, you're actually dialing back the clock. So, the leader of the study said, he used to look at elderly people and think they were old.

And now, he just looks at them as people who need a reboot. The same way that a computer system can kind of be corrupted over time. And then, you just need to reboot it, and everything's fine. That's the way our human bodies are.

They have actually done this with mice. They have actually been able to reverse the aging process. And now, they're moving on to studying this in primates. And what they're going to do, is they're going to attach it to an antibiotic, and they're going to be giving these pills to the primates.

And then, when they stop giving the pills, they'll stop the rejuvenation process; I guess, is what it would be called. So, they do believe that they'll be able to dial it into that level. This is obviously groundbreaking.

And it brings up so many questions that, of course, people will need to consider: What does this mean for the world? What does this mean for the population of the world? Do we want to live forever? Is it actually possible to live forever? I'm going to leave those questions to people that have dedicated their careers to this.

But what I want to offer you is, is this enough to at least start to change your thoughts about aging, and about the time you have left? We may not be making the leap to ‘now I'm going to live forever’. But all of a sudden, this thought, “I'm going to live to be 84.5,” might feel limited, and even unrealistic.

So, even if you were to expand 20 years longer than you expected, what change does that have on you now? How do you see yourself as a human within that span of time? What does that mean about what you have left? What do you want to dedicate your life to? How do you want to spend your moments, and how you're able to show up?

I believe that the answers to these questions will dramatically improve our lives. Regardless of whether they play out in reality, all of us know we could get hit by a bus tomorrow. We have no guarantees. But thoughts that make us feel like we're young, like we're vibrant, like we still have so much more to give, like we have plenty of time, like we can allow ourselves to take a day off here and there. Like, we're just getting started; the sky is the limit.

All of those will create very exciting results, compared to so many of the baggage thoughts that we've been carrying around, especially as women who are socialized to believe that after about 30 years old, or 35, we're over the hill and we're kind of useless.

Believe me, I feel it even with this positive mindset that I have. I still look in the window, and having been socialized as a woman, I see the lines, and they lead to worry or some other negative brain trajectory. But what would it be like if we all started talking in this way? If it all became expected and normal that we would need reboots once in a while? And then, we'd get back to going on about our lives.

What if we were all helping each other think with a longer-term view? And at the same time, paradoxically, with we don't have to be in such a rush kind of view? You know, I joke with Ben that someday I will be sitting with my daughter, and I will tell her about this deep decision time frame that took years for us to think about; should we or shouldn't we, in our late 40s?

And she will laugh. She will think that was so funny that I was only in my 40s, and yet, I thought this was a big deal that may end up being just one tiny chunk of my life. I don't know about you, but I am so excited. And I choose to stay in excitement. It's not only going to allow me to welcome in an amazing daughter into our family. But it's going to continue helping me share gifts with the world and ground into my beliefs, that the fact that I feel like I'm 35 makes sense; that age really is just a number.

Okay, my friends, have a wonderful week. I'll see you next time.

And remember, on a certain level, you know who you are. And, every day, you're stepping further into what you are here to create.

Hey, if you're a coach who wants true clarity about your secret sauce, your people, your best way of doing business, and how you talk about your offer, then I invite you to join us in the Clarity Accelerator.

I'll teach you to connect all the dots, the dots that have always been there for you. So that you can show up like you were born for exactly this. Come join us and supercharge every other tool or tactic you'll ever learn, from Facebook ads to manifestation. Just go to TheUncommonWay.com/schedule and set up a time to talk. I can't wait to be your coach.

Thanks for joining us here at The Uncommon Way. If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life, including the Clarity First Strategy for growing and scaling your business, visit TheUncommonWay.com. See you next time.

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