The Secrets of the "Blue Zones"

What if the key to a long, fulfilling life wasn't just genetics but the environment you build around you? In this episode of The Quest for the GoodLife, Dr. Mike Strouse and co-host Ivo Ivanov dive into the fascinating concept of Blue Zones—communities around the world where people live longer, healthier, and more connected lives.

From lessons in purpose-driven living to why traditional caregiving models must evolve, this episode will inspire you to rethink how communities can support independence, self-direction, and meaningful connection. What does your Blue Zone look like?

Also: 

• Who is our co-host Ivo Ivanov?
• How do you defeat a Russian bear?
• What did Curly say to the city slicker?

Tune in now!

Links & References: 

• The Russian Bear
• That bear's downfall
• A Study on the Sardinia island Blue Zone
• The Secret of Life

Transcript

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Ivo Ivanov (00:00:06):

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Quest for the GoodLife with Dr. Mike Strouse. This podcast is a production of GoodLife University. It is January, this is the second episode of the year 2025. It's a new season. It's the regular season, Mike, it's not the playoffs. It is. We're in the first inning, the first in the beginning of the season. Our host is Dr. Mike Strouse, among many other things, the president and CEO of GoodLife Innovations. I am Ivo Ivanov your sound engineer and fun engineer and also your co-host with the co-most. Dr. Strouse, is there something you would like to talk about in the beginning?

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:01:00):

Yes, there is. Ivo. You guys know a little about me last time and before we kind of segued into what I want to talk about today, I want to know a little bit more about you. I think I know a little about you. I always find out more, but I want everybody to know who you are a little bit. I mean, we could spend 20 episodes with it, but you're an author.

Ivo Ivanov (00:01:26):

Yes. And yeah, I'm not sure I'm very interesting to talk about, but the accent is obvious.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:01:36):

Well, that's what I'm rolling with you, man.

Ivo Ivanov (00:01:40):

Yeah, I grew up in Bulgaria, which is in Eastern Europe, and I grew up during communism there, spent about half of my life behind the Iron Curtain. It was tough times. I was a journalist. I played sports when I was there, I had to go and serve for a couple of years. It was compulsory

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:02:09):

In Communism, that was mandatory.

Ivo Ivanov (00:02:11):

Mandatory. And it was not a picnic serving in a communist army in 1984. It was 1984 in more ways than one, and it was rough. And then I came here to study to continue my education and pursue my master's degree in education at University of Kansas. Ended up meeting my future wife here who's a Kansan, and I've worked,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:02:41):

Worked for our agency for 20 years, probably

Ivo Ivanov (00:02:45):

31 years now. 31 years. And then I continued my journalistic pursuits and my writing, and I wrote for many, many newspapers in the homeland, I would write the stories here. I would travel the country and collect interesting stories, send them to Bulgaria and they will be published. Little by little, those newspaper columns grew and became a full page, two page stories, and eventually they were collected into books. The books became bestsellers. I've written three books. The first one was a huge bestseller about 10 years ago and continues to sell to this day. I'm doing a lot of television back in Bulgaria. I wrote for the Kansas City Star here. I ended up winning a contest by the Star that's a big newspaper here and ended up writing a column for them. And I coach. I coached high school basketball and I coached, and I still coach high school soccer, which we talked about in the last episode.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:03:58):

Yep. You're a rockstar. You're a rockstar. I dunno about it. I love following social media with you because when you go back to Bulgaria, there's literally, there's lines around the block waiting for you to sign books.

Ivo Ivanov (00:04:13):

That is true.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:04:15):

Yeah, that's true.

Ivo Ivanov (00:04:15):

Something's wrong with my compatriots in Bulgaria. I'm not sure what's going on.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:04:20):

Well, I don't know because we're going to talk about a couple of the titles and maybe a story before we pivot it into

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:04:27):

This part of the episode. But they're important and they're actually related, believe it or not, in my mind. But your writing has a purpose and it resonates with the people that you intend to reach. And it's very cool to see that. But I love the social media part because I get to watch the excitement around that. I get to see you pull out your harmonica and join a rock band. And I mean, you're living a lot of life I'd love to live. I'll tell you that if you're looking at having a good life, having a good life, you've achieved that. But it's been a ride.

Ivo Ivanov (00:05:20):

I'm trying, trying to do my best to inspire people, to help people in one's life always comes a time where you have to make a decision. What are you going to do? What are you going to do with your life? And when our journey's over, if you look back, is there something that you would be proud of? Have you accomplished something? Are you leaving the world a better place than you found it? And so I made that decision at some point. I decided that if I'm going to write, I'm not just going to cover stories, events and people, I'm going to try to extract existential messages from these stories and try to help people give those stories to people that might need them at some point,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:06:12):

And I don't know if it's your favorite book, but your first book was probably the most popular book.

Ivo Ivanov (00:06:16):

Yes,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:06:16):

Yes. And it was The Happiness Curve.

Ivo Ivanov (00:06:20):

Yes. Right. That's right. The Happiness Curve.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:06:22):

Yeah. So tell us before you give us a story or two and then we can why the name The Happiness Curve.

