Liz Bradford (04:14)
of all, a huge Claudia von Boeselager. hope I pronounced that right. You got it. Fantastic. Who was a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, turned tech entrepreneur.

and longevity expert and a peak performance specialist and coach as well. So a fantastic person to have here in our first series of the Health Return on Investment ROI show. You help high achievers from visionary leaders to entrepreneurs. So very much our audience optimize their health, energy and longevity for a life of vitality and purpose. So we really on a mission basis could not be more aligned.

Claudia von Boeselager (04:46)
It's such a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Liz Bradford (04:48)
Absolute pleasure. I have a super long bio, so I'm going to pick from it because I'm going to encourage people to go and check out your profile and obviously your podcast. you're the founder of Longevity and Lifestyle, which is a performance coaching platform. You have an amazing podcast of your own, in which you interview experts on exactly kind of the topics we're about to touch on. And you're also the co-founder of the Lumara Collective, which is a global longevity consultancy. So leading innovation for longevity clinics

So obviously, used to be in finance, used to have one of those kind of push, push, push corporate careers. And since leaving, you have reversed your biological age by 17 years based on everything I've learned and heard from listening to your own podcast. as some of our listeners won't have had that pleasure yet, we would love to start with that, if that's possible. Tell us a little bit about that journey, how you did it. And I'm sure lots of people will be frantically taking notes.

Claudia von Boeselager (05:37)
Beautiful. So thank you so much for the lovely introduction. And yes, I think that I've always been that sort of A type, and I'm sure it sounds like your audience is like this too, perfectionist, moving the goalposts and never enough, more, more, more. And I stupidly in my twenties thought, well, I can sleep when I'm dead. I could manage to get by on those three hours of sleep. And of course, twenties, no kids, it's a little bit easier than it is these days. But of course what happens, you burn yourself out, right? And so.

Just different chronic health issues began to creep in, chronic sinusitis, gut health issues. And it really came to a pinnacle one day when I had absolutely no energy. And it's funny because you have such a belief of yourself of a high energy person, but when your body's not kind of going with you, and I guess a lot of people realize this maybe when they hit 60 or 70. And I was sort of early 30s and I was like, what is actually going on here? This is not me. I couldn't believe it. was having trouble even climbing the stairs.

I had just had a call from my doctor saying, you know, blood markers are in the reds. I'm literally two weeks away from hospitalizing. You're like, you have to take this seriously. And that was a real aha moment for me. was like, hang on a second. If it's already this bad, it's not even lunchtime. I've got businesses to run. I've got small kids. What's the next 10 years going to be like if it's already this bad? And so that set me down many a rabbit hole of understanding that you can actually optimize your health. You can do so many things proactively contrary to our Western medicine of putting a plaster, a bandaid on it of

you got a headache, you here's a pill, right? Because you need to look at the root cause. It's so essential as well. And so for me in that journey and learning personally, obviously we're all different, right? We're all an N of one, but major things that I needed to optimize was around my sleep to take it really seriously and actually understand the biochemistry, what is happening while we sleep and happy to touch on it in more detail if you like. And then also gut health.

repairing gut health and taking a complete deep dive into that and then setting myself up to win with certain protocols so that I don't need to have decision fatigue every day. I can just have a certain routine that works really well for me, for my body, and just allow me to be optimizing my state. And obviously people are hearing more and more about these biological age tests and there is a lot of fluff, I'd say, out there in the market and people are like, we have our own biological age tests, et cetera.

One that I'm a firm believer in is glycan age, which is based off of 20 years of research. And it looks essentially at inflammation in the body. And many people will have heard the term inflammation, right? So that aging happens because of inflammation in the body and in different systems. And so I quite like their tests. And so I do need to do an updated test, but the last one I did take was 17 years younger. And my goal is to get down to being 20 years old again, biologically, and stay there until I'm a hundred chronologically. So.

a little mission I have on the side just for fun.

