The Sharon Francisco Show

Marcus Pearce — How to Build an Exceptional Life at Any Age

• Sharon Francisco • Season 1 • Episode 49

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What if getting older wasn’t something to fear… but something to design for?

In this episode, Sharon sits down with Marcus Pearce — author, speaker, mentor, former journalist, and host of 100 Not Out — for a powerful conversation about longevity, purpose, courage, and creating an exceptional life at every age.

Marcus shares why so many people quietly accept the belief that their best years are behind them, and what changes when you start seeing ageing as a privilege rather than a decline.

In this episode we cover:
• What an exceptional life really means
• Why ageing well is about more than living longer
• The eight areas that shape a fulfilling life
• What the Blue Zones teach us about health, purpose, and connection
• Why movement, friendship, family, and meaningful work matter
• How your calendar reflects the life you are actually living
• Why challenge and discomfort help us grow
• The courage required to design life on your own terms
• Why people who age well stay physically, socially, and purposefully engaged
• Marcus’s longevity experiences in Ikaria, Sardinia, and Okinawa

Key insights:
• Getting older is a privilege
• Longevity without quality of life is not the goal
• Your calendar reveals what you truly value
• Courage is often the difference between tolerating life and creating it
• The lowest-scoring area of your life may need the most attention

Links from this episode:
100 Not Out podcast and longevity experiences:
100notout.com

Exceptional Life Quiz:
marcuspearce.com.au

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts
https://www.sharonfrancisco.com/podcast

Questions for the podcast? hello@sharonfrancisco.com

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👉  Also: The Entrepreneurial Bookkeeper — grow your business without sacrificing your health: sharonfrancisco.com/program

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Have a question for the podcast? Email hello@sharonfrancisco.com

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Shower and Francisco Show. I'm very excited about today. We have the most amazing guest, Marcus Pierce. Today we are joined by the amazing and brilliant Marcus Pierce, who is absolutely obsessed with helping people create their exceptional lives. Marcus is a former journalist, radio, and television producer whose media career included time with leader newspapers, Channel 9, and the AFL footy show. Across his career, he has written hundreds of match reports, produced more than a thousand. Is that right, Marcus? A thousand radio shows and dozens of AFL footy shows and covered some of the huge events, including the Athens Olympics, Melbourne Commonwealth Games, FIFA World Cup, and multiple AFL grand finals. After years in media and sport, Marcus made a powerful shift into the health and wellness and personal growth and longevity industry. He is now an author, speaker, mentor, host of the 100 not out. And haven't you interviewed some amazing people in that podcast? And I'm so excited for this conversation, Marcus. Welcome to the Sharon Francisco show.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, so good to be here with you, Sharon. And we've known each other on and off for years. And uh I know your wonderful son, Sammy, and it's amazing how full circle the world is sometimes. And so to be on your podcast is a joy. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00

I'm so excited, Marcus. Uh, your industry and what you do for the world and people is exceptional. And I can't wait to unpack some of the incredible things that you're doing physically with your journeys over to Europe, but also your thinking around longevity and how we can be all more healthy, happy, and enthusiastic about life. I'm really excited about it. So let's start. You use the words exceptional life a lot. What does this exceptional life actually mean to you now compared to what it meant for you when you were younger?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, great question. That question doesn't get asked a lot, but being an ex journo, the words are really important to me. So uh the word exceptional for me came somewhat naturally when I was talking a lot around longevity and aging well, saying that uh we need to be the exception to the rule because a lot of people buy into an aging stereotype that they slow down as they get older and their best years are behind them and it's all downhill from here after 40 or 50 or 60. And I just found myself repeatedly saying to people, you must be the exception to the rule. No one wants to be the statistic on the stat sheet. And so when I really reflected on the words I use a lot, I thought, well, okay, people want to be the exception to the rule. They want to be exceptional, but then the other definition of exceptional is really above average. It's it's beyond the same same groundhog day, you know, just getting by. And um, we are on a I love my numbers, I'm a stats man, you know, we are a one in four hundred trillion chance to be born when the sperm Olympics was taking place back in nine months before our date of birth approximately, and we won that gold medal. The odds were one in 400 trillion. Imagine if you had a dollar on that. And so when you think of how incredible it is that we actually came to be born, it was an exceptional performance, both exception to the rule, but also above average in every way, shape, and form. And so I'm all really about helping people create the life that on a deep level they know that they were born to live. Um, how does that compare with what I thought life was when I was younger? Well, it depends what age, but I think in your 20s you kind of can get obsessed with your health, you think you're right at everything and everyone's stupid, your parents and society and all the rest of it. And then I think, you know, you have children and then you begin to realize that your parents were actually amazing, and how did they actually raise you? And then um, and then as you now, and this is all very stereotypical, not everyone listening has children and so on and so forth. But then as you get older, I think you begin to realize that we're that word called balance has a has an interesting meaning, but it feels highly unachievable. I love the word blend, and we must acknowledge that we want to have a great career and work life. We want to have great health, we want to have great social connections, we want a great family life, we want to have fun. You live in a healthy or developed, wealthy nation, you want to spend less than you earn and invest a difference, and you wanna you want to put your heart and soul into everything that you do. And so that's what I call the exceptional life blueprint, these eight areas or these eight ingredients into the spaghetti bolognese of life. And I think if we don't acknowledge as we get older that all areas of life are worth making exceptional, then the brutal part of life is that we end up with this hollow victory where we think that if we're wealthy, we'll be okay. And then we die prematurely, wealthy, but we weren't healthy, or if we put all our eggs into the health basket, but we don't have friends, or we don't like our work, then we have these um hollow victories of winning at one or two areas of life, but uh tolerating mediocrity in the others. And so, long answer to your short question, but that word exceptional permeates more than I would like to imagine. It dominates my thoughts, Sharon.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I love that. You know, I um I'm going off script already, but you know, I just read a book called The Hundred Year Life. You would have you would know this book.

