I was not always the guy talking about healthspan.

I was about thirty pounds overweight and dealt with constant heartburn. I had a reason for every delay. Work was busy, the boys had practice, and next month looked calmer than this one. It never was.

At a town hall in Irvine, someone said a line I could not shake: if your cup is not overflowing, it is hard to pour into others. I had spent a decade pouring into other people and had let my own cup run low enough that I was not much use to anyone.

In 2013 I had an endoscopy at UCLA. Lying there afterwards, it hit me that every question I had asked for years was some version of what medication should I take. I had never once asked why this was happening to me in the first place. That was the day I stopped being a passive patient.

Before any of this I taught for ten years at a middle school in Anaheim, woodshop, computer technology, and student government. Then I moved into education technology, building tools that helped schools run better. Both jobs were the same job underneath: take something complicated and make it usable by a regular person.

For the last fifteen years I have read the research, earned certifications, and sat in conference rooms listening to people far smarter than me. Not to become a scientist. To become a translator.

I live in California with my wife and our three boys. They are the reason the whole thing has a deadline. Health is not an abstract project when the people you love are counting on you to still be here, and still be capable.