Liz Bradford (08:18)
I mean, just for fun. And you're doing that with, as you mentioned, you have young children as well, right? So it's not like can spend your whole time meditating and doing your 5 a.m. morning routine and everything else. Like you have a very busy life. Yes. did you sort of get to that stage where, kind of near breaking point, two weeks of hospitalization, but busy career, busy family. How did you find the time and the capacity to really focus? Because I think that's where most of our listeners really struggle. They know they need to make change.

but it just feels too overwhelming and they're not sure how to find the capacity to do it.

Claudia von Boeselager (08:50)
Yeah, that's a really great question. And I get that a lot with clients of mine. They're like, please don't give me anything else to add because I feel like I'm already at 120, 150%. so this is, I have a certain process I take my clients through as well, but one is really starting off with getting clear on your why. So if you know that, you know, be it, I want to be around for my kids or, you know, I have a family history of cardiac issues. I don't want to go down that path. Whatever that why is for you. If it is, I want to go.

know, climb Mount Kilimanjaro, whatever it is, but having a very powerful why typically will be above and beyond yourself. That will get you out of bed in the morning and that will be your motivation. And then the next one where I take clients through was actually taking a deep dive into what does your weekly schedule look like?

⁓ what are you spending your time on that mightn't be of the best interest of you? And if you have any questions, how long you're spending on WhatsApp or social media, or WeChat, if you're an agent, whatever it might be, you can just look in your phone and you can see exactly that like, I spend two hours a day on social media. Maybe I can cut that down to 30 minutes or whatever that number might be for you. So first is always looking, what can I declutter out of my life? Where am I wasting time that is not of the best, highest interest of me?

And then once you get a bit of clarity around what are the routines, what are the systems that you could set up for yourself, you just, I love from the sort of tech entrepreneur perspective, you set it once and roll it out from there. So you avoid the decision fatigue. So you know, okay, my kids wake up at 7 a.m. I will be going to bed earlier so I can get up at six, 6.30, whatever it is. I can have my optimal morning routine in peace and calm, set myself up to win the day. I show up better for my kids.

whatever it might be, right? And then you set up the different instances so it's automated in your calendar. That's what I personally need to do. I juggle multiple businesses and if it's not in my calendar, it doesn't exist is frankly my motto as well. So those are some of the systems in way of getting clear on the why, know, of decluttering things that are not important in your life. And when you have your why, it's easier to say no to the things that are not truly aligned with your mission.

then setting yourself up to win by automating it and having it in your calendar so don't even need to think and you avoid that decision fatigue.

Liz Bradford (10:58)
scheduling piece is just so critical and that was a total game changer for me. So a year ago I was still in banking. So I had a full-time MD role in banking in Asia and as you know, then the working hours really stretched there. I had two side businesses and I was dealing with kind of medical systems for care for one of my parents back home. it just had to be, everything I committed to had to be literally time blocked into the diary because I found that I was saying yes to everything still as always.

But then I hadn't really thought about, when am I actually going to do this? And the first thing that suffers is your sleep. And then you just can't show up as a good human if you're on like five hours sleep a night. It just doesn't work. So time blocking is really key. And yeah, the social media thing. I recently had to delete Instagram off my phone. As I was finding I'm so addicted to the Reels. So someone, a friend would send me a link to a Reel. I wouldn't normally be on Instagram, but I'd click on the link because my friend thinks this would make me laugh, which it did.

Claudia von Boeselager (11:33)
percent.

Liz Bradford (11:49)
But then I'm doing this and then I'm like, it's 20 minutes later and it's nearly 10 at night. This is the very worst possible time to be doing it. it's like, you know, they have so much money tailored to addict you to it. ⁓ Not a I can fight. I just can't have it that.

Claudia von Boeselager (12:02)
Exactly.

No, I mean, these are, it's engineered on human psychology from the best information and data to make you addicted to it. So, you know, it's not your fault, but we all have the best discipline, but like it's gone above and beyond that as well. So I know people have deleted off their phones. Some other people have it on like the last screen, like whatever it might be that is needed for that too. Yeah.

