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- How I’m Training For My Centenarian Decathlon
I have planned my life expecting to live to be 100. And I don’t just mean I hope to be alive until I’m 100. I intend to live well—and healthfully—into my next century. When I’m 100, I still expect to be able to live on my own, to perform the day-to-day activities that fulfill me, and to travel with my grandchildren and great-grandchildren—if my kids come through on that one.
This isn’t just a pipe dream. It’s not just a hope I have for my future. Like any other long-term goal, I have strategized how to achieve it. I’ve broken the rest of my life into five-year increments. There’s a spreadsheet. (Of course, there’s a spreadsheet!) And I’ve crafted my own Centenarian Decathlon.
Never heard of the Centenarian Decathlon? It comes from Dr. Peter Attia, the author of Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, and it’s a framework based on the idea that we should adopt the philosophy of the highly revered Olympic decathletes when it comes to aging. Decathletes compete in 10 events, and even though they might not be able to win the gold in each one individually, they’ve trained to be good at all of them.
Attia created a list of 10 “events” that we should be able to complete. They’re the most essential physical tasks we should be able to do for the rest of our lives. Picking up a young child from the floor, opening a jar, climbing four flights of stairs, and having sex: These are all on his list. He encourages us all to adopt our own decathlon, and because I’m a bit of an overachiever, mine has 15.
Here’s my list of Centenarian Decathlon events:
Clean my home, from scrubbing toilets to changing bed linens, so that I can live independently.
Lift a 20-pound suitcase into the overhead bin of an airplane so I can take my great-grandchildren on trips.
Lift 30 pounds off the floor so I can put a child into a car seat or high chair.
Enjoy a hilly 1.5-mile-long trail.
Walk with 20 pounds on my back for a mile to explore a new city or simply carry groceries home from the store or bus stop if I’m unable to drive.
Carry five pounds in each hand up two flights of stairs to bring in my groceries.
Get up off the floor with one hand so I can play with babies and pets on the floor.
Climb four flights of stairs in three minutes.
Hang on a pull-up bar for one minute to maintain my grip strength.
Join a regular vinyasa yoga or pilates class to stay nimble and strong.
Teach a course on something new so I can maintain mental sharpness.
Read a recipe, remember the steps, and make a dish without having to refer back to it to challenge my memory.
Stand on one foot and touch my toe five times in a row so I can dance with abandon without worrying about falling.
Balance on each leg for 30 seconds.
Many of these are cribbed from Attia’s original framework, while some—particularly the cognitive ones—are personal to my needs. Alzheimer’s Disease runs in my family, so I’m taking a few extra steps to prepare.
Moreover, research shows that physical and mental capabilities typically decline 10 percent each decade. That means I must be able to lift 35 pounds overhead and 52 pounds off the floor today.
This disruptive approach to thinking about health and longevity rocked my world. It woke me up to concrete steps I need to take now to achieve my desired future.
I hope that you, as a disruptive leader, will look for ways to make transformative change in all aspects of your life—that you’ll consider competing in your own Centenarian Decathlon. Training starts now.
I’d love to hear from you: What are your goals as you age? Do you want to travel the world? Hike Machu Picchu? Dance at your grandchild’s wedding? These things matter in life, and they lead to an even more critical question: How do you plan to achieve those goals?
— Charlene
My Latest:
One of business leaders' biggest mistakes is thinking they can wait to adjust their organization’s strategy to account for artificial intelligence until the dust has settled. Watch my latest livestream or read my LinkedIn newsletter to understand better why a generative AI strategy is essential, whether or not you plan to use it in the short term.
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Good Things:
What I’m using: Peter Attia’s Longevity Toolkit. If the decathlon philosophy intrigued you, he has so much more to offer for increasing your lifespan, healthspan, and well-being. His weekly newsletter and podcast are worth adding to your list, too.
What I’m reading: The AI Dilemma. The co-authors lay out seven principles to guide businesses in their development of generative AI. My favorite is the seventh principle of creating psychological safety so that anyone involved in developing generative AI can surface problems without fear of reprisal. Reading the book gives me hope that we’ll do a better job at mitigating the many things that can go wrong with new technologies.
What I’m playing with: ChatGPT Code Interpreter. The researcher in me loves Code Interpreter, with the promise of analyzing innumerable datasets with text prompts (no more laborious Excel or SPSS fiddling!). If you have a subscription to ChatGPT 4, give Code Interpreter a whirl. To enable Code Interpreter in ChatGPT, go to “Settings & Beta,” select “Beta features,” and turn on Code Interpreter. Try this simple prompt: “Plot the world heritage sites in this list on a map in the United States and color code for green for natural sites, blue for cultural sides, and purple for mixed sites. Create an HTML file so I can view the map.” You can download the list as an Excel file from UNESCO here. Check out the map I created.
Thank you for subscribing to the Disruption Dispatch, which goes out to thousands of disruptors every other week to help you on your disruption journey—plus a curated recommendation list of a few Good Things I’m enjoying.
Want more? Check out my weekly publication, Leading Disruption, on LinkedIn.
Charlene Li
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