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  • If you take a ferry from Mykonos past landmarks of Greek mythology, you will discover Ikaria, the island where people forget to die.

  • Ah, place where people live to age 90 at a rate upto four times greater than Americans with a fraction of our rates of dementia and Alzheimer's.

  • So life expectancy in America 79 we should be able lived in 92.

  • Somewhere along the line we're leaving 13 years on the table.

  • And when a National Geographic Explorer named Dan Buechner found this place, something clicked.

  • So my question is, how do we get those extra 13 years?

  • And how do we make those extra 13 years, good years?

  • That one question sent him on a lifelong quest to bring back the secrets of the happiest, healthiest centenarians in the world.

  • Every time his team found a pocket of longevity, they'd circle it on a map in blue ink.

  • And they learned that in these blue zones, key lifestyle choices matter just as much.

  • Harm or thin.

  • Good genes move naturally every day.

  • Be able, articulate your sense of purpose, have daily rituals that reverse the stress of everyday living.

  • Eat mostly a plant based diet especially beans and nuts.

  • Uh, eat a huge breakfast, belong to a faith based community.

  • Put your family first, keep your aging parents nearby and curate a special group of friends, four or five friends who are going to nudge you in the right direction, His lessons stuck with May.

  • And as I travel the world over the years, I assume that blue zones were only for small, simple, isolated societies where the healthy choice is the only choice.

  • Things could never work in the modern land of the free home of the Whopper.

  • Right there is top done wrong radio, bucking the status quo with science and common sense.

  • Dan has Blue Zone, the entire states of Iowa and Hawaii, 45 American cities, including one of the biggest and unhealthiest in the land.

  • When I asked for a blue zone in the United States and you told me Fort Worth, Texas, the last, I thought you were pulling my leg when my kids were in high school, I watched their friends just getting more and more out of shape, and that's happening to our whole population, particularly in Texas land.

  • A chicken fried steak, barbecue and Mexican face when Mayor Betsy Price realized her city full of sedentary and obese smokers ranked near the bottom of national wellness surveys.

  • She started holding rolling town halls, and then she brought in Dan and blue zones and the response from the room.

  • All the leaders there up in the 15th floor of the Fort Worth Club was, I don't know.

  • It sounds like you're taking our freedoms away from us on I said.

  • Fine, keep doing what you're doing.

  • And Betsy Price said, No, no, I think we ought to give Dan a chance.

  • Shall Bill how we roll in footwork.

  • The Republican mayor, Biltmore parks and sidewalks and got behind the Blue Zones idea to create walking school Bus is, which gives seniors a sense of purpose each morning Titans community and gets kids moving thistles.

  • Part of it.

  • While the city banned smoking in bars and restaurants, dance team convinced convenience stores in food deserts to sell more fruits and veggies.

  • How much do you end up throwing away?

  • None of it sells all That's fantastic.

  • I love it.

  • He got steak houses to offer more healthy options.

  • This may be the first time in my life I ever ordered a vegetarian taco, and he taught the folks at Texas Health Resource is that the most coveted parking spots should be the ones furthest away from the building.

  • You know, doing a row of the Blue zones parking spaces encourages people that just take a little walk.

  • Not a big one, but a little while.

  • As a CEO explains this, Onley works with buy in from everyone government, business, faith communities.

  • And in five years, he says, they've moved up in wellness rankings from 185th in the nation to number 31 saving around $250 million.

  • People we saw in in Korea.

  • If you ask them how they got to be 100 they probably couldn't tell you, right?

  • You know, they just live their life.

  • They heard their goats.

  • They tended their garden.

  • They spend time with their family.

  • They went to church on Sundays.

  • They went toe parties during the summer, but they were getting good sleep.

  • They were eating mostly plant based food.

  • They were nudged into movement every 20 minutes as a residue of their environment, and we're just trying to take that blueprint from places like Korea and lane it over places like Fort Worth, Texas.

  • On low and behold, it works on.

  • That is why Dan Buettner is my champion for change, proving that with a few healthy nudges we can all create our own islands or people forget to die.

If you take a ferry from Mykonos past landmarks of Greek mythology, you will discover Ikaria, the island where people forget to die.

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