SPEAKER_02

I haven't read it. I haven't read it, I've heard of it, but there's so many hundred-year books, the hundred-year lifestyle. Obviously, we're 100 not out, but there's so many 100s. So, yeah, talk me. I'm always curious. What have you learned?

SPEAKER_00

Well, it kind of feeds into what you said, Marcus, and around like, you know, this whole concept of the three sort of um the three, I think I've spoken about it on one of my podcasts. I forget all the things that I speak about on my podcast, but the first phase is like where you lead up to about your 20, that's your first phase. Then you leave home, you have babies and careers and all that sort of stuff. That's your second phase. Third phase is you buy the caravan and go around Australia and then toes up. So they're your three phases, right? Now, with a hundred-year life, we've got an extra phase. There's a four phase. So the first phase is live till you're twenty, you know, you're at home till you're 20, then you leave home, you get married, you have babies, you have a career. Third phase is pretty much for you and me now. So you get to, you know, 50-60, and then you're starting to lead into that third phase where we're not buying the caravans, we're not cruising around Australia ready to toeze up. This is this is the fun time. This is a time when you get to that 50-60 or when you start planning around 80-90, then your fourth phase is 80-90, and then going into that fourth phase where you buy your caravan and toeze up. So this is a really fun time. And if you can have that exceptional fun time in this time, being fit and healthy and doing all the things that you want to do, how fun's that? It's like a gift at the end of all that hard work.

SPEAKER_02

And I do think that nothing is sadder uh than the stories of those that were ready for all of those fun times and in an area of their life, whether it's their marriage falls apart, their health falls apart, their wealth falls apart, whether you call it a midlife crisis or not, but there's a crisis in some area of life, and everything that you just said doesn't materialize or not in the way that one would really feel is wholesome. Um, you know, it's a challenge. So I think you're right. There's these chapters that are continuing to expand. And like you said, new new chapters are emerging all the time, particularly as life expectancy continues to to grow. But you know, just on that, you know, the quality of life that a lot of people are living is actually not as great as they they think it is. And so you're 100% spot on, Sharon. There's a lot to consider in this life design phase of our lives, and uh most people are too distracted to design it. You and I love talking about this stuff. We've got to be very mindful. 98 out of 100, they're not into it. They're they're not uh as much as they'd like to be. So again, we're the exception to the rule.

SPEAKER_00

Would you say that uh percentage is pretty accurate?

SPEAKER_02

It's concerning how many people believe that their best user behind them, they live these quiet lives of desperation, waiting to die. It's having asked the question so many times around for everyone, what's your number? You know, it's it's always uh concerning when someone says they'll be happy if they're gone in their 70s, and often that might be because they saw parents age disgracefully and they don't believe either genetically or through some other way that they can age gracefully. The public perception of getting older is really quite poor. As a woman, you've been marketed forever, Sharon, to anti-age. Yeah, you're not smart enough, you're not pretty enough, you're not skinny enough, you're not wealthy enough. Yeah, it's everything to fet females is you are not enough.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But if there's one thing that you can't do about aging, you can't stop getting older. Um and so there's really poor self-esteem. And for everyone listening, you are enough. Do not believe a word you ever get told about that. Um, so for everyone that is navigating this, aging is the great equalizer in all of humanity. No matter how much money you got, you can't slow down time, you can't speed up time, you can't do any of that. Yeah, and so I I think the sooner that we can embrace that getting older is a privilege, the better. But yes, to answer your question, the majority of people believe that it's all downhill from here and their best years are behind them. No matter how much they say that that's not the case, just look at their behavior. Um I'm too I'm too old to exercise, I'm too tired to socialize, I'm I'm too busy to eat well, I like I can't make a garden, it's too expensive to buy good food. Yeah. Our behavior, despite what people might say, our behavior tells a very different story.

SPEAKER_00

Interesting. Because I I remember thinking like hearing people saying, Oh, you know, once you get to that age, I'm like, oh, that could like that just fit sounds so sad. And so I came up with this idea. I was probably, I don't know, I might have read it somewhere, I don't know, to gamify age. So it's like as I get to each stage, it's like because I've got a goal to run a marathon when I'm 100, because I kind of can't think that will keep me accountable to keep fit because how much is a marathon hurt at 100 if you don't keep fit? So you've got to keep fit.

SPEAKER_02

So each stage is that going to be your first marathon?

SPEAKER_00

No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02

I was gonna say wow.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, no, no, no. I well, I used to be a runner, I haven't been running lately. I do the gym and we walk hills and things like that now, but I I reckon running a marathon at 100. Oh, I love watching these older women cross the line. They're like, woo. I mean, it doesn't matter how long it takes, as long as you do it, right?

SPEAKER_02

So absolutely. Uh, there's a beautiful lady that we interviewed many years ago, God rest her soul, Ruth Frith. She won World Masters Games gold medals at 101. And I say, I say to people often on stage, if I'm referring to Ruth, you know, if you've never won a gold medal and you really want to, just get to 100, enter the world master's games, because when Ruth Frith was winning gold medals, there was no one else in her age group. So she won gold, silver, and bronze up on the dais, and she was fit as a fiddle. And I'm like, this is the best.

SPEAKER_01

I love that.