Ivo Ivanov (00:06:30):

Well, the happiness curve throughout many of the stories you will encounter life journeys that resemble a roller coaster. And then you realize that happiness is achievable, but it's not a constant state and it's somewhat fleeting. You have to capture it, savor it, and be prepared for the downward spiral. And the title of the book was inspired by Kurt Warner's story. He was a famous quarterback, but he went through a lot of ups and downs and the title of his story was The Happiness Curve. And I realized it reflects a lot of the stories in the book and decided that that will be the most appropriate title for the book. I'll give you an example. There was a story that has to do with wrestling, and there is an incredible wrestler, maybe the greatest wrestler of all time. His name was Aleksandr Karelin. He was known as the Russian, the Siberian Bear, this one of those guys.

Ivo Ivanov (00:07:47):

He was born with the fast twitch muscles, with the DNA. He had muscle mass. He was just a monster, a monstrosity. People were afraid to wrestle him. He had this move, the Karelin move where he picked people up, flip them upside down and threw them on their head. And his opponents were afraid that he's going to break their necks. His power was impossible to compare with anything. And at the same time, there was another wrestler who's growing up in Wyoming in a place called the Star Valley. It was very high altitudes of farming community, very rural. And this guy was opposite of Karelin. He had no fast twitch muscles. He was overweight, always overweight since birth, and he had dyslexia. He was struggling in school and he was made fun of his entire life. And when he born, the doctor almost dropped him to the ground and he said, this kid is accident prone. This has never happened to me. And this proved to be prophetic.

Ivo Ivanov (00:09:10):

The kid's name was Rulon, Rulon Gardner, and Rulon was truly accident prone. He was in the emergency room every other day as he was growing up. It was incredible. He got swallowed by a combine once and they had to extract him from between the gears of the combine somehow miraculously survived. He was shot by an arrow in class during show and tell. Some kid brought the bow and arrow and shot him, almost killed him. He was just accident, truly accident prone. And everybody had given up on him. His teachers, he tried to play football. His coach said, you can't play football, you just don't have the skills. He decided he's going to be a wrestler. And he said, I'm not going to be just a wrestler. I'm going to be the greatest wrestler in the world. And his coach burst laughing and said, are you kidding me?

Ivo Ivanov (00:10:06)

Are you kidding me? And there's no way. No way. He heard those two words. No way. All his life, his teacher told him, no way you're going to graduate from high school. He graduated from high school. He took enormous effort. His coach said, no way. You are not going to be a wrestler. He was one of the worst wrestlers in the state. But little by little, little by little, little by little, driven by his dream and conviction that he's going to be the greatest wrestler, he became good and started winning little by little. Then his academic advisor told him, you need to go into a technical school and learn some kind of craft because you are not college material. No way you can go to college. And he said, I'm going to college. Somehow he ended up going to college. He got a scholarship wrestling scholarship.

Ivo Ivanov (00:10:55):

He was not a very good wrestler, but he got the scholarship. He graduated from college and after college he said, I'm going to be on the Olympic team in Greco-Roman wrestling again. They said, no way. He made his way to the Olympic team. And little by little by little ended up being on the national team, started winning now and then he met Karelin and Karelin almost killed him in the world championship. He picked him up, turned him upside down, threw him on his head, almost killed him. And then Rulon Gardner said, I'm going to train and I'm going to beat that guy. And here comes the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. And Juan Antonio Samra, the president of the International Olympic Committee, decided to attend only one event, the gold medal match in Greco-Roman wrestling. So he can personally give the fourth gold medal to the great Aleksandr.

Ivo Ivanov (00:11:59):

Karelin had not lost a match in his life. He had not lost a single point in his life was that was a natural phenomenon and freak of nature. And then Rulon got on the mat, made it all the way to the gold medal round, and suddenly Karelin could not find a way to use his move on hand. He tried and tried and tried and tried. And Rulon who didn't seem to have much muscle, he was just this overweight guy. But the truth is his core muscles were very strong, and his lungs have been trained in the high altitude of Wyoming. And he had more endurance than Karelin. And Karelin thought he's going to be easy match. And he tried and tried and tried. And Rulon Gardner deflected every one of his moves. And at the end they were tight. Zero zero. Nobody had scored a point.

Ivo Ivanov (00:13:03):

And in Greco Roman wrestling, if nobody scored a point, they put the two wrestlers. They have them hug each other basically. And whoever lets go of the hold first loses one point. So they're hugging each other and holding on for deal life to their fingers, to their fingertips. And believe it or not, Rulon held his grip and Karelin at some point just gave up and put his hands in the air and said, I don't know what to do with this guy. And so Rulon got a point and he won the gold medal match. And Juan Antonio Samran very confused. He had to put the gold medal on the chest of completely unknown wrestler from Wyoming, overweight kid that was told all his life, no way, no way, no way. And proved everybody wrong because he believed, Mike, he believed in his own purpose, in his own goal in life and his dream.

