Don't Die

👉 Read on to hear about:

• Spending $2mil a year not to die

• Going from a Mormon to a millionaire

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

• A framework for processing new ideas

Picture the scene: You are in Venice, California. Down a quiet street, there are rich families in their homes sleeping soundly. 

Someone on this street wakes up at 5 am naturally. He embarks on a 2-hour morning routine. 

He takes off a device on his penis that measures the frequency and strength of his nightly erections. He walks to his bathroom where he weighs himself and then begins five minutes of light therapy to mimic the sun.

The rest of his day includes having a blood transfusion from his son, meditating, exercising, and building a new network state called “Don’t Die”. 

This is the day of tech centimillionaire Bryan Johnson.

He is the most measured man in history, spending $2mil a year on his body, with tests, supplements, and exercise regimes to make sure he stays young. 

But in this week's Change Makers, I want to tell you why Bryan is a Change Maker and it’s not because of his penis device.

Who is Bryan Johnson? 

Bryan was born in Utah and was raised there with is mother and step-father. At 18, he joined Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) where he went to Ecuador as a missionary for two years spreading the love of Mormon ideology. 

Bryan would go on to found Braintree, a company he would later sell for $800m to PayPal. 

This is all very impressive, but what I have found most impressive is Bryan’s framework for thinking. 

Change Makers are great at a lot of things: Elon as an engineer, Steve Jobs as a designer but few are known for how they intellectually navigate the world. And that's what I want to explore briefly. But first a story. 

The Deathly Hallows

In my favourite series of books, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling tells the story of the Deathly Hallows. A story of three ancient wizards, who cheated Death. As a reward for avoiding Death, Death gave them three wishes.

One got a powerful wand, the other a resurrection stone, and the third brother a cloak so Death couldn’t follow him. 

Death swiftly took the lives of the first two brothers as their wishes poisoned their minds. But Death could not find the third brother. 

And only when the third brother was old and tired, did he greet Death as an equal and gave the cloak to his son.

Our world is riddled with stories like this. The idea is that someday we all die, and so it is up to us how we confront it.  

This is what gives rise to the existential questions every human goes through: Why am I here? What does a meaningful life look like for me? How do I spend my precious time?

Where am I getting to with this? 

Every lesson from every self-help book, every therapist, guru, and coach is taught assuming death is inevitable. These questions about meaning assume life ends at some point. JK Rowling is teaching kids valuable lessons about avoiding death, but nonetheless assumes it to be a given.

Or on the flip side, the extra 5 minutes you spend sunbathing, the additional burger you have, the cigarette with friends. These vices we enjoy knowing they are bad for us are done so assuming finitude is the backbone of human existence. We tell ourselves lies like “Live fast die young” or “You are not going to live forever, so enjoy while it lasts”.

But Bryan asked what happens if death is just an assumption? 

The future

Do you ever find yourself struggling with big trade-offs? Stuff like “I want to be ambitious but also appreciate what I already have” or “I want to spend time with friends but my 20s are a time to work hard.” or “Do I take a bet on my own idea or keep a safe job and income?”

I have always struggled when trying to hold these ideas in tension. But the very reason they are in tension is because of time. Would I have to make these trades if I lived for 200 years? My frameworks for moving through the world have always been built on the foundation of finitude. 

Bryan Johnson isn’t a change maker because he sold his company for $800mil or because he spends $2million dollars a year on trying not to die. 

He is a Change Maker because he challenges the assumption that death is inevitable.

He is exploring a system of ideas and reason yet inhabited.

In a recent Podcast Bryan was posed the question “What is the meaning of life?” and this was his answer:

“That question yields no truth. That question yields a mirror of time and place.”  Someone 200 years ago would have answered the question differently to someone of our era.

Bryan believes the answer to this question is to extend human conscious existence. He believes this because this statement is true at any given moment of history or the future.

This is very philosophical and one could rightly say “That's all very well for someone who has $800m, but what about the everyday person?” And you would be right. Most people might not have the luxury to entertain these questions because they have to think about their kid's homework or paying for a mortgage. 

But they will soon. Bryan goes on to say in the podcast, that we are reaching an era where humans are no longer the best stewards of knowledge or intelligence. 

Sooner than we think, AI will likely be able to manage the majority of tasks humans perform.

So what's the takeaway from this Change Maker? 

The human brain operates with a series of clinically proven biases or mental shortcuts. Confronting bold new ideas and questioning assumptions like dying is scary and uncomfortable, our bodies have a biological reaction to disregard them and maintain the status quo. 

This is how Bryan does it:

Whenever he encounters a new idea, he sets up an alert in his head that goes “NEW IDEA LANDED” and does the best he can not to think anything or form conclusions for some duration of time. 

The reason is that for most of us when we hear a new idea, we cram with all of our thoughts, biases, and heuristics. He then asks himself three questions:

Why must be true for this to be true?
What must remain true for this to be true?
What would change, which would make this untrue?

As he put it “Moving through space and time pressure testing new ideas”.

I have learnt through my own research on Bryan that the mental frameworks and shortcuts I bring to some of the biggest decisions will subconsciously inform my future.

So maybe the next time I or you hear something crazy, so crazy as not dying, let’s take a moment to think about how we approach it, so we don’t land on the wrong side of history.