SPEAKER_02

And it is to your point, it's great accountability. And statistically, you know, 40-year-olds are one in five chance to hit 100, or 70-year-olds are one in 10. So we're not talking Tatslotto here. Don't think that it won't happen to you. And you know, we've been traveling to the uh European blue zones for 10 years, and we're off to Okinawa for the Asian blue zones. And I think you interview these people and you talk to them, they were never planning to hit 100. It wasn't a life goal, it just happened. And for everyone listening, like it's likely to happen to you as well. Um, because the nine out of 10 that won't get there are probably not listening to this podcast. So if you like statistically truthfully speaking, like so, if you really want to create a great life, and uh then if you're creating a great life, longevity is on your side because if you're living with purpose and you're physically active and socially active, you are so you are so down the right path of living a great long life. If you're too busy to do what you love and too busy to exercise and too busy to socialize, and they're all lies, um, then yeah, it's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. And uh for our audience who hasn't heard of the blue zones, I just need to tell a little quick story and then I'm gonna get you to elaborate on the blue zones. I remember I separated, as uh my audience knows um a lot about in 2013, and I went into the fetal position. I stopped spending money, I was so scared, I just went inward. And the girls that I've run with for nearly 20 years, we this health and fitness is our discussions all the time on our runs. We're talking about how we can be better. And one of the main things that you can do is drink very good quality water, and I've known that for a long time, right? So I've been looking for these water filters for a long time. 2013, I was in Flannery's uh organic shop. And I'm standing there looking at this filter, not spending any money, Marcus. And this lady walked behind me. She said, Can I help you? I said, No, no, no, I'm just I'm just having a look, it's fine. And she said, Oh, did you you were looking at the filter? Did you want to know a bit about it? And I said, Oh, all right. She said, Have you heard of the blue zone people? I'm like, I just looked straight at the price because I knew I knew I was gonna buy it, Marcus, and I still have it to this day. I I was sold, I knew I would be. It's the close, it's called Zay Zen Water for those who want to know, and it's the closest thing to the blue zone water, although you may instruct me differently with this, Marcus. So if you could bring the blue zone people to life.

SPEAKER_02

No, I I love we used to do a lot of work with um, not sure if they still own it, but Janet and Vanessa, also known as Java, they had Zarzen Water, they used to sponsor our podcasts and events and so on. Um, so love it. Well, that would definitely relate that that a lot of that technology is from Japan, and so if we're talking Okinawa for sure, Ikadia, a bit different, they've got springs, and then they've got like hoses coming all the way down the mountains, and all the water is like spring water because a lot of the our when we have our small groups and the attendees are like, Can I drink the water? You know, it's often a natural tourist question, of course. And they're like, Yeah, of course, it's spring water, and you're like, Oh wow, there's spring water coming out of the taps. Um so yeah, I mean, I don't think there's a blue zone water because there's many different blue zones, but I totally understand the whole message around the quality of the water and the nutritional principles because um you think it if it's coming from somewhere high and it's a lot of nutrition as it trickles down. Um, but yeah, the blue zones for those people that are that haven't heard it before, National Geographic, uh, a bit over 20 years ago, did a lot of their research around where do people live longer and with greater quality of life on the planet than anyone anywhere else. And so they identified five parts of the world, a little Greek island, Icaria, not in Korea, Icaria, little Greek island, and uh after Icarus, they experienced 80% less dementia, 50% less heart disease, and 20% less cancer. And so, as a journalist by profession, my natural question is why, how? And so that's the first blue zone we started taking groups to to go, all right, let's look and at explore why and how they're so vital, and then how can we bring that back to our lifestyles in Australia? And then we've been going to Sardinia, the Italian blue zone. Now, yeah, Sardinia is not a the whole island is not a blue zone. Many people would see the uh they'd see Sardinia on Instagram with the super yachts and the aqua beaches, and we are in a very different part of Sardinia. There's only 14 little villages in the middle of nowhere in Sardinia where the elders live great long lives, and where in Sardinia, what is an incredible misnomer compared to the rest of the world is that um for every six centenarians on the planet, five are women and one is a guy. But in Sardinia, three men, three women. Interesting. And that is just freaky. So if you then go, how, why, then you go over and you observe their lifestyles and it really gets you thinking. And then the other blue zones, uh, Okinawa in Japan, it's like the last dinosaur blue zone because when the wars were happening and America brought a US military base into Okinawa, they also brought Maccas and KFC and Pizza Hut and so on. And so the children and grandchildren of the elders have been dying or living with chronic disease. And so Okinawa has gone from the healthiest prefecture of Japan to the unhealthiest in a generation, and so that blue zone will not be there for much longer. Then you've got Nicoya in Costa Rica, Loma Linda in California, which I'm a bit iffy on. And then Singapore has been announced as the manufactured blue zone in the last 12 months. I haven't spent a lot of time studying it. They've got some fabulous policies. You get a $15,000 discount on your home if you live within two or three K's of your aging parents, you know, some really smart policies. Yeah. But yeah, the blue zones have been studied extensively from a uh demographic. Some people are like, oh, are they sure about their ages? Well, the blue zones are reputable because of the paperwork. That's the most important thing that other cultures haven't been able to quantify. You can go to the Hunza region or the Abkhazians in the Caucasus or to Vilcabamba in Ecuador, but because I don't have death and birth certificates, you know, one day you're 112, and the next day you're 109, and the day after that you're 114, and who really knows? And how do we prove it? But thanks to the paperwork, whatever you call it, of these other uh cultures and nations, we've got some really not just hard data, but then you go and visit the locations and you can see what makes them tick. And that's the superpower. You know, people can listen to a podcast or read a book, or you know, some people would have listened or watched to um secrets to 100, uh Live to 100 secrets of the blue zones on on Netflix. And a lot of people watched that, and there was so much interest interest. But, you know, I could I could pick holes in that series and go, well, it's not that's fabricated for a documentary. It's not necessarily like that day in, day out on the island. And so nothing in life prepares you for the lived experience. I'm sure we'd all agree with that, with our own lived experience. We can talk about we can talk about work, we can talk about our kids, but until we're with them or doing the job, it's a whole different story.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. You mentioned briefly at the beginning about the eight ingredients. What are those eight ingredients, Marcus?

SPEAKER_02

Well, many years ago, 2014, so before we started taking people to the blue zones, I was considering all of the research that I'd been doing on centenary. We started this podcast, 100 not out, in 2013. I'd been ruminating on longevity and aging well since 2010, but then doing a lot of personal growth since really since the year 2000, I would say. And I was really beginning to go, is wealth enough? Or is career satisfaction enough? Or is you know, you hear people go, I'm just dedicated to my family and my kids and my everything, and family comes first. And I would often go, well, is family enough? And so again, my inner journalist really started to um uh develop a philosophy, it's definitely not a science, but develop a philosophy around how to live. And so what I observed through interviews and research and lived experience and so on and so forth is that the people that live the great long lives, people that have longevity, have a purpose, are physically active, and are socially active. So they have a compelling reason to get out of bed the next day. They don't get out of bed going, what have I got to do today? Like, what a terrible way to start the day.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you've got to think excitement.