Ivo Ivanov (00:14:10):

And then more things happened. First of all, my mother was dying and she was diagnosed out of nowhere, and she was young, diagnosed with colon cancer, stage four malignant colon cancer. And she decided she's not going to fight it. She decided I'm just going to give up. And I was trying to motivate her. And I was 7,000 miles away. So I wasn't immediately close to her to try to talk to her eyes-to-eyes, but I was looking for a way to motivate her. One day I was at home. It was winter, it was very cold, and I turned on CNN. And the anchor said, the great Wrestler, Rulon Gardner, is feared dead. He was lost. He went on a snowmobile in the wilderness in Wyoming with a bunch of friends. They got separated. He was lost in a blizzard, and he's been gone for 18 hours in a minus 40 degree F temperature at night. And he was not wearing a coat. So they're looking for his body at this point. And I was basically devastated. This was one of my heroes. His win over Karelin was called "The Miracle on Mat." Remember the miracle on the ice? Yeah.

Ivo Ivanov (00:15:51):

There was the "Miracle on Mat." And when he came back home, all the kids that were making fun of him were calling him up and he had a parade and all that stuff. He was a celebrity. So they were looking for him, couldn't find him. And finally they found him almost 24 hours after he had disappeared, he was alive. His snowmobile had fallen through thin ice in water. He was freezing, he was soaked. He didn't have fire, he didn't have a coat, but he was alive. And they said that at the time, this was the world record for surviving in the wilderness in this temperature. They had to cut his boots with a knife because they had merged fused to his leg.

Ivo Ivanov (00:16:42):

They told him they have to amputate his leg and it was black, basically it was frostbite and gangrene. And he said, no, you don't touch my leg. I'm going to fight for my leg. I'm going to get it back. And then he went into some experimental treatment. His leg came back, his circulation came back. Miraculously, he only lost the big toe on his right foot. He put it in formaldehyde in a jar, and he keeps it in his refrigerator to this day by the eggs and the milk to remind him not to ever mess with Mother nature. But he survived this. And then amazingly, a few years later, he was back in the Olympics. His foot was bleeding in his shoe, and he won the bronze medal. Unbelievable. And then a few years later, I turned on my TV and they said, Rulon Gardner is feared dead. He was on an airplane that fell, crashed into Lake Powell, a small airplane. Well, the guy swam out of the fuselage, survived this swam to the shore and survived this as well. And I started thinking about him and people have been telling him, no way, no way, no way. All his life. And he kept saying way, way, way all his life. And I was thinking, it doesn't matter if billions of people around the world think you are the underdog, what it takes is just one person to believe that you are the favorite: You.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:18:24):

Exactly.

Ivo Ivanov (00:18:25):

If you believe you are the favorite, you will succeed. And he, for not one second, considered himself to be the underdog.

Ivo Ivanov (00:18:34):

And then I was thinking also about the accident prone stuff that his doctor told him. You can look at it as he's unlucky or you can look at him as being the luckiest man in the world because yeah, these accidents are horrible getting sucked into the combine. How many people will survive that? How many people survive airplane crash or being in the wilderness for 24 hours? Well, he may be the luckiest man in the world because he survived all these things. I wrote this article and at the end of the article I wrote, listen, guys, this article that you just read, it's not for you and it's not for Rulon Gardner. I wrote this story for my mother because she's dying and she needs to believe in herself. And if somebody that's born with all the disadvantages you can imagine can defeat the great Aleksandr Karelin, you can certainly defeat cancer, Mom.

Ivo Ivanov (00:19:44):

And I wrote this in the story and I published it in the newspaper, and I'm so thankful the newspaper published because it's a personal story at the end. But then there was an avalanche of letters from readers, thousands and thousands of letters. My father, who's back in Bulgaria, he took these letters and took them to my mom and read them to her. Then she got up, went to the hospital, had surgery, had chemo, had radiation, and she's still alive to this day, completely cancer free. The doctors called this A miracle, a medical miracle. I give all the credit in the world to Rulon Gardner for my mom being alive and for this energy, good energy that came with those stories.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:20:35):

The story is incredibly inspirational. And when you talk with the happiness curve, and I kind of segue on that. I want people to know a little bit about your history

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:20:49):

Because you are the co-host with the most, with the co-most, but we have a lot in common, and not in that, necessarily all of our journeys are the same, but you try to find these stories that are truly inspirational and pull out the essence to help other people. And The Happiness Curve is partly about that. Just these incredible things that happen and they're big. Again, this is a podcast, and I think maybe people are going to have a hard time getting always to the point of this, but we're going to really dive down into that over the episodes. And the context is so important, and that is having purpose in your life, having kind of a destiny. We talked about my poems and that a really BHAG, BIG goal, right? Yeah. I mean, he kind lived that big goal

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:22:03):

Or somebody telling you that, well, that's stupid, that you're not going to be able to do that. And that was what, remember the poems? It was kind of like what they were about is having big goals, not really caring what anybody else thinks. It is really you and you're the one doing it. And just persevere. All of those things are important as a behavioral analyst is really what we're going to explore together, Ivo, is we're trying to create a better life, a good life, a better life for a people. And I mentioned last time that creativity, some people look at it as a gift. And I think the only gift that exists for creativity really is not having any constraints on your imagination.

