CEO coach to the Fortune 500: The most powerful way to tackle 2026 is assuming you’ll live till 130

I was at Fortune’s Global Forum this year in Riyadh, completely minding my own business, sitting in the back row, doing my emails and half listening. Then Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov, on a panel on life span and health span, said…

“The biggest impact on your health is your number answer to a question.”

Huh?

Antenna up. Can you guess the question? I didn’t!

“How long do you think you will live?”

Read it again, give it a think and give your answer out loud.

The longer you expect to live, the younger you’ll behave and the better you take care.

Dr. Zhavoronkov went on to say some people suggest that AI and Super AI are going to radically affect our life spans and health spans even in the next few years. They’ll accelerate research, find breakthroughs, cure cancer, touch reverse aging, etc.

But he said “Our projections are in the next 10 years, that is not going to happen.

But in the 10 years after that, it will.”

Then he looked around the audience and said “Many of you will make it to 130.” [You can watch the video of the Fortune interview here.]

OK, you got my attention, Doc, closing my laptop.

Stunned silence. We all reacted hearing that the way you are reacting reading it.

The paradigm just shifted.

But that’s the funny thing about paradigms, they happen to you, except for the times when you happen to them. Your answer to the question of how long you expect to live is affecting your health. If you think you may only make it to, say, 75 (when we lost my Dad, suddenly) you may be subconsciously making decisions that help it become true.

But if you thought there is even a chance that advancements might allow you to make it to 130 what changes would that make in your thinking? What changes would you want to make in your work, your career and your life?

Those of us in the audience discussed it after and I sat next to Alex at lunch. First, do we believe it? In whole, part or not at all? If it’s even, as my friend John Nugent says, “directionally correct” what changes?

Well, it sort of changes… everything. How you eat and sleep. How you think about your finances. Your work. Your family. Your legacy. The world. How you approach working out.

What does it change for you?

I’ve learned coaching CEOs that nobody makes it alone. To make it sustainable, make it social. My wife Maria and I have been doing HIIT classes 2-3 days a week for a couple years. The first few weeks it was all I could do to not throw up. Every time the coach turned the other way, I’d stop until they started turning back towards me! Inevitable misses and backsliding aside, we kept at it and both lost 15 lbs, put on muscle and feel 10 years younger. There are a couple morals in there for me, but most is the discipline of just keep going and make it not solitary, but social.

Whatever you want to sustain, make it social.  I remember working with friends after college organizing volunteer programs at campuses nationwide and one of our philosophies was “half of social justice is social.”   If volunteering is drudgery, yuck, who’s going to want to do that? But if there’s laughter, colors, food, fashion, music and fun then it’s enjoyable and that is key to sustainable. It’s the same with your “play span.” 

Whether you like to dance, sports, hike or walk/jog/bike the biggest factor is finding your tribe, friends to do it with. Social = Sustainable. Never learned those activities? Oh, I’m sorry, if you have decades to go, what excuse is there that you don’t have time to learn something new? Hmm. I’m sure we could find some good excuses somewhere…

You might have a couple “10,000 hours” unspent. Whatever that thing is you never learned or did, just flip the switch on the paradigm. Lifelong learning flows from expectations. What expectations do you wish for your life? What’s undone? No matter what goals you have or may now set anew, the more you’ve a learning mindset, the more you will achieve.

Another big mindset shift from a longer life span is how we think about stress. If we have even just an extra decade or two to go we never planned on, then that big crisis we may be going through now (at work or home) takes on new perspective. Even a couple years from now, you may look back and say, “OK, that was tough but it was just something to face.”

No one knows one’s “time” for sure but what if you do have more time than you thought?

I was asked to do a call with the Chancellor of the California Education system. He called me the next day and said, “I was really skeptical of doing a call with a coach and I wanted to apologize.  You asked me a question that I thought was just very cheesy and I gave you a flippant answer but then thought about it a lot last night. The answer I gave you is not the answer I want.”   My cheesy question was if your career was a mountain, are you on your way up or on your way down?

Everything is changing. I can give you 130 reasons why you should change, too.