SPEAKER_02

Who wants to do what they've got to do today? Like, not me. No, so it's they're like, What do I want to do? Oh, I want to go and visit Sharon for a cup of tea and a piece of her carrot cake, and then I want to go and do the gardening, and then I'm gonna go and have a wine with Mario and so on and so forth. Like they they live the life that they want to do, and you can run a billion-dollar business and be living the life that you want to live. So it's not about this stress-free, chilled-out life. It's a compelling reason to get out of bed each day. Uh, people that are thriving in their 80s, 90s, and 100s are physically active and they're socially active. Pretty simple stuff. But you know how many people say I'm too busy to exercise and I don't have time to catch up with my mates?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Like it's just everywhere. Um, and then, but what use is longevity without quality of life? So the next four ingredients in the quality of life plan is nutrition, but not just what to eat, how to eat, who to eat with, when to eat, why to eat. These are very important principles. Then our family, because I've interviewed Holocaust survivors, people, you know, the people that have lost children and so on, and they still live a great long life. So we've got to be really clear that uh family does not come first for longevity. It definitely comes first in a crisis. If you've got a call right now, Sharon, that you know, Sammy, when he was six years of old, was at school and broke his leg and needs to go to the hospital. You'd end this podcast and you'd go. But it doesn't come first, like people say it does. Definitely doesn't come first for longevity. So we've got to be really mindful around that. Um growth, that's fun, enthusiasm, hobbies, the thing that makes you you, and then wealth. And this is a triangle in my framework. So wealth, it's the top of the mountain, and people see it as the summit, as I've made it, but no, it's the smallest piece of the triangular shaped puzzle. But when you spend what you You spend less than you earn and invest the difference. When you live in a wealthy nation, that is the most important principle to live by. Because you don't want to retire on the pension. I don't have to tell you this as a bookkeeper, but you don't want to retire on the pension. Because if you do, you're living in relative poverty, which is 50% of the median income. And the pension in Australia is less than 50% of the median income. And then you can't do what you want, when you want, how you want. If your kids and grandkids live interstate, you can't just hop on a flight. You can't afford the airfares, you can't afford accommodation and so on and so forth. So they're the seven ingredients. And then I put a big circle around that triangle and say if you don't put your heart and soul, your spirit, soul, and faith into all those seven areas, then you just experience mental fatigue, adrenal exhaustion, cortisol through the roof. You can't sleep, and and what use is it? Trying to do the right thing all the time, but not putting your human beingness into it. So we must win on all levels. We we often want to just sacrifice one or two and hope we can sweep it under the carpet. But as I say, as we get older, the more we try and sweep it under the carpet, the more it comes back to haunt us.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I love that. And those areas, because I think for me, when I talk about this with my clients, it's sometimes it feels so simple, Marcus. Like it feels too simple to be so effective. And one of the things that I get a lot when I'm um working with people is the guilt that we feel around family and around visiting, you know, grandparents or parents or doing the right thing, seemingly. And so when you talk about family first, I know for me, like I my mum's 85 and she could run rings around me, Marcus. I mean, I've got to keep up for her.

SPEAKER_02

Love that. Love that. So your mum.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So um I just make it a thing every week. Every Sunday is mum time. So I go at about nine, 10 o'clock in the morning, I stay two or three hours, we go to the markets or go and have a cup of together somewhere. But I make that a routine and I go I do it so I have that time because we're yeah, we're all busy, we've all got millions of things to do. But you know, being with my mum at 85 is really, really important. So I carve out the time to do that. So, do you find like for people who are busy and kind of trying to do the right thing with all of this, what's some strategies around family first that you can give us some ideas on, like my little carving out three hours a week to be with mum, sort of thing?

SPEAKER_02

There's a great um, this is gonna get very business-y very quickly, but there is a great um quote around, you know, show me your calendar and I'll show you your life.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Um, you know, when a busy client says they're so busy and I'm like, show me your calendar, and it's it's threadbare. And I'm like, okay, so you're busy up here, you are a headless chook. Yeah. If they show me their calendar and there's all these competing appointments, that doesn't happen so often. Because if you think of it, as much as everyone wants to think they can multitask, we're typically doing one thing at a time, all the time, even when we think we're multitasking. So I think one of the great hacks, strategies, rituals, principles is to just have an epic calendar that when you look at it, I I believe the calendar is a spiritual exercise. I don't believe it's some time management technique because you've only got so much time on earth. Your calendar is a reflection of your exceptional day, week, month, year life. So put in your calendar the life that you would love to live, and then go and stick to those appointments. Now, there are times when you run late, people cancel, you cancel, there's road works, your kids get sick, you've got to cancel a trip. It welcome to life. It happens. But if you don't want to live a mediocre life, then as Tony Robbins would say, talk about it, it's a dream, or you know, uh something else, you can visualize it, but then schedule it, it is real. Like your life ain't happening until it's in the calendar. And if you don't think you have a calendar, you do have a reverse calendar because we could put in the calendar what you did yesterday.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Even if you go, yeah, but I don't have calendars or I don't do it. I'm like, okay, well, just remember there's a calendar for yesterday. I'm sure you've got a calendar, Sharon, and I'm sure it tells you the key chunks of your day yesterday.

SPEAKER_01

Definitely.