Ivo Ivanov (00:23:04):

Allowing yourself to be creative,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:23:06):

Allowing yourself to be creative without any of these constraints. And honest to goodness, Ivo, it starts, I always say this as a behavioralist, that's why I love it starts with an unimaginable goal. And I think lots of times we start with very small goals and think, oh, we'll work on this and we'll work on that and something else. But if you took a trip like thinking only of the next half mile, you're going to go, you'd probably end up going in circles. When you think about going on a trip, you pick a destination out, and then your little increments are determined based on the destination. You don't do it the other way. You don't say, I'm going to go 50 feet today and then tomorrow I'm going to go another 50 feet. And then not think about where you're going. First of all, there's just doesn't have much purpose in that. But I want to tell you that what we're really got to start, if we really want somebody to have a good life, we've better come up with a really, really good goal. And as I thought about when I'm trying to develop good lives for people,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:24:23):

And I work with other people to do that, I like to look at big goals

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:24:30):

Like, nothing small. If you have your sights on a huge goal, then you can start looking all the characteristics and all the things related to that goal. Does that make sense?

Ivo Ivanov (00:24:41):

Yeah. Not allowing yourself or your imagination to be restricted when it comes to your goals. Another story I wrote that is exactly in this area is about Waldo McBurney, and that's a quick one, Waldo McBurney. I traveled to a place called Quinter in Kansas to meet him. Quinter, you've been to Quinter?

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:25:06):

We had a guy who worked with us for years from Quinter.

Ivo Ivanov (00:25:09):

Yeah, well, maybe you've met Waldo then, because I traveled to meet him. Why? Because he was the oldest working American citizen of the United States. He was one hundred and four when I met him and he was working, and I wanted to know why is he doing this? And he was a beekeeper and he was producing B. And I met that man, that amazing man. He was 106 when he passed, and he took up running marathons when he was 80. And when he was 102, he wrote a book and he titled it "My First 100 years." I love it. And I asked him, what is the secret? Why are you living and keeping all of your faculties? And he said, because I have a reason to wake up every morning. I have a reason I'm meaningful.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:26:19):

You really hit this because when I wanted to talk about developing a good life for people and thinking about what's, what's my standard that I'm going for? What is it? Do you remember the concept about A Blue Zone, Ivo?

Ivo Ivanov (00:26:36):

Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. It's fascinating,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:26:41):

Most fascinating thing I can think of. Because there's these zones across the world that are called Blue zones, and the reason they called them a blue zone is they're scientists that we're exploring these things would look at these areas across the world that had certain characteristics that we're talking about. The main one was people would be living a long, long time. I'm glad you brought up the old guy in winter, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:27:08):

Yes.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:27:08):

Well, this is where almost everybody was exceeding the life expectancy of anybody else. So they were called blue zones because when they found them, they took a blue marker and they made a circle.

Ivo Ivanov (00:27:26):

On the Map.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:27:27):

So they later started calling them Blue Zones. I thought there was something more.

Ivo Ivanov (00:27:31):

So if they had a red marker, red Marker, it would've been Red Zones.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:27:34):

It would've been Red Zones. But basically they identified these blue zones, and at one level it was just like a community where people were living long lives. And then they started like, okay, but why? What is it about these things that even, where were some of these things? I'm trying to remember.

Ivo Ivanov (00:28:00):

So there were five original Blue Zones. Icaria in Greece. It's a small island. The Aegean Sea in Greece, I've been to many islands, Greek islands. I haven't been to this one. It's a tiny one. Another one is the island of Sardinia, which is just off the coast of Italy. And then you have the Okinawa one, Loma [Loma Linda], I forgot the one in California. There's one in California.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:28:31):

There's one in the United States. That's exactly right. I mean, as they defined it, I think there's many more out there.

Ivo Ivanov (00:28:37):

The Costa Rica one is fascinating too. The Costa Rica [Nicoya Peninsula] one is also very, very interesting by original ones.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:28:44):

But it goes beyond geographic location. It goes beyond genetics. In fact, they claim that really they can only account for 20% of it being related to genetics. 80% is environmental. And that intrigued me because if 80% is environmental, then you can replicate it, right? Yes. If you can figure out what makes it blue zone. And by the way, Ivo, if all it was that the blue zone was a place where you could live longer, I don't think that's enough.

Ivo Ivanov  (00:29:20):

No, I agree.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:29:21):

It's not enough just to live longer. I've talked to people that, in fact, my grandmother-in-law was 102 when she passed away, and she looked at the family and said, "I've lived long enough." and she was not ill, and she just up and died.

Ivo Ivanov (00:29:49):

She decided, she made a decision.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:29:50):

She literally within a week died. And it is like living a long life is one part of a blue zone as it turns out. That's how they first identified them. But it wasn't the whole thing. It wasn't just they live longer because that would suggest genetics more than anything else. But now they're saying no, 80% of it is environmental. Okay, now what are those other characteristics? Right? I mean, I'm not going to recite all of 'em, but one of them was purpose.

Ivo Ivanov (00:30:27):

Yes.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:30:29):

I mean, one of the most important ones was purpose. Social connections was another one being social connections, having friends and family. But here's another cool part of it that they identified older and younger people living together, Ivo.

Ivo Ivanov (00:30:48):

Yes. Yes. And that's a common denominator between all the blue zones.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:30:54):

All of 'em. So you look at 'em and it's like, okay, all were people who lived longer in these areas, but there were also these common things across them that absolutely were there. And when you look at all of those collectively, I'll tell you, you end up saying, Hey, that's a pretty good life. So, like, relatively stress-free lives. I mean, they live lives without significant daily stresses.

