Bio Optimized Leadership with Ines Oliete
[00:00:00] Today we're diving into the cutting edge world of biological age and why it might just be the ultimate competitive advantage for founders and business leaders.
I'm joined by Ines Oliete, also known as the Ageless Futurist who shares how optimizing your biology can help you avoid burnout, boost your energy, and stay mentally sharp well into the future. You'll walk away with practical science-backed tips to start feeling and performing more vitally as well as a new perspective on how your own vitality could be the key to sustained business success.
Aicila: welcome. Ines o' Donovan, PhD and the
founder and Main Forest behind Genea Magazine.
Ines: So good being here, I'm very much looking forward to.
Aicila: Me too. We had a great chat. , Is a longevity scientist, a leadership strategist, and she created something called the bio Optimized Leadership framework. And her mission is to help founders and business leaders slow [00:01:00] their biological aging so they can perform at their best longer. And Ines challenges the myth that burnout, brain fog or energy crashes are just part of success, they're part of a sugar eating, but that's a different podcast. They are not a part of success. They are actually a sign or they're often signs of accelerated aging and they're reversible. So we're gonna talk about all of that and probably a couple of other things.
So welcome to the show.
Ines: Yeah, let's dive in because there's so much to talk about.
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: Topic and something that's completely underappreciated by people,
Aicila: Yes.
Ines: entrepreneurs and business leaders.
Aicila: Well, and so one thing that, Ines, and I talked about prior to this conversation that we're having with you all is there's a, there's a little sci-fi feeling to this idea. What do you mean biological aging? So you have a lot of data and experience that you've sort of [00:02:00] brought to this.
And we don't have to start with that. We can also start with a story, but I, I definitely wanna dig into that so people have some sense of this this isn't, somebody who's promising that you're never gonna have wrinkles or that you're gonna live to be 600 years old like this this is not that game.
This is about feeling and being vital in your life as opposed to that, that tired, drained feeling and understanding there's a biological component to it.
Ines: Yeah, The thing is that you know, as we, as I was saying, most people underappreciate the importance of the biological age and kind of, we can dive a little bit in a moment into kind of what that actually means. but. A lot of entrepreneurs, business owners, et cetera, they measure a lot of key performance indicators that relate to the business, but they completely forget that [00:03:00] their own biology is what it, what drives it.
I mean, just everything
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: you know, like you have, for instance like an entrepreneur who is 60, and just if you think about the people around you. people who are 60, they have loads of energy, they
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: sharp, they really get a lot of stuff done in a short time.
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: then you have somebody who's chronologically so based on the birth certificate, the same age. it's like they're dragging their feet. They just, you know, like they don't feel great in their body. They have a bad mood, they don't get stuff done. They have brain fog. They don't enjoy life either.
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: in a way that's really an indicator of biological age. So, so what is it? age? And there are loads of different ways to measure it.
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: end of the day is like, how old is your body? Truly, [00:04:00] how old are your cells?
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: If you are biologically younger, like if your cells are younger, at the end of the day, then you will also be behaving in a very different way. You will be experienced life in a different way. You will be doing things very, very differently, but just. I think also a lot more fun.
Aicila: Yeah. Mm-hmm. No, I think that, and that does it, is something we can experience and that those folks that we know of in my own family, you know, my dad is still going strong and I definitely wanna be more like him, right? So. Let's talk about, do you, we, you, we've talked about this a little bit. Do you have an anecdote or a case study or a story you could share to give people sort of a sense of how this shows up for, for folks that you work with?
Or if you wanna talk about how you discovered it, what feels most [00:05:00] interesting to you?
Ines: Lemme tell you one story in the moment. But I think the way I discovered it just briefly by, I have been involved in wellness in the way since I've been a little girl. Like I
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: out collecting plans with my mom, you know, and drying them, using them and finding out from people what it is that kind of makes them look younger, feel younger.
To be honest, I'm not so much focused on the, as you said early on, like not so much focused on the how we look like. This will improve if we are better, if ourselves are younger. But at the end of the day, it's not about the wrinkles, it's really about the feeling. And as I was progressing through life and Muslim had some type of wellness business, was really wondering, you know, how would it change over time? My mom, you know, like she already, before I turned 30, she was like, oh, wait until you turn [00:06:00] 30. Things will change and things will be a lot worse when your body and stuff like that. It's like,
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: And before I turned turned 40, it's like my mom again. You know? Oh my God. This is a really heavy age and really you will truly feel all the differences. And your body won't do what you want it to do anymore. Because I was heavily involved in the whole bio as I call it, bi bios already at that stage, I was like, no, I'll show you that this doesn't have to be the case.