SPEAKER_02

And so when someone says, when did we last see each other? You could actually go, well, Marcus, we just type in Marcus Pierce into the calendar, and there we are. We did the podcast together. That was then. Oh, that was then. I thought it was so we've got to be very mindful when it comes to family. I do I say this with clients, catching up with friends, calling a friend that you went to school with that you haven't called for 10 years because you're so busy. Well, chuck it in the calendar for five o'clock on the drive home or the train home or the walk in the morning. The people I call at 6 45 in the morning that live in a Canadian or American time zone, you can't say you're too busy or we live on the other side of the world. We've just got to be, and I know I'm rabbiting on about this, but no one can ever say they don't have time. And if you are saying you don't have time, that is the exact same statement as I'm too old. It's just a generation younger. The 44-year-old, which is me, says I'm too, I don't have time. The 74-year-old says, I'm too old. They are the exact same thing. Yeah. And and we know, thanks to Yale research, that when you believe that you're too old to do something and it's all downhill from here, um you die seven and a half years earlier than people that have an empowered view of getting older. And not only do you get seven and a half years when you believe that being 44, 54, 64, 74 is amazing, but today is a better day for the believers because you're looking forward to today and tomorrow because life is great. You have a compelling future, you have a compelling reason to get out of bed. But if you believe that yesterday was your best day and it's all downhill from here, or 10 years ago were your glory days and it's all downhill from here, then today's average, tomorrow's worse, and the day after that is even worse. And you can see quite simply, I think, how this premature death takes place, and then we don't invest in all areas of our life because what's the use? When I was in my 20s and I looked great, even though I ate poorly and I didn't have to exercise as much. Oh, that was the easy days. I'm sorry, folks, those days are gone. Now's the time for the hard work, and it only gets better if you commit. So um, I'm rabbiting on, Sharon. Back over to you. But if we if we don't make this a priority, no one's doing it for us.

SPEAKER_00

And this is that, like we I work with my clients around uh what we call a default diary, which is basically having a look at what the three things that we want to get achieved each quarter, and then we break it down into the default diary with the chunks that we need to do to achieve it. And you put in the fun stuff. Like we talk about preloading your calendar every 12 months, and the things you put in there first is the fun stuff. So you've got to put the goal.

SPEAKER_02

But even things like sleep. I put in sleep, I put in reading books at night, I put in family time, which is at four o'clock every day, four till eight thirty, it says family time, eight thirty to ten o'clock is reading, 10 till 5:30 is sleep, 5:30 to 6 is journaling, 6 till 7:30 is exercise and sauna. And like it's it's like you said, it's all default diary. And then you can look at your calendar and go, am I living on purpose? Am I am I giving to my family? Oh, I can see green is family, 4 till 8:30. They're getting a great run. And then I'm taking the kids to school from whatever it is, eight till nine o'clock. Like you can see on your calendar if you're putting all the areas of your life in. But if you're looking at it and it's threadbare, but you're so busy, how do you even know?

SPEAKER_00

And and can I just play devil's advocate here? Because I know whenever I've spoken to people like this, and for for a person that resisted this for many, many years, because people like you and me, I'm guessing, are like, we like free-flowing, we like to just spontaneous. And the thing is with that kind of stuff is that that can reward you because you can wing stuff for a certain amount of time and you get a level of success that is like a false success, I think, with that. Then the thing that I think that I I resisted this sort of structure for so many years, and I clearly remember when that changed, and I'll that's a story for another time. Um it is actually more freeing to have a calendar like this. You actually it's it you feel like when you said all that, I know some of my audience is going, oh, that just sounds like it's so like restrictive and rig rigid, and why would you want to live so it is it's the opposite. Why is that, Mark? I still haven't figured out why is it the opposite of that?

SPEAKER_02

Well, for me, everything that I mentioned was stuff that I want to do, not stuff that I have to do.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

So I decided a couple of years ago to work tradey hours, which is you know, eight till four. Now I do the school run in the morning, so it's a bit more like 9:30 to 4:30. Um, but for me, do you think I start reading at 8:30 every night and go to bed at 10 on the dot? No way. Like my 16-year-old wants to chat at nine o'clock. I put the book down, I may not have even started reading yet. Then the Tour de France is on and I want to watch a bit more, so I'll go to bed at 10:30, 11 o'clock. But I know that if I do that too often, I'm not gonna get up at 5:30, it might creep into six o'clock, and then I haven't journaled. And then my calendar's talking back at me, going, oh, so there's your best life, but your behavior is not actually reflecting what you want in your life.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And so I love the two-way conversation of a calendar, but I also love, again, I've got four kids of business and so on and so forth. I don't um, I don't want to be thinking, what do I want to do at 8:30 at night? Once the kids are asleep, the two young ones, like, give me chamomile tea, a book, a chat with my wife, chat to my kids. I'm on the down ramp of the day. I'm not ramping up for anything. So, but in the morning, ramp me up, baby. Let me journal about my life, get me exercising, get me in the sauna, hop in the pool when it's cold, have a great breakfast, coffee. Yeah, I I don't see the rigidity in just popping down what I want in life. Um, and it doesn't happen the same every day.

SPEAKER_00

And so the temperature check on that is am I loving my life? And if the answer is not, you can actually like almost like put a wedge into your life and go, right, I'm actually gonna really design this now. And what the and so every day I'm doing some of the stuff that I love, and if it feels too full with stuff that you don't want to do, we have choices. But why do we feel like we I I'm asking you all the questions as if you know all the answers to life, Mark?

SPEAKER_02

Why do we it's fun? This is fun, though.

SPEAKER_00

Why do we feel like we we we have to do things when we don't really sometimes like we can we can create whatever life we want, really? Yeah, and whatever we can conjure up in our brains, we can we can do that. And I know look, I want to talk to you about some of the people you've interviewed who are just incredible people in all the the interviews and and your experience. What is that? How can we create this ultimate life that we talk about?

