Don’t Die: What We Can Learn
from the Netflix Documentary About Living Forever
[Free Preview of Premium]

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #569xp: Don't Die: What We Can Learn from the Netflix Documentary About Living Forever [Free Preview of Premium]

Jeff Sanders
Good morning and welcome to The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, Premium Edition.

I am Jeff Sanders and this episode is called Don't Die, What We Can Learn From The Netflix Documentary About Living Forever.

So recently my wife Tessa and I sat down to watch this documentary that's actually called Don't Die, The Man Who Wants To Live Forever.

And it features the story of a tech millionaire named Brian Johnson.

He is the founder of a company called Braintree, which is similar to PayPal and does online payment processing and they later on bought Venmo.

So Brian Johnson is a very wealthy man who used to run a very large company.

He has since retired from that industry and as far as I can tell, his entire life focus, everything about who he is and what he does, is now completely focused on one mission and that is living forever.

And so what he has done, which the movie features quite a bit in detail, not as much details I prefer, but quite a bit, is what he's been up to, which is essentially spending millions of dollars on research, medicines, testing, supplements, rare procedures, doctors, advisors, assistants, machines, and all kinds of health systems and protocols and routines and habits to attempt to lower his biological age and then theoretically live forever.

So there are calculations you can do to find out your biological age, which is essentially a way of figuring out how old you actually are and then compare that to your years here on earth.

So for example, I am 40 years old.

I have done these tests before that are really like the cheap version of these, which a scale could do it for you.

Some very simple online tests will guess for you.

And the test that I have run showed that I am the same biological age as my actual age here on earth.

So I'm still a 40 year old man who is 40 years old biologically.

Brian Johnson, however, I believe now is 46, 47 maybe, and his biological age is 37.

He's literally a decade younger by these calculations to figure out how old is he really.

And so the data there at least initially shows he's doing something right.

Whatever he's working on, whatever he's applying is lowering his actual like physiological age.

And the longer that this continues, the longer he will live in theory without being killed by an accident or something else that may occur or as long as his tests and experiments don't kill him, if these things work out correctly, he could in theory live at a very healthy clip for many, many more decades.

We're talking 120, 130 years old, maybe longer, and still feeling good and being autonomous and productive.

It's a really tall task to want to live that way.

But one thing that I've always considered as someone who does want to age well is the last thing I want is the opposite of that, which is to age poorly, which is a way of saying, I don't personally want to live forever, especially with this idea that living longer equates to poor health in your final years.

And those final years based upon our current technology could drag out for many, many years, even decades.

I've seen it before in my relatives that as they get to a certain age, whether it's 80, 85, 90 or beyond, that their health and their autonomy are, they struggle a lot.

And that ability to live well becomes their biggest challenge.

And so the question then for you becomes, number one, how long do you really want to live?

But the better question to ask is how do you want to live regardless of how many years you may have left?

And so Brian Johnson's attempt to tackle such a monumental task is notable.

And so let's break down essentially what he's up to as to the best of my ability to figure out what he's doing.

And then from there, what you should do, which of course is the whole point of all of this.

So first of all, what is Brian Johnson up to?

And the best answer is everything.

He wakes up at 4.30 in the morning, so yay, 5 a.m. miracle.

He's got that going on.

And he does focus on going to bed early.

So I think he said in the documentary he is in bed by 8.30 p.m., so eight full hours of sleep, which of course is the foundation for everyone to be healthy.

He then early in the morning will work out for an hour on top of, and this is where things get really weird, taking hundreds, I emphasize this, hundreds of supplement pills per day.

It is astonishing how many pills he's taking.

I discussed before in this podcast that I take upwards of six to 10 pills a day.

And that for me feels like a lot, mostly from the perspective that you can get side effects from any supplements, and there's no guarantee that any of them actually work the way you want them to.

And so just on the face value of him taking so many pills a day, I just have to wonder how does that work without extraordinary side effects?

'Cause I can get some really bad ones from one pill, let alone hundreds.

Anyway, we'll move on from that one.

So he wakes up early, he works out, he has all these pills, he does red light therapy, which I've discussed in this podcast before through one of my sponsors.

Actually, I personally use that same sponsor's red cap, which is a red light therapy hat.

I wear that at night for the potential for red light therapy benefits.

There's a lot of technology behind that that I have not dug into, but I will do more on the podcast later.

