Fortune 500 CEO Coach: The Best Way to Tackle 2026 Is Assuming You’ll Live Till 130
Ready for a paradigm shift in how you approach your career (and beyond)?
I attended ’s Global Forum in Riyadh this year, sitting in the back row, focused on my emails and only half paying attention. Then Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov—speaking on a panel about life span and health span—said…
“The biggest impact on your health is your number answer to a question.”
Huh?
Now I’m listening. Can you guess the question? I couldn’t!
“How long do you think you will live?”
Read that again, take a moment, and say your answer out loud.
The more years you expect to live, the more youthful your behavior and the better you’ll care for yourself.
Dr. Zhavoronkov continued, noting that some believe AI and superintelligent AI will drastically impact our life spans and health spans in the coming years—speeding up research, driving breakthroughs, curing cancer, even reversing aging.
But he clarified: “Our projections show that won’t happen in the next 10 years.”
“But in the decade after that, it will.”
He then scanned the audience and added, “Many of you will live to be 130.” [You can watch the interview video here.]
Alright, Doc—you’ve got me. I’m closing my laptop.
The room went quiet, stunned. We all reacted to that news just like you’re reacting now, reading this.
That’s a paradigm shift right there.
But here’s the thing about paradigms: they usually happen to you—unless you take control of them. Your response to “how long do you expect to live?” shapes your health. If you think you’ll only reach 75 (like my dad, who passed suddenly), you might unknowingly make choices that confirm that expectation.
But if you consider even a slim chance that advancements could let you live to 130—how would that change your thinking? Your work? Your career? Your life?
Afterward, the audience talked about it—and I sat with Alex at lunch. First question: Do we believe it? Fully? Partially? Not at all? Even if it’s “directionally correct,” as my friend John Nugent says—what changes?
Honestly? It changes everything. Your diet, sleep, finances, work, family, legacy—even how you think about exercise.
What does it change for you?
From coaching CEOs, I’ve learned no one succeeds alone. To keep something going, make it social. My wife Maria and I have been doing HIIT classes 2-3 times a week for a couple years. The first few weeks, I could barely keep from throwing up. Every time the coach looked away, I’d stop until they turned back! We had setbacks, but we stuck with it—and we both lost 15 pounds, gained muscle, and feel a decade younger. There are a few takeaways here, but the biggest one is: keep going, and don’t do it alone—make it social.
If you want to keep something going, make it social. After college, I worked with friends to organize campus volunteer programs nationwide—and our motto was “half of social justice is just… social.” If volunteering feels like a chore, no one will do it. But if there’s laughter, good food, music, and fun? It’s enjoyable—and that’s what makes it sustainable. The same goes for your “play span.”
Whether you love dancing, sports, hiking, or walking/jogging/biking—the key is finding your tribe: friends to join you. Social = Sustainable. Never learned those things? Wait—if you’ve decades ahead of you, why wouldn’t you have time to learn something new? I’m sure we could come up with excuses… but really?
You might have thousands of unspent hours—enough to master a new skill (the “10,000-hour rule”). Whatever you’ve never learned or done? Flip that paradigm switch. Lifelong learning starts with your expectations. What do you want from life? What’s left undone? No matter your current goals—or new ones you set—having a learning mindset will help you achieve more.
A longer life span also changes how we handle stress. If you have an extra decade or two you never planned for, that current crisis—at work or home—suddenly feels smaller. In a few years, you might look back and say, “That was hard, but it was just a hurdle.”
No one knows how much time they have—but what if you do have more than you think?
I once did a coaching call with the Chancellor of California’s education system. He called me the next day and said: “I was skeptical about this coaching call, and I owe you an apology. You asked a question I thought was cheesy, and I gave a flippant answer—but I couldn’t stop thinking about it last night. The answer I gave isn’t the one I want.” My “cheesy” question? If your career were a mountain, are you climbing up… or coming down?
Everything is changing. And I could give you 130 reasons why you should change with it.