SPEAKER_02

Look, the word um that came to me as soon as you were asking it is courage, and it's really difficult. It's really it's really difficult because you know I see a I see a small amount of one-on-one clients. Um, I don't want to be a full-time one-on-one mentor, but I see a small amount of one-on-one clients, and then I combine that with interviewing often war survivors are the most compelling examples of courage, but it can be someone on the street, right? It doesn't have to be anyone famous, and I think the difference between those that are living their life on their terms versus those that feel like a victim of circumstance is that um there was a there was an inflection point where that person had to use what we now call agency to go, I am the captain of my soul. I am in charge of my life. Whether it's a um a destructive relationship, I have to find a way out. If it's a toxic workplace, I must find a way out. You speak to people and it's like they're just hoping that their colleagues change. It's a bit like hoping that your partner changes. I'm sorry. Just because you get married, your husband or wife is not changing. And just when your kids get older doesn't necessarily mean they change. And if you're an introvert, you're not likely to become an extrovert anytime soon. And if you're an extrovert, your introverted partner is not going to change anytime soon. And these are the courageous insights that a lot of people I find begin to go, all right, I'm going to create the life that I feel like is my best life. There is a great book by Bronny Ware, dear friend of mine, called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. And the number one regret of the human being is that I wish I had the courage to live my life according to my expectations rather than the expectations of others. And most people sadly, uh, particularly in their dying days, recognize that they lived their life according to the expectations of others. They did the career that their parents wanted them to, they raised their family the way their parents wanted to, or their partner. They they were the good wife or the the good person or whatever you want to call it, but they never lived their life. And that's a game of courage, folks. Um it takes all it also takes courage to bury and repress all of that for years as well, because I don't know how people do that. I don't know how people can smile and socialize and grin and be civil between nine and five and then leave lead these challenging lives between 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. I I don't, I don't, I think that's incredible what some people put up with. But the word that comes to mind when you ask that question is courage.

SPEAKER_00

Courage, yeah. And D Wiz, it's um it takes a lot of courage to to break out of your patterns and your your programming, right? And and realize that that it is just patterns and programming, right? Because I I I grew up on a sheep and cattle station in the cent in central west New South Wales, no electricity, no hot running water. Farming family, 136,000 acres in the middle of nowhere. And that environment, I just think that was the best way to grow up. I loved it, it was awesome. But what really confused me, Marcus, was I grew up in this beautiful, beautiful, it was awesome. I mean, my my parents were um entrepreneurs, and you know, growing up in that environment was awesome. But then um I uh I went to school at Church of England Girls Grammar School in Canberra. So what was like this little safe little community, and and you know, you stop on the side of the road and help people and stuff, and then you go to you know, Canberra Curl's grandma, which is the polar, like that the the the women were talking about what they were going to be doing where I grew up for a career, and and I thought, yeah, yeah, okay. And then I go to school in Canberra and I'm talking to diplomats' daughters and high court judges' daughters, and they're doing all these amazing things. My head nearly exploded. I thought, wow, in the same country. So I thought, you know what, I'm gonna leave the country. So I went to Canada and worked in Canada for 12 months on a Charolet Stud cattle property. Can you believe it? Overlooking the Rocky Mountains. And I just like to me, that was the best thing I could have ever done because I I was able to look from afar and go, this is all just a game. This whole thing is just a and you can make up what you want and how you want to live and way the way you want to live. And I just think, I mean, that's such a simple little it's obviously not gone to war and not done some of the things that you've interviewed in people for your podcast.

SPEAKER_02

It doesn't matter how it happens or what the circumstances are, it's uh it's having that again that agency to say I can write the script or at least co-create the script of my exceptional life, and I'm not a victim of other people writing it for me.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I think maybe the adversity is what's the good thing. Maybe maybe we need to put ourselves in shape.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, absolutely. If you think of anyone that you absolutely love, admire, respect, it's not because everything's gone their way. It's true, it's the opposite.

SPEAKER_00

It's true, 100%. So what we try to do is stay safe, don't we? And we say stay safe.

SPEAKER_02

We make we try and make life as easy as possible, but the secret is to make life that little bit harder. And we talk about this in movement. So when we go to the Greek island of Ikaria, they their their roads are so inefficient, and you'd be like, How do you, you know, what you you guys walk everywhere, and they'd say, Well, we would say in Ikaria, why walk, why drive when you can walk? Whereas in Australia, why we would say, Why walk when you can drive? Because it's just easier to drive. But if we actually wanted to prevent dementia by 42% by moving 30 minutes a day, we would walk instead of driving. I had I had a lady, Hillary, come to Ikaria, and then she came to Sardinia, and she went home and started walking seven K's to work each day. And if she didn't want to walk home, she'd get the bus or the train. And I'm like, oh wow, you've just slowed down your pace of life so exponentially. And she just said it was, and this was literally 10 years ago that she came with us, and still to this day, she walks to work.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, is that right?

SPEAKER_02

How many Ks she has done, not just in in distance, but oh, she's just said, just you know, the way that I like people watching and I go a different way, different times, and I just I get to work and I'm calm, and she hasn't been having to beat the traffic and rush, and you know, fascinating.

SPEAKER_00

That is fascinating, and I think that's I heard this a few years ago where they said the reason why we put ourselves into situations like marathons and all the things that are like Ironman's, and it's because we don't have enough of that adversity or the things that really push us. Have you you've got this too?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, we crave challenge. Well, particularly not just masculine energy, but human beings crave challenge.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So you often find that if you're not if you're not consciously choosing your challenges in life, life will throw challenges at you. Yeah, and there'll be times when you get a bit of both. But it is a very wise move to proactively seek out challenge. Yeah, and that can be challenging. You know, I love working out with my my mate and neighbor Danny three days a week in his garage, and we consciously create challenges. Sometimes we don't want to work out, but we still challenge ourselves and always feel great at the end. Other times it's the challenge these days, particularly, to go to bed at a decent time. It's so much easier just to stay up and watch Netflix or whatever. The challenge of no, no, do the hard work, create a nighttime rhythm where you actually get tired early and then can wake up and enjoy the morning rather than it's easy to get out 15 minutes before you have to hop in the car or do your thing. Yeah, do the hard thing. Do the hard get up and make life a little bit harder and have some time to yourself. And then a bit like what you referred to with the calendar stuff earlier, you begin to go, oh, it's actually good making life a little bit more. I don't want to use the word discipline, but on purpose. Yes. Um, and an on-purpose life is definitely a bit more difficult than uh just going with the flow and never really being able to put clarity into the life that you want to live.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I love it. Um, Marcus, you've interviewed on your amazing podcast, 100 Not Out, some just exceptional people. I mean, I it's incredible. I mean, Di Martini and Trevor Hendi, and you know, the the bloke that wrote the happiest man on um in the JQ. Oh, it's just incredible. Who's the person that you what's who's the most memorable? Is that a fair question to ask?