I see a lot of potential for that, and Brian Johnson is definitely using that therapy.

He's also done gene therapy.

This one in the movie is featured as a very experimental test where he has to go to another country to get this done because the United States does not legalize it.

And they alluded to the idea that it was very helpful for him and he'll do more of it in the future.

I would love to toy with that myself.

It is very financially expensive, so that may be in the distant future for me, but it is there, it is available.

On top of that, he has a vegan diet, which I'm a huge fan of and a vegan myself for 15 years.

He also does intermittent fasting.

I'm also a huge fan of that.

I think based on what he said that he actually eats until 11 a.m. each morning.

So between his 4.30 a.m. wake up call and 11 a.m. is his feeding window.

And so in the fasting world, a feeding window is when you're eating, and then for him, after 11 a.m., no more food until the next day.

And he does allude to the fact in the documentary that he is hungry a lot and he misses food.

There's a whole conversation around intermittent fasting I'm not gonna get into right now, but it is a highly effective way to lower body fat and to be extremely healthy.

So he is leveraging that as well.

Now, things then take a big turn as far as what he's doing when it comes to this next section, which is where all of his money plays in, which is that he has daily blood tests, scans, all kinds of analyses being done to determine what is working and what should be changed.

And so he has hired a whole team of doctors and assistants and all of these different, is all kinds of medical tests and tools in his home.

So his home looks like a hospital or a science lab.

It's just an incredible thing.

And so he has invested into all of these tools to figure out are these things working or not?

Are his experiments paying out?

If they're not working, then he will cut them off, pivot, make a change.

I love this part of what he's up to.

I have been doing this my entire life is a series of experiments to figure out what works for me, what doesn't work for me, what diet should I adopt?

What exercise routine is best?

When should I wake up in the morning?

All of these are questions that can be answered with experiments.

And his entire life is now 100% focused on that.

And he's paying for the top of the top in terms of the ability to get the best data.

And the data here is huge.

He has just mountains of data to figure out, which of these pills make a difference and which do not.

And there's always this sense of change and evolution to dial in the best possible long-term rhythm.

The way that he's approaching this, my guess is he will never stop experimenting.

He'll probably continue this process for his entire life.

It's kind of exhausting, honestly, to run that many tests on your life.

I tend to go in seasons where I will do a series of experiments.

I will test a few new things.

I'll find a new rhythm and I will then plateau with that rhythm for a while.

And then I'll revisit and try a new set of experiments a few months later usually.

And that tends to work fairly well.

I do think there is a sense of too much being too much.

And of course, this entire thing that Brian Johnson has built is the definition of too much.

But the results speak for themselves.

He seems to be doing pretty well, so I'm not gonna balk at that.

Or on top of this, of course, he's doing tons and tons of research.

He is looking into the latest and greatest cutting edge technology to add to his entire foray of health experiments.

And the last bit of the documentary features this focus that he has now on the Don't Die movement.

So essentially, he is trying to encourage others, myself included, to get involved in the practice of lowering their biological age.

And I'm not doing nearly as much as him, obviously.

Nobody on Earth actually is.

He stands alone as this very unique specimen.

And I find it fascinating.

My initial take while watching this movie and reading these articles was that Brian Johnson was just an egomaniac.

Right, it's very clear that when you have kind of too much money, you can spend it in wild ways.

You can easily dismiss what he's doing based purely off of his wealth and his obsession on himself.

But I think that misses the whole point.

The whole point of all of this is that we all get to learn from what he's doing.

And I have found this process of personal growth to be one of the most, or let's say this, one of the fastest ways for you to grow is to learn from the lessons of others who've already put in the work.

So you don't have to do all this stuff yourself.

You could just take the easier path of learning from others, do what they do that works, and forget the rest.

So there's a fast path for you to be healthier by modeling after those who are already ridiculously healthy and have the potential to live a very long and thriving life.

Which then begs the final question.

What should you do?

And the best answer I have for that is first of all, call your doctor.

Second of all, do some of what he is doing.

There is almost no possibility you're gonna do all of it 'cause he's just too far out there to mimic everything.

But we can learn from what he's doing and attempt to do some of it.

One of the things I noticed was that in this multitude of bottles of pills he's taking every day is I recognize the brand names, and quite a few of them, some of whom have sponsored this podcast.

And so I know that some of what he's doing I am personally already doing, and that is reinforcing.

