On longevity...
I have three kids: 10, 9, and 7 years old. My most important goal is to see them grow up, get married, have kids, and play with my grand children. For this to happen, I not only need to live up to a certain age... I also need to be healthy.
Peter Attia refers to this goal as not only increasing one's life-span, but also one's health-span.
There is no benefit in me getting 100 years old but being miserable the last 30 years of my life and being a burden to my kids and to society. I want to contribute as long as possible. I want to live and bring joy to my kids, their kids, and to society.
For that, I need to stay healthy.
In his book "Outlive", Peter Attia shares what we can do to increase our chance of not only celebrating our 100th birthday (life-span), but to be able to really party (health-span) on that occasion, too.
While reading the book, which I highly recommend, I had to think of all the businesses I work with.
How come when we refer to companies we only look at startups or fairly young companies such as Amazon, which was founded less than 30 years ago? Why do we not follow the approach of Peter Attia and look at the companies that have actually been around for 100+ years?
Wouldn't it be interesting to identify patterns of long-term success in companies that have been around for a long time?
This curiosity was not only sparked by reading Peter's book, but also by being invited to run a leadership session for a company that has been around for 403 (!!!) years. Yes... four hundred and three years!
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I was very fortunate to spend about an hour speaking to the company's CEO who walked me briefly through their history, the challenges they faced, and how they overcame these challenges.
This company refers to itself as a "startup with 400+ years tradition."
The foundation of their success is to shape the future through innovative ideas every day. Technology and innovation have always been the driver for the future of the company.
Did they face highs and lows? Sure! But they managed to stay in business. They managed to reinvent themselves. They managed to stay independent. They managed to rejuvenate their business model.
In order to stick around for so many years (life-span) they must have been healthy for the vast majority of its time.This means, similar to a human being that needs to invest time and resources into being healthy, this company must have invested a lot into its health.
For me, the health of any company is first and foremost the people it manages to attract and develop.
These people create new technology, these people create lean processes, these people create enduring business models, these people create happy customers, these people create the profits needed to invest into the future.
I know there are a few things that I can share with the leadership of this company... but I also know that I will learn a ton working with this client.
This newsletter series is called #FromNothingComesNothing... I am curious to explore what it takes to stick around for 400+ years. I will try to share as much as possible from that with all of you.
Global Principal Pharmaceutical R&D/IT Data Consultant-OUTSIDE IR35 ONLY
1 年Interesting and well written article Sohrab. You’re a brave man having three kids. I’m delighted to have our son (2.5) but unless my wife insists I’m one and done, especially when you consider the soaring cost of private schooling in Britain ???? much like the inflation rate and couple this with the incompetent U.K. government attempting to coerce independent Pharmaceutical consultants like myself to go into permanent jobs against our will (they shall never fully succeed) and you begin to observe how ???? is going down the drain, it’s definitely not Great anymore!
Organisation Development Consultant and Lean-Agile Enterprise Coach & Trainer. Sustainability Consultant.
1 年Yes and consider biological r vs K strategies. Growth driven pioneers with generally short generations and K strategist in mature, satured, near max capacity environments -with long generation cycles. Similar: stable environments foster low behavioral plasticity while dynamic environments foster high behavioral plasticity. IMO you can judge strategy only in context of the environment.
Thought Provoker / Founder @VXS
1 年In business, sustainability is everything. And yet, companies often sacrifice it in favor of making the quarterly numbers look better. With potentially fatal consequences a few years down the road. And yes, just like in health - by the time we realize we should have made different decisions, it may just be too late to correct course.
Realtor Associate @ Next Trend Realty LLC | HAR REALTOR, IRS Tax Preparer
1 年Congratulations.