SPEAKER_02

It is, it's been asked a few times. My answer does change a little bit uh because I could talk about Selena Binias, who was one of the youngest members of Schindler's List. If you've never watched that movie, folks, go and watch it. And then, yeah, Eddie JQ, happiest man on earth, was a dear friend and a great book. If you haven't got that book, keep it at home. Make sure your kids read it. Um, but I'm gonna give you an odd one. Uh, well, one that you may not know. Uh, Dr. Sanduk Ruit is the god of sight in Nepal. He has restored sight to over 150,000 people with his own bare hands around the world. When Fred Hollows was alive, they worked to get an intraocular lens factory made in Kathmandu. So this developing nation has this world-class lens manufacturing facility so that people can actually they then distribute the lenses all around the world. Um, but it it it's it's this high-tech facility in a low-tech country. Um, and uh the reason why I love Dr. Sandal Brewitt so much is because he grew up in a village that did not have a school.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_02

He grew up in a village that did not have a school. And his dad realized how curious he was. Uh, and then he asked his grandfather what to do with his curious kid. And his grandfather said, You've got to send him to school. So he went to boarding school in Darjeeling, India. Which was a fifteen day hike away from home. You went to boarding school, right? So he went to boarding school, but because his home was fifteen days away by foot, he didn't see his family for seven years. Talk about the boy coming home as a man. Um, in that time, he came home, his sister Yangla died of tuberculosis. She died of tuberculosis because they didn't have the money to afford the medicine to keep her alive. He then decides to become a doctor. But how do you become a doctor in Nepal when he gets this random one in a million scholarship to a university in Lucknow in India? Becomes a doctor, tries to set up a practice, has a crack, but realizes that he he needs to do something more, goes into the fields like I I want to be an eye surgeon, becomes an ophthalmologist, and then starts restoring sight with basic microscopic tools that Western surgeons would be like, You're gonna kill someone with that stuff. He ends up restoring sight to the people in the villages up in the hills that are never gonna be able to see a surgeon. And he brings life back to them. And can you imagine if you're a 35-year-old mum of two kids, you're blind with cataracts, and you can't contribute to your family, the local economy, community, you get treated like an animal. Yeah, and so he's not only restoring sight, but he's restoring this humanity and this he's restoring uh family unit and restoring just the most magical thing called life. And he's gone off and taught this to surgeons all around the world. Oh, exactly. And so I am just obsessed with Dr. Sand Reward. And I've interviewed him, I would love to meet him in person one day. I I had this dream of having my 40th in the pool um and going and helping in the villages and the off-sites, you know, uh in the mountains, but COVID kind of stopped that. But I would love to go there, maybe for my 50th. And he is just he does the most remarkable things. Um, but yeah, there's dozens to choose from, Sharon. But he's a he's a lesser-known one that I just love. And he um a great Australian journalist called Ali Gripper wrote a book called The Barefoot Surgeon. Uh, and it's all about Sandal Brewitt. And um, if you don't cry reading that book, uh there's something wrong with you. It is phenomenal. Um, it's got the love story in there, it's got the humility, it's got the upbringing, it's got the professional challenges of, you know, uh, yeah. Do you be an employee? Do you be an entrepreneur? He was probably a resistant entrepreneur, but had that had that yearning to do something more, yeah. Um, and had that family crisis to do something more. So fascinating.

SPEAKER_00

Um I love it.

SPEAKER_02

Again, I'm rabbiting on, but yeah. Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_00

And I definitely definitely will regard that book. I want to know, Marcus. You um take people on um expedition expeditions, would you call them?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, we call them longevity experiences, yes, to the blue zones.

SPEAKER_00

I really want to, if you can just unpack what if if somebody was thinking about doing something like hearing people so vivacious and excited about life, as you've said, I didn't realize it was such a minority. And if somebody just wants a little slice of that energy and understanding how they can get a little piece of that through going with you on one of those journeys, what would it look like? How would how would that look if I Yeah, it's an interesting question.

SPEAKER_02

Um, I mean, technically speaking, yes, it's it's the logistics are quite simple. You know, both of these blue zones, Ikadia and Sardinia, are a one-hour flight from Athens and Rome, respectively. It's village life, it's slower. You know, listeners might be used to island time. If you've been to Fiji or even Country Australia, it can be pretty chill. So the pace of life is one thing, but the um the the lifestyle is the piece because really, from a personal growth perspective, you want to go. If if you if listeners ever come with us, it's like, what are you gonna bring back? You know, you can't help if you stick your fingers in a pot of glue, some of it's gonna stick. Yeah, but what sticks for you is gonna be different for me. You grew up, you know, on a hundred and thirty-six thousand acres Italian heritage, I'm assuming, Sharon. Portuguese, Portuguese, Portuguese, okay, there you go. Um, never assume. And so when you consider that everyone's life is different, we used to think it was a tour, but then we realized no, this is a longevity experience because everyone's experience is different. And when we're over there, you know, I realized the other day, I've been going to Ikadia for nearly a quarter of my life. Um, this year will be my 11th year, and I'm 44. So I think of this, and I'm like, this is like our Icarian family. So it's not a tour, it's like you're coming into my local community in the village of Nas, where I know most of the people, and we're cooking in their homes and we're hiking with them, and then we go into the Panagiris, the festivals, and we dance with them, and we drink their wine, and we go into their gardens, and we we we just live their life, and it's very uh what's the word? The the proximity, you may have heard that Tony Robbins term, proximity is power. You know, when you're listening on a podcast, you don't have the proximity, you kind of think you do digitally. Yeah, um, and and I think uh podcasts are the greatest way to feel like you know someone without really knowing them. I often say to a listener, you know me better than my mum does because you hear me every week. But there's something about being in the physical company of people, yeah, and so when we're around the elders of Ikaria and Sardinia, there's an experience that is very difficult to put into words. As one attendee put it last year in Sardinia, it is an invisible yet undeniable ingredient, that physical community connection proximity. Um, and whether I like it or not, our trips are so novel because a lot of people, most people, are yearning for an emotional safety and an emotional proximity that they just don't have right now in their life, but they know they want it. Yeah, they know they want it, and who better to learn it from than the people that are aging better than anyone else on the planet? Um, I've always said, who are your aging mentors? You know, who do you want to age like as you get older?