Aicila: Right.
Ines: So, and again, I showed and my mother didn't say it anymore before I turned 50, so she gave up on that because. that time, I had already convinced them that I wanna live 250 in good shape
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: it's not possible at the moment, but there's a lot of research going on, and if I don't do anything for myself now, then I definitely will [00:07:00] not achieve that and I won't be as well. So it's really question of the earlier, we can start the better days, but it's. But let me come to the story. So like, I had a, a coaching client who was coaching for one year an executive woman. She had left her corporate job in order to create her own business. So she wanted to do web design and she wanted to also focus a time on basically helping a lot of nonprofit organizations. So she was almost 60 and she was in pretty good shape,
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: but she was like, you know what? It's kind of like I don't have as much energy anymore
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: I want that energy back. Plus my eyes are killing me. They're so dry. It's like the scent paper.
Aicila: Hmm.
Ines: As we were working basically for a whole year, but already after a few months, all that [00:08:00] changed. So suddenly she was like. Hmm, I have so much more energy. This is really good. You know, I can get all those clients because it's not a problem and I'm not you know, hesitating to reach out because I know I can do all those things now again. And and then while later, a few months later, she went to her eye doctor, and the eye doctor was saying, what did you do?
I've never seen this before.
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: I thought, fine. there's no problem. I can't detect any issues. And she's like, yeah, I kind of, basically, I've been coaching Xena and so we have, we have very significantly reduced her biological age. We weren't measuring biological age as such. But just the effect it had kind of very clearly shows that plus kind of as an, an anecdote she shared.
And that's is one of the reasons why I won't share her name.
Aicila: Right.
Ines: she [00:09:00] basically, she was telling me that like, you know, her pubic hair, et cetera was all gray and suddenly it was all back to black. So.
Aicila: Oh, wow.
Ines: It's not, it's not something that's happening for everybody. Like
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: do anything about my own gray hair. It's color it, unfortunately. So, know, it doesn't work for everybody. But there's an awful lot we can do. And just seeing those changes from having no energy, from having problems with the eyes and for a lot of other people, it's, you know, it's like, it's, it's the mood, it's brain fog. It's, creativity, for instance, it's making decisions with ease, sleeping well. There's so many things that being biologically younger improves that. I think we all should do that and it should. I had to, a while ago, I had actually a post out on LinkedIn where I said [00:10:00] that the future, maybe we don't have. Whatever, CEO of whatever company, maybe we actually mention our biologic age.
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: That would be pretty interesting. I mean, obviously it's prerogative, so you know,
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: don't think anybody will actually do it like not in the title anyway, but I think it's it's something to really focus on.
Aicila: Yeah, that makes sense. And that, and understanding that vitality.
Ines: Yeah. And it's, it's also if you, if you look as a futurist, I of course look into the future
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: and you see what's going on right now, all the technology that's developing, it's
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: know, like. As we age, if we don't do anything for our biological age, one of the things that also happens is that we tend to learn less. We are less interested in learning new things, [00:11:00] and we might not be able to go and, and take all, get all the benefits out of the, what we will be seeing in the future. So we really need to actually do something about it. And yeah,
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: I really talking about biological age is your competitive advantage.
It is your superpower.
Aicila: Right. Do you have a couple tips? So if I'm listening to this podcast and I'm curious or skeptical about what this whole biological age thing is, is there something I can do that I'm gonna see a difference or an impact or, or that you could share with the listeners?
Ines: There are a lot of things actually.
Aicila: Okay.
Ines: You were earlier on saying something about my bio optimized leadership model that I've created. I've
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: A few years ago and have only started now to share that more with the world [00:12:00] because I'm, I seem to be the only person at the moment who's really talking about that.
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: what it does is linking typical leader and entrepreneurial lifestyles weighs the biological aging and the impact it has on the individual success. But also the success of the company. coming back to your question about what are some of the tips, a lot of that relates back to that. So for instance, if you look at sleep, I am a strong believer that sleep really is probably the top one thing you need to optimize.
Aicila: Hmm.