Ivo Ivanov (00:31:23):

Yes. But they work. Active lifestyle.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:31:26):

They worked. They were just not retired.

Ivo Ivanov (00:31:32):

Yes,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:31:33):

They had purpose, which is part of the work, but it's more than that. I mean, it wasn't a job. Purpose says something. It is about having some sense of community. I always say, but something about purpose, it's a silly saying, but say "there's no 'I' in team."--- "There's no 'me' in purpose, but there is an 'us' in purpose," right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:31:58):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:31:58):

And so purpose, it's about us. It's about how do you contribute to the greater good.

Ivo Ivanov (00:32:08):

Yes. Yes. And in fact, the Costa Rican Blue Zone, it's called Nicoya Peninsula. It's about an 80 mile peninsula just south of Nicaragua. These guys, these community, they live to be a hundred years old, and they keep all of their faculties. And what's the point of living if you can't participate in the world around you? They participate actively, and they have this thing that they call "Plan de Vida," plan of life or destiny, purpose. So every citizen of this community has a Plan de Vida. And that's exactly what you are saying. They want to be meaningful. They want to have a purpose in life. They want to have a destiny. They don't want to just sit around and not participate in life. So it's very interesting that social interaction and communal life and integrating old and young people together is just as important, if not more important than the diet. And yes, they all eat whole foods. They eat.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:33:19):

Don't forget the wine,

Ivo Ivanov (00:33:21):

The red wine. Yeah, no,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:33:23):

That's true. Red wine, I think they have a glass a day. And so you hear all the new stuff about wine causes cancer. Well, I think anything would probably cause cancer in excess.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:33:32):

In excess, but that's also what this was all about. They were in some ways, ways they were disciplined. Like the wine as the example, they would stop eating at 85%, being full. I mean some of those. So moderation was that. Did the discipline moderation. Exercise.

Ivo Ivanov (00:33:56):

Exercise,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:33:57):

Eating relatively healthy, plant-based foods, more plant-based foods, not without any other, but so there were elements that were common. And the ones that I recall, we said some of 'em, but spirit, it wasn't religion always is with spirituality. I would call that beyond religion,

Ivo Ivanov (00:34:17):

Believing in something bigger than yourself, right?

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:34:18):

Yes. Yes. Right. A sense of belongingness, the old and the young being together.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:34:28):

So you can call that diversity, but it wasn't being separate. It was all of that sense of community, social belongingness. But being old was a great overall measuring stick. Something must be happening that's right. And when they found it wasn't genetics, or mostly it wasn't genetics, then it's okay, you're living long and it's not genetics. What are all these things you're doing? And when you look at all those things that they're doing, it was like, okay, you put all those things on a table and you look at 'em and say, yeah, they're not just things that's a good life. You're living purpose. You have spirituality, you are eating well, you're exercising. You have a sense of social belongingness. You list all those things out there and you have a glass of wine day, which I think is exceedingly important. I live that myself.

Ivo Ivanov (00:35:27):

Yeah, long life and poetry!

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:35:29):

That one was a delight for me, and some people were better at it than others. But my point is, when you looked at all those traits, you found out, no, no, a blue zone isn't just being old. It's a good life. It's living a really good life of purpose. And it isn't just about you. You could not create a blue zone of one. That's my point. And I'll tell you, we're going to get into a whole lot of discussions that I think IDD, [intellectual and developmental disabilities] that's kind of the area that we're partly talking about, but I'm going to move away from that disabilities field into a much more inclusive thought process. But the reality is we just think about that disability class, and it's like when we work in plan services and do that, when I see that across the country, everything starts with that person. They call it person-centered planning. Everything's person, person, person, person, person. And I don't want you to think I'm against that, but the reality is when you talk about blue zone, you talk about a whole ecosystem.

Ivo Ivanov (00:37:03):

Yes.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:37:03):

You know? Like for you and your family when you're going to move someplace. Well, I say it differently. When you want a good life, what's the first thing? If you want a good life for you and your family, what's the first thing that you, if you're not in any location, whatever, what would be the first thing that you would think of if you were wanting to pursue a good life for you and your family? What would be the first thing that you would think of?

Ivo Ivanov (00:37:31):

Probably safe, healthy, inclusive, environment. Neighbors would be important for me in picking location to live a good life. Like I said, social interactions are super important. There's a lot of wealthy, wealthy communities that are not blue zones.

(00:37:50):

There's a lot of wealthy people that aren't happy,

(00:37:52):

they're not happy. A lot of wealthy people that are isolated, and that is a recipe for a short and unhappy life.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:38:01):

All of those things that you mentioned really were about the environment. It is about that, that you want to join up. You think, oh, good schools, I want to be safe. I want have wonderful neighbors. I want have social opportunities. I want to have recreational and with the beautiful, I want to have a walking trails that can look out in nature. I mean, when you really think about what do you want is a good life, you describe that, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:38:37):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:38:39):

See, that's what you want to belong in.