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

A lot of people, when they're in their 20s, know who they want to dress like and who their favorite sports player is and their favorite actress, and so on. But who's your favorite actor or actress for aging well? You know, is it Sully, the 95-year-old Ikarian fisherman from Kakinagri that loves to fish every day? And he says the ladies are the secret to his longevity. He's a ladies' man. I don't know if he's married or if he's a widow, but he loves the ladies. Then you go to 95-year-old Theresa in Sardinia, and she's never owned a dishwasher or a washing machine, and she's grown all her food from scratch, and she says her level of hard work is her secret. She is a fighter, she is determined, she knows the hard things are the things that make her her. You can go to any of the people that were with Giampaolo or Vasa or Athina or any of these locals, and it's going to be different for every single person because not everyone grew up on a 136,000 acre sheep of cattle farm. So that experience is very different. And um, we go to Okinawa for the first time this year in October, and I'm really curious to meet the elders and centenerians there because their lives have been different to the elders in the European blue zones. So I think for anyone that's listening that is interested, first of all, all the details are at our website, 100knotout.com. We are in Ikaria, September 8 to 14, uh Sardinia 16 to 22, uh, Okinawa, 17 to 23 of October. We don't necessarily say that the public can come every year because at times we take corporate trips and professional study tours and so on. So this year, given all of the war stuff, it's public because corporates are all a bit weird about that this year. But if the public are listening, you are cordially invited this year. Um, but it's got to be for personal reasons. These trips are very, very personal, and that's why the groups are only maximum 14, because these are the types of trips where you end up making friends forever. It's quite bizarre some of the friendships that have been generated over the years. And as I said, you can tell I could talk about this all day, but they're very uh bucket list trip of a lifetime kind of trips.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I love it, Marcus. It sounds like a whole bunch of fun, and I I guess a little slice of that that I get through I am lucky enough to be married to a French man that had his family village in Provence is just you go there and that feeling of the small community, and I can't understand a word anyone says, and it's just wonderful. We just drink wine and every the food, the food, Marcus, it's just like everything is just like it's all just an explosion for all of the senses.

SPEAKER_02

It's just but I bet you the food is not enjoyed by yourself, the food is always enjoyed around other people. And if you're drinking alcohol, you're not drinking it by yourself like we do in Australia. Uh, you drink with others. And in Australia, we say eating is cheating because we want to get drunk really quick. Whereas in these villages, they would always be eating and then drinking so that they can drink for longer with their friends and family. And these are just simple little nudges or what we now call biohacks, in order to age well. But we've got to observe these communities living their best lives because as you say, then we come home from whether it's Provence, where the French Paradox is in fully, full flow, or um other communities, and we must come back and and do it ourselves because if we don't, uh we're not gonna make the rest of our life the best of our life. We're going to uh we're gonna live into that aging stereotype and slow down as we get older and and wonder about the glory is, and that's not how we want it to be, Sharon.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, I absolutely love it. From you know, talking about the Blue Zone people and Zay Zen water, the eight ingredients that you've listed, and obviously all the amazing people you've interviewed and your trips overseas to share with people the the most important thing in life, isn't it? Really? Like what you do is the most important thing for us.

SPEAKER_02

I don't know about that. Oh, I do.

SPEAKER_00

I do. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

I think I have a strong purpose, but no, I think anyone that's living their life on purpose, I think of doctors and nurses and health professionals and gosh, bookkeepers, Sharon. If I never go into zero, my life is all the better for it. I tell people when we're booking in people for Greece and Europe, Damien, my co-host, he does all the money stuff. And I'm like, the less time I'm in zero, the better. So yeah, anyone that's living their life on purpose is a great uh anyone in alive is living their, is living their exceptional life with how conscious that we are. But yes, very kind of you to say that. I graciously accept your compliment. But whatever it is that propels us to get out of bed each day is a worthy cause.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I love it, Marcus. And for anyone that wants to find out more about Marcus's trips coming up, we will have those in the show notes. There will be links and everything. So we'll make sure that people can find us. Listen to Marcus on a hundred knot out podcast. He's got some incredible interviews in there with some incredible people. And I just can't thank you enough for taking the time to share this with me on the San Francisco show. It means the world to me, Marcus. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02

It's been a pleasure, Sharon. Just one more thing because you asked about those eight areas of life earlier. There is a quiz that I call the Exceptional Life Quiz. It's been done by thousands of people over the years. It's free, and it is at my website, marcuspearce.com.au. And so people can rank each of the eight areas of life out of 10. And then what I would always say, make your lowest score your highest priority. Yeah, no. So do the quiz, see where the weakness is, because that's generally the one that we justify and we rationalise and we sweep under the carpet, and then that becomes the highest priority. That goes in the calendar first. Yeah. Because all the other things that are higher scores are typically automatic. They're happening anyway.

SPEAKER_00

They happen anyway, they're more habitual, whereas these ones need to be like brought into the habits. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Once again, thank you so much, Marcus. I really hope that we can have this conversation again soon. I want to hear all about your trip and how it all went. And uh, hopefully you'll come back on to the San Francisco show.

SPEAKER_02

Would absolutely love to. Thank you so much, Sharon. It's been a joy. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much, Marcus. Much appreciated.