Ines: If you look at some of the basically literature if you want, at some of the research, I think it's something like 42% or something like that of entrepreneurs who sleep less than six hours a night. [00:13:00] Just
Aicila: Hmm.
Ines: that does to your, to your brain, to your mind. It's like when we get proper sleep. Good sleep, then we actually kinda consolidate our memories. So it helps us with learning, for instance. It also is pretty much the only time, or at least the most effective that our brain cleanses itself.
So like the glymphatic system. So, and if you think about things like Alzheimer's, dementia, we need that sleep. And
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: like where our sleep deteriorates. lot of women in menopause, they can sing a song, a very long song
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: having poor
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: We can do something about that. If people, like a lot of entrepreneurs, for instance, they have A-D-H-D-A-D-H-D also changes the way we sleep, which then of course again has an impact on how effective we can be. Also there are certain [00:14:00] predispositions like when you look from a genetic point of view like for instance, people who are already have like basically a genetic predisposition to get Alzheimer's, like the April E four
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: they also tend to sleep less well. So, so
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: there are a lot of things that we should look into. So I have, basically started doing some audits with people very dive into like measuring the biological age, but also looking at genetic predispositions because it's really important.
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: So because then we can adjust dosings. But even without that, are a lot of things that, like the typical sleep hygiene that we're always talking about is. Very important. And
Aicila: Right.
Ines: there are a lot of tips of course. I'm not sure if you want me to repeat a lot of stuff that's, that, you know, people already say like, sleep in the dark room, be consistent, have aine down routine. Put on [00:15:00] like blue light blocking glass in the evening, or just switch off the lights.
Don't be on your phone on or watch TV and put on some candles. It's also good, you know, for like, feeling much better.
Aicila: Huh?
Ines: so there, there are a lot of things, but there, there's a lot more that we can do.
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: So I don't know how much you want me to share.
Aicila: It was, I think, a couple of tips that, and especially things that you think are unique that, that they can kinda get a sense of what it is that you do and how it might be different or supportive just.
Ines: Yeah, of it is so. it's, it is important to understand, for instance, does somebody have a DHD is a woman in menopause. That makes a huge difference because that needs to be personalized. one thing that, for instance, like one of the people I am, I. I might still do stuffers, but like a researcher Michael Ner, he for instance, [00:16:00] suggests, and I have been doing that for a while now.
It's like when you get up in the morning, thing you wanna do is lights on full. So don't stay and snooze. No. Put the lights on and move immediately. Start moving. Ideally, you get outside into like the day, bit of daylight. So that your circadian rhythm understands, no, now sleeping is over.
This is the right time. And if you do that regularly, then in the evening, so like we have this, the melatonin in the evening and the cortisol in the morning. So in the morning it's, we will have more cortisol and it's good gets us going. And so we want that. the other side, we want the melatonin in the evening. And if you have, it tends to be that if you have higher cortisol levels, then you often have also more melatonin in the evening. So there, there seems to be a relationship. The other thing that [00:17:00] a woman that I've started doing and like, you know, like years ago, a lot of people, men and women were talking about, the intermittent fasting and that you should not eat anti mid then eat everything within a short period of time. But for instance Dr. Sims, she focuses a lot on, on women and says, you knows, like a lot of the things that we hear from all those biohacking bros. And I don't want to mention names, et cetera. It's just focused on men, which is true,
Aicila: Right.
Ines: of the research is still men for men, you know,
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: but one of the things that I've started being in menopause and I also gaining some weight. I'm not too bad in comparison to others, but still, you know, I've been gaining weight and something I've been trying now for two months or so is. the first 20 to 30 minutes in the morning actually eat something. So, because that [00:18:00] actually lowers the cortisol a bit. So like, you know, if, if women have too much of cortisol you know, we don't want that to go into all our fat cells and stay there.
Aicila: Right. Right. And so that, that makes sense. You wanna personalize it. You wanna understand your biology, both your own personal and then also where you're at in your
Ines: Yeah.
Aicila: life cycles and all of that. What does success look like for you?
Ines: Well, there, there are lot, so there are a lot of more tips. You know, this was just sleep. You know,
Aicila: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Ines: like a few, you know, there are things like stress that's
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: again. It's also partially related to, for instance, you can gain a lot of weight by being stressed. So, but a little bit of stress is good, so we need to be at our best. But again, a lot of people are stressed and they don't realize that this is actually creating, for instance, more inflammation in your body [00:19:00] and it's
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: the biological aging. And kind of both together, then actually lower your capacity to be at your best for yourself and, and also for your business.