It makes me feel like, okay, good, I'm on the right path.

If he's a shining example for phenomenal health and he probably is the best we have right now, then what can I do to model after him?

Yes, he is wealthy.

Yes, he has a ton of time to pursue what he wants.

And honestly, the money thing is probably the smaller element here.

The time element is the thing.

Given enough time, each of us could also achieve ridiculous health.

We really could, even on a smaller budget.

Because it really isn't about the money, it really is about how our time is used.

I teach productivity here on this podcast for a reason.

Time management is life management.

It's results management, it's goal management.

Everything is tied to how your time is spent.

Less of the money.

Sure, money is a resource that's very valuable, very important, and makes certain things possible that otherwise would not be.

However, we each have the same 24 hours in the day and we can use those hours better.

So you may not have his time or his money, but you do have some time and some money.

We can all do better.

We can all try to get closer to a theoretical ideal.

And we can learn from those who are trying and discovering new ways to ultimately improve the human experience.

So to dismiss Brian and what he's up to because he's rich or radical or his approach is just doesn't seem to be what you wanna do with your life, I think it's a mistake to dismiss who he is based on certain things you may not find to be appealing.

I think the bigger lesson here, the one that I think a lot of people online I've seen already are missing, is the opportunity for us to tap into his wisdom, his experience, his test results, and we can run our own experiments.

We can use our own lives as guinea pigs, we do every day anyway, but do so with more intelligence, more data, more research, and make better choices.

I'm not going to point blank say you should do any of the things he's actually doing.

That would be very unethical of me to do so.

However, it would behoove all of us, you and me included, to ask the question, what can we do today?

What positive choice can we make today to lean ourselves in the right direction?

My gut tells me the first thing to do is to ditch bad habits, but that's only part of the story.

So you may say, well, I smoke cigarettes, I drink too much alcohol, I stay up too late, I eat junk food, I'm too stressed out from work.

There's all kinds of things that are negative.

From my perspective, to remove a negative source is only gonna take you so far.

It is good and necessary to do so.

However, there is such a bigger life to be led that actually result in us thriving.

And the thriving is going to come from doing the things that bring about the possibility of phenomenal health and prosperity.

A good example of this, I was sick and injured recently and really off my game when it comes to cardio and time on the trails that I love so much, hiking and trail running are my jam.

I just love it so much.

And just in the last few days, I spent three days in a row hiking each morning.

And the podcast is probably either will or has already featured an episode of me talking about that journey.

And one thing that's been very clear is that when I do certain activities, certain healthy habits, they pack such a punch that they blow away all the others.

So to look at what Brian Johnson is doing and say, well, he's doing literally hundreds of health protocols per day.

I don't have time for that.

I can't do 100 a day or 200 a day.

Like, no, you can't and you shouldn't.

What we should be doing are the few things that make the biggest difference because that's where the power comes from.

You can get 80% of the way there with only a couple of habits.

We don't need all of them.

We just need the big ones.

And I know that in my life, cardiovascular health, aerobic activity, specifically being outside in nature is life-changing, absolutely life-changing.

Honestly, this podcast should not be called the 5A Miracle, it should be called Get Yourself Into the Woods Now.

Like, that's everything to me because that's where my life comes from.

That's where I get this sense of enthusiasm and energy and hope and possibility and that's where my stress is reduced and I live a bigger, better life.

That's just one example.

And there are others we could bring in, your diet, your stress level, your sleep.

But that's the key thing.

We find these core fundamentals, we double down on those, and then all the rest is just details.

You know, whether you use red light therapy or not, who cares?

500 pills a day, who cares, right?

We're not talking about that.

We are talking about the basics that give us so much potential and power that we have control of today.

We can act on it now, with or without a lot of money, with or without a lot of time.

We have some time and we have some money and we could use it wisely and that's the intention.

Start now with what you have, where you are, and let that grow over time.

So to answer the question, what should you do based upon what he is doing, whatever you can.

Just start.

Get in the game, do the thing, live it up.

Because there is so much potential for all of us, every single day.

And that's all I've got for you here on the 5 AM Miracle Podcast Premium Edition.

If you are hearing this as part of my free preview of this service, you can join at 5ammiraclepremium.com or email me, jeff@jeffsanders.com.

I'd be happy to answer any of your questions and thanks again for being here.

It's been a lot of fun.

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