Ivo Ivanov (00:38:41):

But we are increasingly isolated.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:38:42):

Well, that's because we start with ourselves and work out, instead of this context of and then work back in. I mean, I know that sounds a little silly, but it is perspective. It's like

Ivo Ivanov (00:38:58):

Your behavior is so you reverse engineer everything.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:39:01):

Yeah. I look at what does a good life look like? And a blue zone is not a bad place to start, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:39:11):

Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking how blue zone is actually GoodLife. That's what it means really, if you think about it and the other way around. And I even discovered just now that blue zone and GoodLife has exact same amount of letters. That can't be a coincidence.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:39:31):

No, it's not coincidence. There's no coincidences in life. But I want us to start this journey that we're on with a great goal. And of course I'm saying this because a little tongue in cheek, because you know, Ivo, that we created, we created an ecosystem that I'm really proud of, and it's one that's ever evolving in development, and we call it The Neighborhood Network. And I didn't think of completely a blue zones in that, but then later I did.

Ivo Ivanov (00:40:08):

But that's the result. Ultimately. It's a Blue Zone.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:40:10):

Yeah, but ultimately our goal is to create little pockets that are blue zones that people could fit in. I know these are analogies, but the ecosystem is the most important thing. I mean, you call it a neighborhood, you can call it a blue zone, you can call it whatever. I mean, but everything has that analogy. I mean, you talk about interesting apps, and we're going to be talking a lot about technology. You can talk all the way want about an app, but you know what makes an app flourish? What makes an app exist? It's the operating system. You got Linux, you got Microsoft Windows, you got iOS. Without that, you have no apps. Those micro systems allow the individuals to flourish.

Ivo Ivanov (00:41:12):

Yes, yes.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:41:14):

And so if you want somebody to flourish and live a good life, focus on that ecosystem. Focus on the Blue Zone. Look at the big goal.

Ivo Ivanov (00:41:28):

Let's explain The Neighborhood Network to the listeners. What is it? There's magic ingredients there.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:41:35):

Well, getting to be. Yeah. I mean, but everything else, it evolves and it's still evolving now to bigger and bigger and bigger things. But basically the concept of The Neighborhood Network is care as an amenity of a well-selected neighborhood. Understand those words. I mean the well-selected neighborhood. Some people think that automatically means, oh, this is some kind of contrived community. Blue Zones weren't contrived communities. They didn't, I mean, there's one I think that they set up as almost like a, was it a commune or was it a

Ivo Ivanov (00:42:21):

Loma Linda in California is a Seventh Adventist church community. So they're kind of a purposeful community.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:42:28):

Yeah. Outside of that one though, these were normal towns. Normal neighborhoods, normal places that just got it right. Right? I mean, it had all those elements and stuff. So, the idea behind The Neighborhood Network was creating an ecosystem of care, of support--let's call it support--that was just absolutely woven into the fabrics of that neighborhood as an amenity. You think of something being an amenity of a neighborhood, whoever thought that care could be the amenity of a neighborhood? That's what I'm thinking. A normal neighborhood. If I was going out and picking a neighborhood that was meaningful for my family, I'd want it to be safe. I'd want it to have great homes. I want to have transportation. I want to be close to community resources. I can name 15 or 20 things about just that neighborhood that when I say "well-selected neighborhood," right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:43:38):

So those are the transportation, the amenities, the care, those are the apps. The operating system is the neighborhood,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:43:45):

The operating system is the neighborhood. And then you try to embed within that, and I'm going to use the word cultivate, a blue zone. That's what you try to do. And if you do it right, then maybe the measures of that would be that people live longer, they're healthier, they're happy, they have a good life. However that's defined. Do you remember? What is that? Do you remember City Slickers?

Ivo Ivanov (00:44:15):

Yes. You

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:44:16):

Know what? We love movies here.

Ivo Ivanov (00:44:17):

Yes, yes.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:44:18):

Great movie. Remember Curly is that one thing.

Ivo Ivanov (00:44:21):

There's that one thing.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:44:23):

There's that one thing?

Ivo Ivanov (00:44:24):

And he said, "what, your finger?"

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:44:27):

He said No. And he said, well, what is it? What is the meaning of life? Well, that's what you got to find out yourself. You have to find out. But you want a place to live where you become what you want to be, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:44:45):

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:44:46):

That's what you want. And you want that. You can have purpose and have, if you're trying to replicate the blue zone, you want to build-in spirituality. Does it have to be religion? No, it doesn't have to be religion. It just has to mean that you believe in something bigger than yourself. That's my definition of it, at least. You gotta have purpose, which means you got to help people. You want old and young people live together, which means by definition, it's inclusive, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:45:15):

Yes, that's right.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:45:16):

You want the wisdom. And if you know about The Neighborhood Network, of course there is a volunteer component to it. What I always believe is if somebody has something off--if somebody has a need for support, like a person with IDD has a need for support, it doesn't mean they can't contribute themselves, just help other people. I mean, just because you have a need doesn't mean that you can't help somebody else that has a need that you can help with.

Ivo Ivanov (00:45:47):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:45:47):

So I think about how seniors and people with IDD can interact, and you've got seniors that may need help with dog walking. They may need help with out having somebody help shop for them or other kinds of things that they may need for their support. Other side of it, I may need some mentoring and finance they may need some help with, or they just may need social interactions. But that's what a blue zone is. It's like helping each other.