Liz Bradford (12:23)
Yeah, that's smart. I mean, I have it for work, so it's on my normal thing, but it's like once I've stopped working, no access. otherwise, you know, it's just the, and these are rocket scientists, right? So of course they can get me to look at something.

Claudia von Boeselager (12:35)
Also

than me. Don't fight the machines. They know what they're doing. Exactly.

Liz Bradford (12:39)
So I think we've kind of covered what prompted you to take the leap career-wise and obviously phenomenal success since then and can tell that you really live and breathe that purpose. But your client base is obviously, as you said, think I'll use your term, A-type. They're very busy executives, they're entrepreneurs, they're extremely busy people. So how do you structure health optimization for them outside of obviously saying, start to look at what you can simplify and declutter. But if someone's working, for example, an 80 hour week.

How do you sort of simplify optimization for them? Where would you start and where would you advise that our audience starts to look?

Claudia von Boeselager (13:12)
it's really important that people, of all, as I mentioned, get clear on their why. Why are they looking to do this? Because it's not something like there's a, you know, take this pill and you'll be fine. Like this is an effort. This will take time. You need to carve out a bit of space and bandwidth because you're going to want to understand some of the details behind it and not just blindly take on things. But then you also need to either have a coach or a good doctor who you trust that you can work together with because at the beginning it is a bit of.

You you test it out, does this work? Is this compatible with me? But you also want to establish a baseline. And so this could be anything from, you know, bloods in different panels to, you know, for some people maybe even testing their gut health. So for me, when I tested mine, even because I've lived in third world countries, et cetera, I've traveled a lot. I had H. pylori, which a lot of people die from in Mexico as well. It destroys the inside gut lining.

And these are things that can happen. And I would say, it was healthy, et cetera. I didn't know unless I tested for it as I appreciate that testing is expensive. I know some people travel to other destinations to do some of the testing as well. We can obviously test till the cows come home as well. So it's finding that balance of these are certain symptoms. These are my family history. This is where we should look into in a little bit more depth as

by having that baseline and things like a DEXA scan, bone density. mean, there's so many important things, but finding also somebody who can interpret those results. And this is what I think is important to understand is that if a medical practitioner has not been trained on certain things, so if they have no idea about menopause, because guess what? It's not really taught in medical school, and perimenopause, even though it affects half the world's population, if they don't feel comfortable talking about it, it's either, I don't do that, or it's not important.

because they don't want to go down that rabbit hole. So keep looking until you find the right practitioner that can support you. It might be multiple practitioners as well, your why, figuring out what's your baseline, having good trusted support, and then looking at things like the basics. And this I think is really important as well. Some people are like, know, Brian Johnson spending $2 million a year on biohacking. I can't afford that. Like I don't have that budget. I've got kids. There's so many things people can do that are free. Yes, free. Zero.

dollars, whatever currency you work with, pounds, et cetera. So number one is sleep. And I think that that is so absolutely fundamental for me. I wear an aura ring. I found that very useful. It's not everybody's price range. Not everyone would like to wear a ring. That's fine. There's different ones as well, but it really helped me understand the phases of sleep, making sure I'm getting enough deep sleep. Also REM sleep is something that I would really struggle with as well. And you can optimize around that. Number two is managing stress levels, which is obviously tricky when.

life is busy, But how can you do certain protocols in your day? Start your day off right. Maybe there's meditation, breath work, sunlight, but also doing check-ins during the day. And that's a big thing for me. So my aura will say like, this has been a high stress day. And I function relatively well on that. Obviously I know to the detriment, but I know I need to put in breaks in during the day as well. And you can even set reminders on your phone, whatever it might be. And even if it means going for a quick walk around the block between meetings.

whatever someone's schedule allows. So sleep, breath work, or you're trying to control the stress levels as well. Nutrition is obviously key. Yes, it does cost money, but really taking care of getting the right nutrients, taking care of yourself, making sure you're hydrated, of course, as well. Many of us don't drink enough.