Aicila: Right.
Ines: So, so there's a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff that I can say like, so I, I have been my best difference, if you want biological age to chronological age was 31 years difference. I had
Aicila: Hmm.
Ines: hit per manno posts menopause. Now it's only 16, which still for a lot of people is like, That's a lot.
That's really, really good. Being biologically 16 years younger than your chronological age,
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: it makes a big difference. It's like being, being like a few, I'm not 60 yet, but so for me right now, that means I am. Working, I'm operating a level of somebody who's 37 in
Aicila: Mm-hmm.[00:20:00]
Ines: to of others who are operating at a level of 53.
Aicila: Right.
Ines: And it show, well, it shows I think I chose but I can also feel it and I get a lot more stuff done than others. And so part is that the sleep is the stress and there are also a lot of other things. So kinda maybe one thing that I also think is interesting in relation to sleep. For instance, there were studies where they looked at some young people and,
Aicila: Hmm.
Ines: just one night of no sleep age, their brain by one to two years, which was massive.
And they were young. I also, it's kind of like things get, tend to still get worse as we get older. but so it can be reversed. But a lot of entrepreneurs business people, they have [00:21:00] too little sleep, as I said earlier on. They're actually having several overnighters. So just imagine what that is doing,
Aicila: Right.
Ines: you know? There's a lot of that, that type of stuff.
Aicila: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I know. I feel that.
Ines: you know, don't lemme even start about energy. I know that you talk also about energy management,
Aicila: Mm-hmm. Yes.
Ines: it's not about time management. I'm, I'm sure we agree. You know, it is about what. How much energy does your body have? You know, like
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: you know, it's like, it's those power cells or the power factories if you want in your cells that help you to have that energy. But as you
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: they tend to get worse. So we need to do something about that. Yeah, so there's, there's a lot of stuff.
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: But to come back to your question about what I think it was like,
Aicila: What does success look like for you?
Ines: yeah, what [00:22:00] does success look like for me? So for me, I'm always super happy when I can help somebody to be biologically younger and to actually see the difference it makes to their life. And, and also to their business. It's just amazing
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: you know, like with a lady that I helped that I, the story I shared, if you see somebody going from, can often see it in the body, you know, from like being like over slugging. Sometimes not even being able to really get thoughts out in a clear way, think straight, to be creative, to suddenly somebody who has lots of energy, they wanna do stuff, they want to be out and about, they want to explore new things.
So for me, that, that
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: And so for me, success is, [00:23:00] is part of that. But also I want to get my bio optimized leadership model out into the world because I believe it's so important for, for everybody to be honest. It, you know, like it's, I believe for instance, that every entrepreneur, every company, should help their employees to be at their biological best.
Aicila: Right.
Ines: You know, like, like just look into the future, like the trend is that our populations are getting older. We will
Aicila: Right.
Ines: longer. So, which also means we will need to work longer because somehow, somewhere the money needs to come from, you know, that we use in our daily living.
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: so we will all live longer, work longer.
Aicila: Right.
Ines: understand the organizations who. A let go of people who are, for instance, 50 and beyond[00:24:00]
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: think they're too old. It is actually an amazing time if they can help them to be biologically younger. So I've, I've coined the term wisdom age, and what it means is as we go through our life, we make a lot of experiences, we gain a lot of knowledge and. If you're biologically younger, then we can actually, especially as we get into our fifties, sixties, et cetera, can make connections that people in their twenties, thirties cannot make because they have not made those experiences. And if you combine that with all the learning that we can do, all the openness to things, the creativity, et cetera, et cetera. This is the prime time when we are at our very best. Organizations [00:25:00] should be doing something for the biological age then actually keep those people they will have to in the future anyway, so why not start it and actually be seen as a company that is ahead of the curve.
Aicila: Right. No, it makes sense. And, and the, I. The, the, that you get the advantage of expertise. And if somebody is still learning and curious, you, you also get that that built upon by them constantly seeking to understand whatever the new thing is or their trends. And so you get both the, the balance of both pieces.
Ines: it's, and it, it's, you get the best of both worlds,
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: you kind of, you have a double advantage.
