Read time: 4 minutes
Good morning, 66.1ers.
Been thinking a lot about 66.1 this week. Started it almost 3 years ago with this issue. 250+ issues later, and it's evolved. Started with a "longevity hacks" type tone. People like that sort of stuff, but Huberman will always do that better than Marcus.
You've probably noticed a shift in tone over the past year, less of me telling you what to do, more of me thinking out loud? I suppose that’s because the world doesn’t need another instructor. Another educator? Always. The difference, in my mind? One tells you what to do. What they tell you may or may not work for you. The other shows you what you could do. It’s up to you to adopt the pieces that make sense for you.
The physician I’ve worked with for the last 5 years illustrated the gap best: "In allopathic medicine, we systematically disempower the patient." If the “healthcare system” disempowers the patient, 66.1 is here to EMPOWER the patient. As I think about merging education and empowerment, I’m seeing 3 legs of the stool that is 66.1.
Leg 1: Empowering the individual
In a sentence: are you an active participant in your healthcare, partnering with your doctors? Or are you a recipient of your care? No longer is information concentrated with your doctor and the other scientists of the world. Everyone can access more information than they'd ever need to optimize their health.
And as we expand our view, how can we make it easier to be healthy in the first place? Isn’t that the ultimate form of empowerment? If you hear me talking about Freedom Fats, that’s our attempt to make seed oils (and a bunch of chronic diseases they’re associated with) extinct.
Leg 2: Health “hacks”
Mouth tape, for example. But as a health coach, I’m better qualified to help with the “how” than the “what”.
If you know you need to make changes to your habits/behaviors/lifestyle to get where you’d like to get to in the health department, my guess is you’ve known for years what needs to change. But change is a hard thing to do, especially when your friends and family have come to expect you to be a certain way.
So I ask questions meant to help you take the first step toward this change.
Leg 3: Big picture stuff
Sometimes this looks like a critique of the healthcare system. Could also be some sort of existential thing meant to snap you out of autopilot and move one step closer to a life that’s actually yours. The cancer patients I talk with every day help me with this, my goal in sharing their stories is to help you do the same.
I suppose that, from the start, 66.1 has been some version of Marcus thinking out loud about the question of how to be healthier, with less friction. As long as people keep telling me it’s valuable, we’ll keep 66.1 going.
Happy to have you here reading. Thanks for helping me think through this stuff.
As always, "reply" if you've got a question/comment/something you think I should know?