You want, your body wants to function really well. And I think that Western medicine doesn't like us to believe that, but the body wants to heal. It wants to do well for you, but you need to kind of give it the right tools and resources as well. And then things like meditation, right? As I mentioned with those breaks with breath as well, but.

Just coming back to center, being present, being in the moment, finding that calm as well, grounding, walking in nature, spending time with friends. We know from Harvard's longest running study from 1938 that the number one for longevity and happiness later in life is that social connection as well. So it's almost like going back to the basics. And obviously you can biohack and do tons of other things around it as well. But if you can get those core things.

sorted and done in a very good way without a price tag essentially, you're already doing really well.

Liz Bradford (17:15)
are so many threads in there that I want to pull on. If you don't mind, I'm going to start with sleep. So as you can see, also in AuraWare, I'm also testing out the loop this month to see how the data compares and everything else. This is the five and I was really scathing about the four. So they were like, well, do you want to try the new one? so far, very interesting. But to your point, sometimes outside of the price range of people to which my comment to clients is always, or my question or challenge to clients is always,

Claudia von Boeselager (17:26)
They've upgraded it, right? It's quite exciting.

Liz Bradford (17:42)
Well, should we take a look at your other subscriptions that you're currently paying? Because normally there's a Netflix, there's a Disney, there's a YouTube, there's a lot of other stuff that doesn't necessarily contribute to our wellbeing that much. Yes. And I don't mean that in a judgmental way, but I think to your point, sleep is the absolute foundation. And I say this as someone who is really bad at prioritizing it. And I know I have to, and that's why I have the wearables to make me actually see the data points. So I don't drink, but when I do drink, you can really see.

The impact on your... chubby. The chubby, like through the floor. Yep. I tend to, even though I'm a morning person, I tend to then get caught up after dinner. For example, if I log back on, I'll find three hours later I'm still working because I just get into flow and everything else. But then that obviously massively interrupts then going to bed and everything else. So I do think that it's a good investment. So there's the piece around affordability. You also mentioned biomarkers being expensive as well. And I mean, our whole thing is the return on investment.

Claudia von Boeselager (18:12)
Yeah.

Liz Bradford (18:39)
of health. What have you seen over time around, you choose to prioritize investing in this now, what impact and return can people expect in the future? Because I think as humans, we're very bad at thinking any further than maybe a year, two years into the future. But really what we're trying to do is make sure that people are optimizing for later in life.

Claudia von Boeselager (21:41)
Yeah. And even optimizing for today, I would argue that like, imagine you had 20 % more energy every single day. What would you do with it? What would you do with all that boundless energy time? What would your relationships be like with your kids, with your loved ones, all the things that you could actually do and achieve and whatever is important to you, right? So even starting with just today, but then obviously looking, going down the line and depending on what age bracket someone is in, in five years time,

the majority of your friends might look and feel and even talk about things that like, my hip and my this and my back and right, where you'll be like, I don't know any of this. Like I'm doing super well. I'm doing my strength training and I'm doing my weights and I feel absolutely amazing. And then keeping in that state for as long as possible. And I mean, I've talked to 80 year olds, almost 90 year olds who are going, doing spinning four times a week and doing their weight training.

traveling around the world and they're like, know, my friends keep getting younger because the ones at my age, they're not doing anything. They're so boring, you know? And so I say this a bit more in jest, but I think, you know, for me personally, the goal is to live really well every day until I hopefully just drop like that and to avoid that last 10 years of pain and stretched out. And before we hit record, I was just sharing that unfortunately I lost my mother to late stage dementia last week and she was someone with.

unbelievable boundless energy. She's had multiple head trauma and lack of HRT post-hysterectomy in Ireland back in the 90s. And so those are the foundational things for her. Obviously, there's different factors that contribute to it that we know of as per science from Dr. Bredesen and other leading neuroscientists. But that painful time, not just for the actual person fading away, but for all the family members. If anyone listening has someone like with cancer, whatever it might be,