Aicila: Exactly. What about or, so my, one of my favorite questions to ask now is what advice would you give your 18-year-old self?
Ines: Hmm. [00:26:00] I would definitely tell my 18 years of, I kind of did it for myself, so I probably wouldn't change that much for me, but I.
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: I think that the awareness, like I would say to like my 18-year-old self, okay. Be aware that what you do now will help you in the future. We too often ignore. How we deteriorate over time.
We try, we, we ignored it. You know, it's like, oh,
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: like at 18 aging, who cares? You know, I'm good. My body is amazing. I feel cool. It's like, what are you saying?
Aicila: All right. Mm-hmm.
Ines: I think it's really, if, if you can start there and it's not about doing anything difficult or challenging or. These are, it's just simply looking after ourselves a little bit better so that if we can keep the best body and kind again looking at the future and [00:27:00] all the research that's happening,
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: could potentially mean even as though you were saying at the beginning, it's not about living 600 years, but who
Aicila: Right.
Ines: knows?
With everything that's happening for somebody who's 18 now,
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: a far longer life than we do. And they will have far more opportunities to do something than we had. So definitely look after yourself.
Aicila: Right. That's a good advice at any age, what is something you're planning? In your business, do you have any events coming up?
Ines: Yeah, so, so there, there are a few things on one side. The next national magazine should be coming out. So, it should opening out in about like in the summer, and that will be all about nutrition.
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: So there will be a lot of interesting things that people can learn about that they might not have heard before.
And [00:28:00] then in autumn, we are actually planning an event all around sleep.
Aicila: Oh,
Ines: So
Aicila: lovely. Mm-hmm.
Ines: there are a lot of things that people don't know. You know, instance, like as I was saying early on, the relationship with A DHD, the relationship with somebody who has OAOE four like a predisposition for Alzheimer's dementia,
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: of hormonal relationships.
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: So much that we don't tend to know. So, and this event will be, the idea is to have super short sessions so that there's no fluff. a lot of people, you know, there's like, there's a lot of fluff and it's like, blah, blah, blah. Until they come potentially to a point, no. We want to really make it short and like, okay, you take away exactly what's going on for you right now.
What can you do that,
Aicila: Yeah.
Ines: And also, I'm, I'm working on and I actually, the, the [00:29:00] website is, the web page is there for the wait list so people can already get on the wait list for the Longevity Club for entrepreneurs and business leaders.
Aicila: Lovely.
Ines: again, I want to help them to be at their very best.
Aicila: Mm-hmm. It, it is a, that vitality is, is so, is so rejuvenating it for folks that are listening, how do they learn more, follow you, get in touch? What's the best way for them to do that? And I do have a list of links that I'll put in the show notes. However, if you have something specific you wanna direct them to.
Ines: I think and to, so I've specifically actually for your listeners,
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: developed what I call the biological edge calculator. So it's, basically it's, it's 14 questions only, but we actually look at the sleep, at the energy, we look at recovery. We look at the physical side, the, like, the brain, the cognition, the cognitive function, nutrition, menopause, a d, adhd.
So [00:30:00] even though it's just 14 questions at actually gives an idea if somebody is. younger or older. And by how much? Like,
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: just to give you a number for, for entrepreneurs for instance, most entrepreneurs, or founders are biologically 15 years older than they're chronological age.
Aicila: Hmm.
Ines: So I think it's super important to understand that and then to also see, okay, here's some quick tips. So we like. Some less than five minute tips or actually might save time to all the way to for people who really understand that and want to do something about their biological age. I have also some audits that they can access later on if they
Aicila: Mm-hmm.
Ines: if they find that they're biologically older. So.
Aicila: That's great. Thank you so much for that. Thank you so much for talking [00:31:00] to me today and sharing what you're up to and the impact that you can have if you take some time to consider how to be vital as opposed to simply looking at a birth certificate.
Ines: Yeah, definitely make your biological age your superpower.
Aicila: It's fantastic. Thank you so much. And I'll see you guys
Aicila (2): next week when we talk to Shez Mahara, who will be talking to us about audio design and the impact that that can have on your brand.
Thank you for tuning into business as unusual, remember, in this ever evolving world of modern business, it's not about fitting in.
It's about standing out. See you next time. Stay curious, stay innovative, and always keep it unusual.