Ivo Ivanov (00:46:22):

When you describe The Neighborhood Network, often you use a specific word, and I love that word. It's the word 'organic'. And it's not coincidence. It's not coincidence that you use this word. It is organic. It is not a neighborhood that's artificial. It's an apartment complex that houses many people of different social layers, different persuasions, different age, different ethnicities. And these people that are part of The Neighborhood Network, they have certain needs, but they become organically part of this apartment complex, in this neighborhood. And I'll give you an example of an organic situation. I lived not far away from a Neighborhood Network, and I ended up befriending several of the individuals, semi-independent individuals there. And I watch now every Kansas City Chiefs game with them in one of those apartments. We get together, I bring snacks, they have bring drinks, and we gather together and we have deemed that apartment, "The Lucky Apartment," because the chiefs always Win.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:47:41):

Well, I was going to say this may well be the thing that causes the whole picture.

Ivo Ivanov (00:47:44):

Yes, we should be paid by the Kansas City Chiefs. We should be under contract. But some interesting things happen. First of all, I look forward every time I'm looking forward to be there and be among these wonderful neighbors of mine. They're my neighbors. And we became friends because our interests are aligned and we contribute to each other's lives. I'll give interesting example. There's one guy there that's encyclopedic about movies. He knows everything about movies. He gave me a list of favorite movies that has become our list in my family, that one by one, we watch those movies and enjoy them greatly, and he's now responsible for our entertainment and he's contributed to our happiness. And then one day another guy is encyclopedic about sports, and out of the blue we are watching the Chiefs. And he says, did you know that one time Tom Brady passed for 510 yards in a Super Bowl?

Ivo Ivanov (00:48:48):

And he lost the Super Bowl? And I was like, are you serious? And he says, yeah, I didn't double check it, but I was at a trivia game just a couple of days ago, pub trivia. And the host says, who is the quarterback that passed for 510 yards in a Super Bowl and lost? And I knew it because I was there and my friend, my neighbor at The Neighborhood Network gave me this priceless piece of trivial information. So we enrich each other's lives, we help each other. They enjoy having me over there. And I tell them stories. They tell me stories and factoids, and the Chiefs win and everybody's happy. And it's darn organic. None of it is forced.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:49:36):

Here's The Neighborhood Network, really, it was unstated, but its goal of The Neighborhood Network was to create a blue zone. And I guess it's one of those BHAGs you don't ever tell anybody about because you don't want everybody to think you're stupid. What in the heck is he doing? There's six of those things in the world. Why does he think he can make one? Right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:50:04):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:50:04):

Well, that goes back to some of the poems, or I thought I could, and why not? Why shouldn't that be the goal? And if I reach 75% of that goal or 50% of that goal, that's a heck of an achievement, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:50:20):

Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:50:20):

So The Neighborhood Network is a pursuit, a blue goal that may not be achieved, a blue zone that may not be achieved but is completely worthy, and we can make approximations to it. But there are elements of that. And over the next couple of episodes, I'm going to dive more deeper into those elements. But just at a high level, I've added some things to it and we've added some things to it. I don't want to say I have it, but you just start discovering things. And I think they'll resonate with people. Lemme give you an example. Having a sense of empowerment and control over your life. I feel like we've added some elements to the blue zone, and maybe they're a little smaller than what we've been talking about, but I think that they're additive. But I think people with intellectual disabilities and our body of work and supporting people has given us some insight to what else may be relevant. And I'll give you an example of I think empowerment. I think choice, I think self-direction being having an ability to control your life. These are things that people with independence, self-direction, empowerment, controlling your life, personal safety. I've locked onto those as core elements of privacy, the ability, all of those things are really important components of a blue zone. I think they're beyond the diet, they're beyond the social interactions. There’s more. There's more. And the discovery of that is because you see people, I go back to institutional care. I go to assisted living for seniors. I go to some of the things that I really don't want to be in.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:52:32):

I mean, I don't want to be in this as I age. I don't want to live my life in assisted living. I don't want to. If I was a person with a disability, intellectual disability, I would not want to live in an institution. There's nothing positive about that.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:52:52):

So not only looking at what you want, a blue zone, but what you don't want, and why don't I want that? As a behavioral analyst? And when you're looking at how to be creative, you have to look at what you want. What's that big hairy audacious goal out there that you really want? And then what do you not want? That can somehow be equally important because it gives you insight. And that's where I was going with that, is the whole list of specifications is what is it that's so cool about a blue zone that makes that a great place to live? But what are some of the elements of some of the things that you wouldn't want to be that has taught us a lesson that we need to not do or we'd like to. They restrict things. So when you move from your own home into assisted living, you lose a lot of independence. And it isn't because you lose your skill, you lose your ability to practice it. You don't cook your meals maybe anymore. They're so inundated by risk, by people falling or by people not succeeding or that they limit what you can do. They focus completely on protecting your personal safety. So when you live on your own, there's a little bit of risk in some of the stuff that you do daily. You have to practice all the skills that you need to live. I mean, you have to do them all.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:54:35):