No one would wish that type of suffering onto anyone else. And that's what it is with the health ROI. This is a choice that each and every one of us has every single day. And it doesn't mean we have to be perfect and live by a disciplined routine. If you're able for that, beautiful. But life gets in the way. We're traveling. They're serving airplane food and there's nothing else. And you've got a 10 hour flight, whatever it might You may do what it is, but you know in general that you've got a really good baseline so that you can.

pick your poison for the times that you decide to let your hair down or do a little bit differently. Some people are very strict and just live one way. And we're all human, but I think if you have that very strong baseline of focusing on your health, the things that do you good, not only will you get the ROI today, but every single day until it is time to move on.

Liz Bradford (24:08)
hadn't even thought about the energy, should do obviously, but like imagine how much more you can achieve with 20 % more energy, every single like how much you can compound that benefit through that. We were actually chatting in the community, we have office hours every Tuesday and we were chatting this morning about Brian Johnson. And someone was saying, but you think he's happy? And I was like, doesn't look, I mean, he's welcome to tell me otherwise, but it doesn't, there does come a point where, you mentioned relationships and how important those are. If you're optimizing everything. And as you just said, you have some people who live very, very disciplined lifestyles.

I'm kind of on the fence of like, think once it starts to intrude into you being connected socially, actually it's not a net positive anymore. Like if it means you're living in such a rigid way that yes, you might live for a very long time, but you're going to be doing it in a lonely fashion, that's not ideal either. So I think to your point, it's really about finding that balance and what works for every single individual.

Claudia von Boeselager (24:56)
Yeah, I don't if you saw the documentary on Brian Johnson as well. So he had his son living with him for a year. So he was like, I'm very happy about this. And then obviously the people that follow his Don't Die movement gave him that sense of joy with community as well. But yeah, I think it's important. there was one point and I was guilty of it. I was had my intermittent fasting schedule down and I had certain foods and I would do this and I was doing keto and friends were having a dinner and I wouldn't eat. And I was a bit like, and this is getting a bit late.

And I realized like, what am I doing? Like, I'm so miserable. Like, this is not me and I need to find that balance as well. So I think for the majority of people finding the right balance of very healthy most of the time, but enjoying life is just so fundamental.

Liz Bradford (25:38)
Yeah, another example of where the 80-20 rule can come in, Live really, really well for the 80 % so that you've got the 20 % leeway to do the stuff that really brings you joy.

Claudia von Boeselager (25:46)
Yeah, exactly. And hopefully it's not just eating McDonald's and, you know, not moving or something like that. So hopefully that 20 % is like, you know, somewhere, somewhere in the middle.

Liz Bradford (25:55)
I doubt it will be, but it might be like a really nice glass of red wine with friends over dinner or like with a steak or something. Like whatever it may be, no, zero All right, so let's assume we've convinced people at this point that it is worth investing in. You mentioned some of the tests that you'd recommend already. Is there like a panel or anything that you would recommend people get? I realize it would vary significantly based on gender, stage of life and everything else. But if you were to recommend just like one or two tests that everyone should be getting, what have you come across in your research?

Claudia von Boeselager (26:22)
Yeah, so what I'd say is like ideally look for a functional medicine practitioner because you want to look at optimal ranges, right? So you're looking at all your bloods, you're looking at all your hormones, your minerals, your vitamins, all these basic things that our body needs. But then also I would say is that DEXA scan and we mentioned it before as well, bone density, particularly for women, but also for men. This is definitely something that you want to do, but also checking for visceral fat because you can have someone who looks the most slender, but if they have all this visceral fat around their organs.

they could really be very detrimental to their health as well. I think the biological age test is interesting to know, but again, I don't think that that's an essential. But for women, definitely hormones. The tricky thing is that there are different types of hormone tests. It's not perfect. need to continue to see it. Typically, it's diagnosed so looking at symptoms and how you're feeling.

