If you’re happy with the way healthcare works and what it stands for, if you believe the so called “system” supports you in living the best possible life you can — feel free to stop reading this and please do send us a note explaining how — we’re curious and always open to learning new things. However, if you share the belief that healthcare is broken and that personal health should actually mean the active pursuit and optimization of a life that’s happier, healthier and longer, not just waiting for it to break, then by all means do continue reading.
We believe that great health should be much more than just fixing broken people. In this context we, the LL&F Club, don’t subscribe to the cliche “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. Fixing breakage is just one aspect of living a good life, one that’s unfortunately too many times not only avoidable, but also too-little-too-late.
So, what should we actually DO?
Glad you asked. We’ve been asking ourselves the very same question and came up with a few ideas we’re happy to share.
But first, let’s spend a minute or two understanding what health means for most people at the beginning of the 21st century.
A lot has changed over the past century — on the one hand life expectancy has almost doubled but on the other hand, chronic disease have exploded and are now the leading cause of death in the U.S. and beyond. Paradoxically, we live longer BUT forced to endure pain, agony and serious sickness along the (longer) way. In other words, for most of us, sadly, healthcare became the management of prolonged periods of sickness. This shouldn’t be the case.
What health should actually mean is the optimization of our day-to-day wellbeing. An optimized self would include a healthy and energetic body, a sharp and peaceful mind and a generous dose of stamina and joy. Luckily, the side-effects of such day-to-day optimization would be the compression of episodic sickness and the prevention of future chronic conditions, and thus, the prolonging of a life that’s brighter and happier.
Think about it — we are ‘given’ a gift of a long life but somewhere along the way we get sidetracked and make short term decisions that damage it. Our mission at the LL&F Club, is to help everyone get back on track and figure out the magic formula that optimizes for both short term health/wellbeing, as well as the long term compression of morbidly. In the simplest of terms — prolonging a good life that’s full of joy.
We choose life, we choose people
We choose to value life. That one-time gift that each of us receives at birth. We choose to value people and what makes us human beings: Our bodies, our minds and our souls. This inevitably leads us to embrace a goal of finding Healthy Hacks⁺, Motivating Tricks*, and Science Maps^ that create limitless desirable possibilities on the road to discovering good health, sustainable wellness and pure happiness.
So, what are we REALLY here for?
We’re here to tirelessly pursue the mantra: “There’s got to be a better way!” We’re here to promote a new innovative way of thinking that is more inquisitive/critical, and much more quantitative and hands-on. We believe this will lead us to find solutions that are much more effective. Health needs to be continuously woven into the texture of our lives, here and now, and anytime anywhere.
We’re here to remove the noise and uncover the pure signal. Basically, there’s too much confusing and contradictory information floating around us about health, where too much of it is unsubstantiated marketing looking to make a quick profit. So we decided to choose truth as our North Star and we are devoted to constantly refine the definition of quality in the context of personal health.
We’re here to find and share with everyone the best tools and frameworks to achieve a happier, healthier and longer life that will enable people everywhere to flourish and feel good — every single day.
We are committing ourselves to taking incremental steps and to always validate our results using scientific means so we will achieve a significant, measurable impact.
So, how are we going to do it?
LL&F stands for Live Long and Flourish. People around us, near and far, have always been our best inspiration. That’s why we are gathering folks with great minds and big hearts to join the LL&F Club community in its journey, and help us lead it to success. We have already brought onboard scientists and doctors, techies and philosophers, wellbeing and behavioral experts, inventors, investors, teachers and more, all share our goals and values and are here to help.
We’re putting all this collective brain & heart power together to create a roadmap to a better, healthier and more joyful life. In our toolbox we have Healthy Hacks⁺, Motivating Tricks* and Science Maps^ — extra extra read all about them here.
We’re excited about working together towards a shared goal — a disruptive paradigm shift, a breakthrough change in the way we evaluate, practice, and educate the art and science of health and wellbeing. We will talk and listen and ask a million questions since the best answers are out there but not enough was done to uncover them.
Last, but (definitely) not least!
We value “Primum non Nocere”: First, do no harm. In a world of rapid discovery and innovation, the Hippocratic oath is as relevant and as timely as ever. For us, everything starts with this important vow that doctors and caregivers have been taking for generations. We have taken the vow too and will make sure that what we do and say causes no harm to any human being. We’re here to do good and to have fun in the process!
Great, now what?
We’d love to get you and other great people involved, aligned and excited. After all, we’re together in this beautiful thing called life. Our greatest accomplishments are achieved together, as a community, as we’re inspired and empowered by one another. It’s simply human.
We’d love to see as many smart, warm-hearted folks join us in writing our Credo and ultimately live by it too. We believe that what we create together will benefit everyone everywhere. We also believe that being united around the same values is essential to accomplishing a shared goal that is luckily very easy to live by and identify with: Living Long and Flourishing.
So we’re delighted to invite you to join us in writing a new chapter in human health. You can do so by engaging with us in a conversations here, or by applying to join the LL&F Club and one of our upcoming Club meetings — the next one is on December 8th.
This upcoming event would take place at Stanford University and will gather, once again, a remarkable group of people to have fun together, share/discuss Healthy Hacks⁺, Motivating Tricks* and Science Maps^, and help one another achieve healthier, happier and longer lives.
Let us know if you are interested to join or would like to nominate others who can benefit from and contribute to our journey to a new chapter in human health.