Welcome. First things first. I’m not a writer. And while we’re at it, I’m not a scientist, nutritionist, or doctor either. I do give advice about how to live life well though. I’m a Financial Advisor so the idea of being in one place, but wanting to be in a better place IS something that I help people do.

When it came to health, I found myself in one place, but very quickly wanting to be in a different place. This is my journey with health, aging, and getting to that better place. In this intro I’ll share:

1. Why I didn’t care much about those things before

2. What made me start to care

3. What I did about it.

Some people call what I am about to share ‘bio-hacking.’ Other terms include ‘longevity’, ‘anti-aging,’ and ‘healthspan’. ‘Anti-aging’ can sound a bit arrogant or ignorant whereas ‘longevity’ is a bit more acceptable (have you ever met someone who actually wanted to live a short life?). ‘Bio-hacking’ is how to make it sound sexy for the tech bros. But ‘Healthspan’ is what most of us actually care about - living a long life, healthily. You’ve also never met anyone whose goal was to live for a long time, but with a poor quality of life. So healthspan is the goal.

Discovering the idea of Healthspan was a way for me to re-think my longevity, and yes, anti-aging so that I can live the longest and healthiest life possible. However this is not a story about an uber athlete or over achiever running on 4 hours of sleep (ALOT more to come on sleep). But first… the ground rules.

Before I share my why I went down this road, I’ll share my non-negotiables so we can get one big question out of the way - to what extremes was I willing to go, that you or others may see as non-starters?

I wanted improvement, but not to make any major changes. I wanted better health outcomes, but not inconvenience. I wanted it to be fun, but also for any changes to be easy. And I sure as hell wasn’t looking for New Year’s resolutions (more to come on those).

So clearly this isn’t a story about losing a ton of weight, or going from sedentary to running a marathon. That’s by design. Most of us don’t really want that dramatic story. Those books are about other people. I honestly didnt want to work that hard. I wanted any change to be easy to manage. And in a perfect world, even fun. Gyms and salads are (still) not my idea of fun.

I’m one of those people who has pretty good genes the first half of life, but not so much the second half. I was right at the cusp of that halfway point. Midlife. The hill. Right on cue before my 40th birthday, I received a health test result that I wasn’t expecting.

I played alot of sports growing up. Then joined the military at 21. I lived a modestly active lifestyle thereafter. I swore off drive-thru food and soda years ago. My high metabolism has always kept my weight stable. My physique regularly prompted jokes about not eating enough (I’m 5’8, 140 pounds, and more or less have been for my entire adult life), so I’ve never watched calories or gone on a diet. My wife of 20 years eats pretty healthy which means by proximity, I (sort of) did too. I have no real health history to speak of and my life insurance applications always sailed through quickly with top health rates.

The other side of the coin - my family members don’t tend to live much past 80 and several have had heart related early age deaths. My father has now been diagnosed with prostate cancer (twice). My lifestyle is not exactly… healthy. I am a busy entrepreneur building a fast growing company. I have young kids at home. And have always been on the go. So my habits followed suit. I eat out a lot. I have an at least average+ amount of stress for a busy entrepreneur, and I do. not. exercise (again, I hate gyms).

I play a bit of pickleball and ski, and try to take the stairs or go for a walk once in awhile, thus historically giving myself credit for ‘an active lifestyle.’ But in 15 years working daily in an urban city, I never once brought a healthy lunch. I ate out literally every day. I don’t think I’ve ever ordered a salad. My favorite food groups are pizza and burgers. Oh, and I LOVE craft beer. I’m from Grand Rapids, Michigan (aka Beer City USA; and the home of major hitters like Founders and Bells). During the early years of building my company, I averaged 3-4 happy hours a week. Every week. For years.

So in summary… the makings of a good life. But NOT a long life.

In 2021, I lost a dear friend at work who died from breast cancer. She was close in age to me and our daughters were the same grade at school. The loss hit hard. Later that year I noticed a lump in my groin and immediately feared the worst… early prostate cancer. My dad already had it. I knew a couple clients my age who were uninsurable because of. This was it, the thing that good health takes for granted - it’s only a matter of time before something goes wrong.

I scheduled my physical (which I had not done in years) and and told my Doc about the lump. To my pleasant surprise, he informed me it was just a routine hernia. Thank heavens! Then I had to google what a hernia is because I had no clue. Done googling, no big deal! Feeling quite good about the whole ‘hernia instead of cancer’ thing, I opened my blood test results from the physical assuming I’d see the same results I always had.

As I scrolled the results, they were all either ‘acceptable’ or ‘ideal’. Then I came to the ‘LDL Cholesterol’ result and for the first time in my life, had an out-of-bounds result. Something in my brain flipped. Maybe it shouldn’t have. It was only one of many results and the rest were great. But I knew my family’s history with heart issues, and even my ‘lucky to get a C in science’ brain knew that cholesterol had something to do with heart health. Toss in the loss of my friend Lucy, and my recent paranoia from the cancer turned hernia and I was ready to do something... As long as it wasn’t too much work. Or too inconvenient. Or forced me to give up pizza.

One of the most challenging things is how and where to start learning about healthspan. The place I do NOT recommend is waiting for a blood test result that scares you. But if that’s what brings you here, you aren’t alone.

I’ve always enjoyed content from critical thinkers who view the world from the perspective of realistic optimism. I’m an avid reader and by the time of my high cholesterol result, I was interested in the work that people like Tim Ferris and Peter Diamandis and Dan Sullivan were doing. They often interviewed entrepreneurs who were building companies and had expansive mindsets. I’d noticed them all interviewing more health oriented experts recetly. So that’s where I started learning. I came up with a short list of books, podcasts, and videos that first introduced me to bio-hacking and the research that was already well underway in the longevity space.

The following pages will dive deeper into my journey and include many resources that you can use to improve your own healthspan, no matter where you are at in your own journey. To learn more, move on to what I call The Foundation, where I’ll break down my 101 level early findings about what I could (and couldn’t do to improve my own healthspan for my second half of life.