And so we're trading, somebody might be, I always say this to people: my mother and father were 75% independent. They couldn't do 25% of the things they needed. And the problem was those 25% of the things they needed, each of them, maybe between the two of 'em, that 25% gap was lower to 10% because they had offsetting skills so they could help each other. Right? Well, that's pretty cool idea is to know that, okay, roommates can kind of help each other. And so maybe if you're 20%, 80% independence, both maybe can lower that to 10%. If you guys have offsetting abilities, you could architect that a little bit as a care architect, for example. But all of those kinds of things mean that look, those 10%, the biggest problem is those 10% of the things that's left were intermittent and unpredictable. And so my parents had to trade 90% independence for a hundred percent care. And as a country, we can't afford that. We don't have–we will talk later–we don't have the staffing resources to keep trading 90% independence for a hundred percent care, right? So I wanted not only this Neighborhood Network to look at all these traits, but you first start by trying to define what are those elements of a Neighborhood Network when you want to be there for the people that live there. And that's where we said the spirituality, the diet, the exercise, all that list, we probably should specify that, just share what our body of knowledge is of what we want.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:56:28):

But we also want them to have opportunities to be lifelong learners. We don't want them to be restricted on their independence. We don't want to do for them. We want them to do as much of it as they can because that gives them independence and purpose and that, we want them to be able to control their life. So that's where self-direction came in. We want them to be able to only get the help that they need, that they don't have. So, all of that became that. But then I got to thinking about a Neighborhood Network, and the other part of it is, who's going to help each other? Well, one level of it is you want all the people in the neighborhood to help each other. So the seniors can help. You want people to volunteer and contribute and get support, but at the end of the day, you might need professional help too, right?

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:57:33):

So, we have this national crisis of caregivers, and I got to thinking, it was like, well, why is it a national crisis? Well, number one, the way they designed the job is a pretty crappy design of a job. I will tell you, that we’ll spend some episodes on the WHY it's so bad. It is not designed to be a good job, and it could be a lot better job. But at the same time, it's like, wait a second. If we want a good life for people with intellectual disabilities and all the other members of the neighborhood who have needs, we want a good life for everybody. Why in the heck don’t we want a good life for the people that are supporting them, too? Why aren't they part of this discussion? And again, it kind of goes back to this idea that you do individual planning only from the perspective of the person-served without regard to the fact that somebody's got to help them. And you got to have a win-win relationship. I mean, Dr. Sherman, my mentor for life, professor at the University of Kansas who just recently left us, a giant in our field, he always talked about dance partners, right?

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:58:52):

And so

Ivo Ivanov (00:58:53):

Durable dance partners,

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:58:54):

Durable dance partners. And so the point behind all of that is, if you're going to design an ecosystem of care, you can't leave out the people who are delivering care. And it's not just like job amenities. They ought to be part of the neighborhood, too. Why wouldn't they live in the same neighborhood? Why wouldn't we want them to live in a blue zone?

Ivo Ivanov (00:59:16):

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:59:17):

You get it?

Ivo Ivanov (00:59:18):

Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Mike Strouse (00:59:18):

So the concept behind The Neighborhood Network is not just a care ecosystem. It's a place to live where you can get care. And it's not a facility. It is a real place, a normal, real place that you can get care. And the people who are delivering the care and the people who are getting the care, sometimes they're the same people because the people getting care will deliver care. And that's the give and take and the purpose that they have. But also the professional caregivers, the people who support people, the paid people, that are supporting people, are living in the same neighborhood and they're part of a good life too.

Ivo Ivanov (01:00:05):

Absolutely. Absolutely. We have so much to talk about in future episodes.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:00:09):

It's going to be a lot because we're going to be talking about how that works. We're going to be talk about how we get connected. We're going to be talking about where technology comes into all of that. Because the reality is, our goals, well-stated, are creating blue zones where people can have more self-direction and control of their lives and choices and enriched lives. We want them to have a good life in that neighborhood where they can get the support that they need. They can give support. And when they get care, is literally going to be an organic amenity of the neighborhood where people are just cultivated to live a better life.

Ivo Ivanov (01:01:01):

Excellent.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:01:02):

And that's not how we deliver care right now as a country, and I'll say this before we go. The world has stopped sending people to stores. You don't go to a store anymore, or not very much. Amazon brings goods and services to a person. We don't have Blockbusters anymore. We're sending movies to people on demand, right? The world has closed the store. We don't send people to caregiving stores. That means we don't send them to the group homes.

Ivo Ivanov (01:01:42):

Or institutions.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:01:43):

Institutions or facilities. The whole idea is in an organic place that they can get care in a typical community, and that starts with the ecosystem, not the individual.

Ivo Ivanov (01:01:59):

Excellent.

Dr. Mike Strouse (01:01:59):

So we'll talk about that next.

Ivo Ivanov (01:02:01):

Yeah, we have a lot to look forward to. In conclusion, drink a little wine, write poetry, wrestle bears, make honey, create your own Blue Zone. Live to be a hundred, search for The GoodLife. This was The Quest for the GoodLife with Dr. Mike Strouse. Today's episode was produced by Megan Olafson and recorded at The Good Life University Studios, sound editing and sound engineering, or provided by me, your co-host with the co-most, Ivo Ivanov. Please feel free to contact us, ask questions, or simply vent your frustration at www.mygoodlife.org. Together we thank you for listening and promise you that the Quest for the GoodLife will continue next week.