Leaders Live Longer

The older the snake, the longer it will be. Snakes can reach 50 years of age and may in some cases reach 70. (sorry about the choppy photo; it was pieced together from a video) e

Redwood Trees

Galapagos Tortoise

Redwood Tree

Oldest Model (same woman)

Source of Oldest Neanderthal DNA

Oldest Known Galaxy

Oldest Dog Maybe

Oldest Tree

Oldest Rock on Earth

Rock w/ Oldest Fossil

Bristlecone Pine Tree

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Leaders Live Longer

Do You Want To Be A Leader?

This began as a letter to an old friend but it may also apply to you or someone you know...

Just for the record, I'll be 70 in January 2012.

I read two science magazines: Scientific American and Discover. One had an in depth article a couple of years ago about the incidence of heart attacks and strokes in men who are CEOs or presidents of large companies. This phenomenon was also discussed at length in one chapter of Genome, a fascinating book about genetics. It's 10+ years old and that field moves so fast that I now need to find a similar book of more recent origin. Genome discussed the fact that leaders have an immunity to health catastrophes that cannot be merely coincidental. Based on reviewing historical data, leaders (by age group) have less than half as many medical deaths. The prevailing theory is that the thoughts, stresses, worries, actions and joys that are associated with high responsibility (and perhaps any high-passion endeavor) create protective chemicals that increase the body's ability to postpone or prevent catastrophic health events.

The benefits of being an active leader include the passions and satisfactions you wrote about. Perhaps those same chemicals are being generated in your brain based on your community work. I'm just writing about something theoretical.

I use this theoretical line of reasoning to inspire my friends who are 60 to 80. I want them to stay enthused about their roles as Vollara leaders. Other than from the products, I'm not suggesting that just by being a distributor these benefits could be realized. I'm talking about a serious level of effort. Based on what I've read, I think the following list of activities will be beneficial...

	Working with passion toward a significant future goal
	Doing things that are competitive and difficult - such as selling your ideas in competition with someone else's ideas
	The responsibilities of leading and working with large numbers of people
	Facing the constant challenges of problem anticipation and resolution
	Working against deadlines
	Dreamy anticipation of important future successes
	And here are some maybes... Maybe leaders spend less time worrying about trivial stuff because they are always so occupied with bigger matters. Maybe these health benefits come more from the avoidance of the trivial worries than from the presence of the big ones. It's possible that while I am worrying about 10 really major issues, a non-leader is worrying about 100 trivial ones. My mother is like that. She has never learned to not sweat the small stuff. Leaders instinctively seem to focus on the bigger issues. That's at the heart of how a leader thinks. At this point, we just don't know the cause-effect relationships that are at play here.

We've all heard about people who seemed to postpone the moment of their death until a certain date or event came about. Two of our presidents, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, died on July 4th...but not just any July 4th; they both died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

My personal commitment goes like this. As long as I am physically and mentally capable, I will NEVER give up my role as a major leader... planner... writer... speaker... strategist... and problem solver.

Life expectancy table from the Department of Health and Human Resources, 1996.
Age	Male	Female
63	16.8	20.7
64	16.1	19.9
65	15.4	19.2
66	14.8	18.4
67	14.2	17.7
68	13.5	16.9
69	12.9	16.2
70	12.4	15.5
71	11.8	14.8
72	11.2	14.1
73	10.7	13.5
74	10.1	12.8
75	9.6	12.2
76	9.1	11.6
77	8.6	10.9
78	8.1	10.3
79	7.7	9.7
80	7.2	9.2
81	6.8	8.6
82	6.4	8.1
83	6.0	7.6
84	5.6	7.7
85	5.3	6.6

In early 2011, Vollara is at about the same company volume now as we were in 1995 when Alpine's 3-year explosive growth surge began in earnest. We are on the brink of realizing a similar pattern of exciting growth as soon as the recession eases up a bit more. Any little thing could start our surge. Maybe it will be next month, maybe a year from now. Some of you remember what happened to my group in 1995 and 1996. Those were amazing and highly lucrative years. I didn't think I would ever have a second chance but here it is!

So I hope you won't close out the possibility that Vollara has something of great benefit to offer Ken & Betty Harris. The financial potential is of course worth thinking about. Five or ten additional years of productive life might be a part of the package, too. Being a healthy guy, an optimist and a user of enzyme-based food supplements, I figure I have 20 more really good years. That would take me to 89. If my "useful years" are naturally going to end around age 85 and I can extend that time to 89 or even 94, that's a benefit of incalculable value.

Imagine discovering a way to increase your productive years by 20%, 30% or even more. For a man or woman approaching 80, the effect of this could be a 100% or 200% increase!

These same benefits might be realized in other ways. We don't know. But in network marketing I get to work from home and control my activities. If I want to go on a month-long trip to visit Australia and some islands in the Indian Ocean--which I do--that will be possible. The first thing I have to do is invest 3 to 5 really strong years right now (to take full advantage of the surge years)! Then I can ease off and enjoy myself but I must keep my brain engaged in my role as a leader.

One more "by the way." I enjoy the competition and work of Vollara right now. I don't have to ease off to get enjoyment.

Thanks, Ken, for inspiring this essay. I'm going to post it on Chippynews.com under leadership and life-extension.

Regards,

Bob Giddens