But know that from the age of 35, women can be entering perimenopause. And even after childbirth, hormones are all over the place. And then we wonder why we're feeling more depressed, et cetera. I mean, I'm someone with my second child experience postnatal depression as well, obviously compounded by lack of sleep and different factors. But I think that for women to look at it, I mean, for one thing, I was very surprised when I did my Dutch test for my hormones is that my testosterone was like almost zero. You think, oh, I'm female, I don't need testosterone.

Everyone needs testosterone. Actually, women produce more testosterone than they do estrogen, interestingly. And so if you don't have any, just getting through the day, being sharp, being focused, obviously helps with libido, things like that as well. But there are different things that are very beneficial that have been misinterpreted for so long. And that's, think, the challenge is that, as I mentioned before, menopause isn't taught in medical school. Nutrition is not taught in medical school, although that's looking to be changed. There was a lot of...

falsely interpreted data from the Women's Health Initiative. I've interviewed on my podcast, Dr. Joanne Manson, who ran that study. And I think that slowly but surely more awareness is coming out that those were actually strewed media headlines that have impacted a huge generation of women, sadly. And so, and I've gone off on a bit of a tangent here, but. Yeah, and I really just encourage all women. And there is synthetic hormones and then there's.

Liz Bradford (28:29)
think it's super relevant.

Claudia von Boeselager (28:35)
body or bio identical depending where you are in the world, hormones as well, and just try and find someone who really knows their stuff and is able to help with it. There are world leading experts. I've had some on the podcast as well. You will feel so different. It's not normal to have brain fog every day. It's not normal. Obviously the night sweats are a little bit more later stage, but women are giving up their careers because they're like, I can't function the same way anymore. Well, there is a reason. Check your hormones first.

Doctors typically say, this is normal, or you need an SSRI, you're feeling depressed, like this is it. Check the hormones first, check the hormones first. So I can't say it enough, but I've seen amazing results also with people who have started to tackle that and they've just bounced back as well. it's almost a new form of life. It's amazing.

Liz Bradford (29:16)
pleased that this is coming more into the mainstream now. like even when I was in Hong Kong, people are talking about it more in a culture where normally there's a lot more stigma around that type of thing. But you've got very senior female leaders who are just like the brain fog. I just lose words mid meeting in the boardroom or, you know, just to your point, just so much less energy and feeling like everything is such an uphill battle. And it's so easily addressed if people test the hormones, but also test them more than once at different phases.

and don't just accept the ranges which are so outdated that people just go to your point, you just need an antipressant or just get over it. Before I deleted Instagram, in my feed was always just a ton of memes about if a man's testosterone plummeted overnight, we would rush him to hospital. We wouldn't tell him to just sort it out and buck up sort of thing. So I'm really pleased that there is a lot more now in the mainstream about this and people are more aware that there is help there.

Claudia von Boeselager (30:11)
100%. And for your male listeners as well, research shows that from the age of 30, men's testosterone decreases by 1 % per year. And there is a real pandemic on lower testosterone levels because of all the endocrine disruptors and And I think I read some research that a man now in his, I want to say 30s, has the same level of testosterone a 60-year-old in the 1950s.

So it's just a radical decrease because of the synthetic materials we're wearing, the microplastics. Every Starbucks cup, we're like, oh, it's a paper cup. Guess what it's lined with? Plastic. You're putting a hot beverage in, you're drinking microplastics every day. I've had Dr. William Lee also on the podcast as well multiple times, but he really talks about the dangers of all these microplastics we're getting. The chopping board, the spatula we're using those. I mean, I've had to like throw away so much stuff over time

So just that awareness that men are also very much impacted by this too.

Liz Bradford (31:08)
And it does have a significant impact, doesn't it, when testosterone plummets for men as well, like just mental, physical, everything. So it is a super important thing to be focused on.

Claudia von Boeselager (31:17)
100%. I've had Dr. John Gray on also. So his meaning is that when men's testosterone is high, they're achieving, they feel good, they're providing. When testosterone decreases compared to estrogen that men also have, they're much more emotional, less drive, they're unhappy, So for men curious, have a chat. Andrew Paz is real with a practitioner about trying out the testosterone replacement therapy and just see how you feel.

