Welcome to episode 54 of Kinsei-Do Corner, the first episode of the year 2024. I’ve been on a bit of a longer break than I had initially planned, but I dare to say it’s been worth the wait.

In this episode I speak to leadership and performance coach Ben Clayton Jolly, who is from the UK but lives in Austria, where he runs his own coaching company called Inspiring Performance. Ben has a masters degree in psychological coaching and has been coaching leaders for over 3 decades, so he’s an absolute treasure chest of knowledge and experience when it comes to human performance, and a pure joy to talk to.

Like mine, Ben’s approach to performance coaching is a very holistic one, in which we don’t only want to help a client in their current life situation, but set them up for health, happiness and high performance in the long term. That means sustainable habits and routines that enable you to live better for longer, not just quick fixes to achieve a certain short term goal today. And so, as we emailed back and forth, the topic of longevity, living a healthy and high performing life versus just a long life, emerged.

In the following conversation, Ben and I discuss what all of us should know and do to maximise our chances of living a healthy life into our 8th or 9th decade or even beyond. Many of modern life’s conveniences actually conspire against us and against our basic biology, but with a bit of conscious thought and effort, we can course correct the ship and put us back on the path towards better health and wellbeing.

Ben’s a ferocious reader and student of the game, so at times in our conversation you may find us going down one rabbit hole or the other, but I promise that by the end of the episode, we bring it right back to simple, actionable and highly valuable tips that you can - and should - implement in your life right now. Not in 5 years, not in 10 years, not when you are 50 or 60 or 70, but right now.

So let’s get to it!