Could This Tech Millionaire Extend Your Athletic Prime?

We just spent all day reading, watching and learning about ‘the most measured man in the world’, Bryan Johnson—and in this email, we’ll share why his research is important for anyone who wants to perform higher for longer. 

Bryan is a 47-year-old entrepreneur who sold a tech company for millions and then decided to use that money to turn his body into a public science experiment in longevity and human performance. 

Here’s a very basic summary of his ‘big idea’. . .

It’s commonly accepted as a fact that over the course of a year, we all get exactly one year older. 

(duh)

But did you know there are actually two ways of measuring your age?

The first is your chronological age, or how much time you’ve been around and kicking. This is how most of us think of age, so hopefully I don’t need to explain how it works in too much detail 🙂

The second is your biological age—or how old your body really is based on your physical condition and health markers. 

Over the course of 365 days, while you might get one year older chronologically, there’s no rule that you have to age by the same amount biologically. 

For example, if you age biologically at a rate of 0.7, you could get a whole year older while only aging your body 0.7 years. 

What does that mean?

Let’s say you’re a 20-year-old athlete and most athletes in your sport play until 34. If you age at a rate of 1, it’ll take 14 years for your body to reach that age.

But if you age at a rate of 0.7, you’d only hit the biological age of 34 as a 40-year-old—giving you another 6 years to enjoy your career and all the benefits that come with it. 

Bryan’s idea is that this kind of breakthrough in aging could have huge impacts on all aspects of society—and so he wants to dedicate his life and wealth to scientifically figuring it out.

His results so far, while still early, are impressive—he’s now apparently aging at a rate of 0.66. 

What has he discovered? And can regular people like you and me do the same?

The answer, surprisingly, goes back to an Italian economist from the 1900s called Vilfredo Pareto. 

One day, while tending to his garden, Pareto noticed that 20% of the pea pods produced 80% of the healthy peas. This strange unequal distribution made him wonder whether similar patterns existed in other areas of life.

He then analyzed wealth distribution in Italy and found that 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the population.

This observation laid the foundation for the 80/20 rule, which has since been applied to various fields, demonstrating that a small percentage of causes often leads to a large percentage of effects.

It’s not always exactly 80/20, but this ‘power law’ essentially states that for most things in life, the majority of the results come from a minority of the causes. 

This principle is everywhere once you know how to spot it:

• A musician with 10 songs gets 1 million streams a month—but 900,000 of them come from one hit. 

• An online shop makes 1000 sales a month, but 70% of those sales come from their most popular 5 products. 

• If you spend 2 hours a day on your phone, most of that time is spent on the top 3 or 4 apps. 

What does any of this have to do with Bryan Johnson?

To research this article we took 47 of Bryan’s YouTube videos (around 13 hours of footage) documenting his various experiments and findings and ran them all through NotebookLM, an AI model built for note-taking and summarisation, to analyse everything we found. 

We then asked the AI engine to try to figure out the ‘80/20’ of Bryan Johnson’s work—the things people with a fraction of Bryan’s time, money, or dedication could do to unlock, if not all, a large number of his results. 

(We had no idea what the output would be. . .)

Here’s what we found:

Prioritize Sleep: Quality sleep supports hormone regulation, cognitive function, and muscle recovery. Maintain a consistent sleep schedule, create a relaxing bedtime routine, optimize your environment, and limit screen time before bed.

Exercise Regularly: Consistent physical activity boosts cardiovascular health, muscle strength, energy levels, and reduces the risk of chronic diseases. Mix cardio and strength training, move throughout the day, and find enjoyable activities to stay consistent.

Eat a Nutrient-Rich Diet: Focus on whole, unprocessed foods like fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats. Avoid processed foods and sugary drinks, listen to your hunger cues, and stay hydrated.

Practice Mindfulness: Cultivate awareness of posture, manage stress, practice mindful eating, and express gratitude regularly to improve overall well-being. 

Well. . .

. . . all sounds pretty common sense, to be honest. 

The funny thing about a lot of the ‘biohacking’ industry is that, after millions of dollars spent on research and some of the world’s best minds investigating the problems, the advice that emerges points back to a select few incredibly important things to get right. 

Like Pareto’s overachieving pea pods, these factors make up the foundation of physical optimisation. 

This isn’t to say that all of the extra stuff Bryan does has no impact. They clearly do, and if you have the time and budget they could well be worth researching for yourself too.

But this is all ultimately good news. 

After all, if the secret to Bryan’s results was some cutting-edge therapy that only a handful of clinics in the world offer…there’s not much we can do with that information. 

But knowing that the tools Bryan relies most heavily on (sleep, exercise, nutrition and mindfulness) are factors that we all more or less have the ability to control and work with means that it’s up to us to take responsibility and shape our lives in a healthier way. 

And that’s what many people around the world are doing every day—whether they call themselves ‘biohackers’ or not. . .

The Rejuvenation Olympics is a global leaderboard that tracks and ranks individuals based on how effectively they're reversing or slowing down their biological aging using advanced health and wellness protocols.

It’s full of tech millionaires and biohackers. . .and Julie. 

Amy Hardison, a 64-year old grandmother, at one point ranked 5th on the leaderboard. While she eats clean and gets an hour of aerobic exercise a day, she says she prioritises social connections and relationships over health trends. She says she has a positive attitude about aging and enjoys the perspective that being older gives her. 

(some research shows that negative attitudes about aging can, in turn, accelerate the aging process.)

Where does all of this leave us?

It’s undeniable that the work Bryan Johnson is doing is going to help a lot of people. And for those with the resources, he offers a blueprint to follow. 

But if you aren’t ready to invest in that kind of lifestyle, don’t overlook the 80/20 benefits you can unlock just by honing in on the fundamental pillars of well-being. 

Optimise the small details, but don’t sweat them. 

Master the basics that deliver the biggest impact, and you’ll be well on your way to a healthier, higher-performing life—without needing to chase perfection.

Until next week, 

Benji and Jacob

P.S. If you’re interested in reading more of the summaries and finding out all the ways Bryan Johnson is trying to reverse his age, we collected all of the summaries we generated and put them on one page. 

Click below to read:

https://medium.com/what-counts/every-bryan-johnson-video-summarised-3a08020fea14 

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Your friends,

Benji and Jacob