Liz Bradford (31:41)
Our audience is actually 50-50. So I will make sure that we link to that episode of your podcast, if that's okay, so that people can go explore further. Cause I do think it's something that people, again, there's a bit more stigma about it and actually it's nothing to be ashamed of. And it's a very important thing to have addressed if you're experiencing some of these challenges. Yes. Fabulous. All right. So from all the positive stuff, I'm really interested. You've been doing this for 15 years. You apply a tech mindset to everything that you do.

What is the biggest sort longevity myth that you've come across that you would like to bust?

Claudia von Boeselager (32:12)
I think there's a few. One is that it's just about being 120 years old or 150 year olds, I don't think there's a gold standard for definition of longevity. So I think, as I mentioned before, for me, it's about how do you live in your best state today live like that for as long as possible. And typically, if you are living at your best and not worrying about decline, not worrying about health issues.

You can not only be in service to the ones you love, but to a greater collective and greater community. So can you imagine what a beautiful place the world would be? So that's one myth about thinking longevity, I can worry about that when I'm 90 or 100, it's about living longer. No, it's about living at your best self today for as long as possible. And number two is that it needs to be super complicated or super expensive. And those are things that I shared also before is that there is that.

toolbox of things that are free or very low cost, right? Walking in nature, morning sunlight, sleep, breath work, meditation, et cetera. And the importance of social connection, I think, is really important too, that it's not just about the tests and the labs and the blood draws, but going back to being out and chatting with people. And I think this is actually really, really important for society today, that people are glued to

looking at a screen and a telephone and I've forgotten the art of long form conversation like we're having right here now and actually sitting down with multiple people and having conversations and not everyone with a screen out or a phone out. And it was interesting, I heard a conversation between Simon Sinek and I believe it was with Trevor Noah And he said that even having your phone face down on a table is giving the message to somebody else that whoever might call

is more important than you. I can't even take that 10, 15, 20 minutes, one hour, whatever the time is, to put my phone away, unless obviously there's an emergency. But I think, or I would encourage people to just reflect on how could you be more present? How could you cherish the people are so special to you and you're investing time with sitting together with and really be present by putting that phone away?

Liz Bradford (34:07)
It's something that we've become so used to just like even texting while listening and stuff. I catch myself doing that sometimes to my dad and my dad just looks super crestfallen because it would never occur to him in a million years to do that. Whereas I'm just like, I'm just multitasking super, super. But, actually someone said to me the other day, we went out for a walk with the dogs and they left their phone. And I said, did you not need your phone? And they were like,

The person I want to be with is right here, so I'm not going to bring my friend. And I was just like, wow. Okay. Like it made me feel amazing. It's just a good friend and everything else. But I was like, wow. So I really want to try and do that a bit more for other people as well and just show how much I respect that time and appreciate that time.

can't think of a better way to kind of wrap than all of the guidance you've just given on really prioritizing what matters. We do have five quickfire questions though, if you're up for them. So the very first one, complete this sentence. The biggest difference between average and elite health optimization

Claudia von Boeselager (34:57)
I would say data. I know that sounds a bit nerdy, but I think that way you really know what's happening and you're moving the needle on the right stuff.

Liz Bradford (35:04)
And to your point earlier, having someone to help close that data knowledge to action gap as well, like really interpret it for you. Second question, what is the one biomarker that you would recommend everybody should get, but 90 % of people ignore?

Claudia von Boeselager (35:17)
Often in a day you smile and laugh. ⁓

Liz Bradford (35:20)
Brilliant.

That is brilliant.

Claudia von Boeselager (35:22)
I would say. You won't find that on a blood panel.

Liz Bradford (35:25)
No, you won't. You just have think about how to log it. That's genius. Okay, brilliant. If you had 90 seconds to optimize a CEO's health ROI, what would you focus on?

Claudia von Boeselager (35:36)
I mean, they have 90 seconds to do, I would say almost like jumping on a trampoline or something like that. You've got lymph drainage, endorphins, you've got BDNF going on there, increasing moods, breathing going on. yeah, jumping on a trampoline in 90 seconds.

Liz Bradford (35:50)
Very efficient and you can really tell that we did not send these over beforehand so I'm clapping this. Okay, two more. The first one is what health investment has the highest return on investment that costs under $1,000? ⁓

Claudia von Boeselager (36:00)
Again, I guess it would depend where people's weakness challenges are.

Liz Bradford (36:04)
It depends is always my favorite answer to every question.

Claudia von Boeselager (36:06)
It's tricky. mean, for me, my aura ring, think, is excellent. Understanding my sleep, real game changer for me. Brain health is a big passion area of mine. My mother at late stage dementia, I've gone down many rabbit holes. I'm loving a neurovisor, which is pulsating light. There's research out of MIT showing that it actually not just helps with neuroplasticity, but actually clearing amyloid plaque. Very, promising. Yeah. So the neurovisor I'm a big fan of and it's great for brain training and just keeping really mentally fit and sharp.

Liz Bradford (36:33)
For those of us who did do the whole I'll sleep when I'm dead thing for like a decade, two decades of our career. think most of us are frantically searching for every single hack we can do now. It's like I'm there learning Mandarin, I'm there doing Sudoku, anything for neuroplasticity. So we'll definitely look that one up and link to that as well. Very final one. What's the most expensive health mistake you see people make?

Claudia von Boeselager (36:52)
Getting bad advice. Bad advice is the most expensive mistake you can make, where somebody telling you, for example, if you think your memory is not what it used to be, and it's like, you're fine, come back when you're progressed with dementia, instead of getting on top of things now. Trust your intuition, I would say, and be very, very wary of bad advice.

Don't model someone who hasn't done it before. If you see someone who's in peak health and has figured it all out, you can model them. Someone who's sitting on the couch, eating McDonald's, whatever it might be, right, all day, don't be taking advice from them. So bad advice will be the most expensive mistake you can make.

Liz Bradford (37:31)
very sound advice to close out the podcast. And obviously we will link to yourself as someone who needs good advice as well. Is there any other way that our audience can help you find you? I'll link to your LinkedIn and obviously all of your companies that are available publicly. Anything else that we can do or any key message you'd like to leave us with.

Claudia von Boeselager (37:48)
Thank you so much. Yeah. So people are welcome to reach out at any time on Instagram. I'm longevity and lifestyle. LinkedIn is Claudia from Boeselaga. Tricky name, but thank you for linking to it. Obviously my website is longevity-and-lifestyle.com or lumar-collective.com. I'd say parting message is for people to really understand, just like Warren Buffett teaches in twofold. One is the biggest investment you can make is, or the best investment you can make is in yourself.

and understand compounding interests. So by investing in yourself today, you are essentially compounding and achieving exponentially faster your goals than waiting for next year or waiting for in five years time, or it's not so bad just yet. Let me see how long I can go. know, ⁓ Warren Buffett is probably one of the greatest geniuses of our times and looking at ROI, right? He definitely has that one figured out.

Invest in yourself, invest the time, invest the energy. Yes, it takes a bit of work at the beginning, but if you've gotten to where you are in your career, which sounds like your audience has, you understand the benefit of it and really just focus on prioritizing that, not just for yourself, but for all your loved ones and what you can get out of this lifetime. So that's what I'd leave you with.

Liz Bradford (39:00)
That is amazing. Perfect analogy, perfect quote, perfect tie into ROI. So thank you so much. And I have no doubt that people are all going to go and identify their purpose to invest in their wellbeing now. So yeah, thank you so, so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. We will link obviously to everything you've got and obviously your own podcast, which I would strongly recommend people listen to in researching for this. I've learned so, so much listening to your podcast. So I would strongly recommend everyone listens to that as well.