Dan Buettner is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Blue Zones and the New York Times best-selling author of “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest.” Dan is an internationally recognized explorer, educator, public speaker and co-producer of an Emmy Award-winning travel documentary. Dan has appeared as a longevity expert on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, The Today Show, ABC World News, CBS’s The Early Show and CNN.
In 2004, Dan Buettner teamed up with National Geographic and the world’s best longevity researchers to identify pockets around the world where people live measurably longer better. In these “Blue Zones” they found that people reach age 100 at rates 10 times greater than in the United States.
After identifying 5 of the world’s Blue Zones, Dan and National Geographic took teams of scientists to each location to identify lifestyle characteristics that might explain longevity. They found that the lifestyles of all Blue Zones residents shared nine specific characteristics. They call these characteristics the Power 9®.
Dan’s subsequent book The Blue Zones hit the New York Times best-seller list and took Dan everywhere from Oprah to TED to Bill Clinton’s Health Matters Initiative. The success prompted a new challenge: could we improve health and longevity in the US?
In 2009 we partnered with AARP and the United Health Foundation to apply the Power 9 principles to Albert Lea, MN. It worked: after just one year, participants added an estimated 2.9 years to their average lifespan while healthcare claims for city worker dropped 49%. Harvard’s Walter Willett called the results ‘stunning’.
They are now building Blue Zones in cities and businesses across the country.
- Blue Zones: Secrets of a Long Life
- Thrive: Unlocking the Secrets of Happiness
- The Making of a Healthy City
“With 98.6% of attendees rating him “Excellent”, Dan was our best speaker ever.”
Employers Health
Dan did such a stellar job at our conference. We have no idea how we’ll fill his shoes the next time we put on this event.”
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota
You blessed so many of our clients and staff alike! Thank you so much for joining us at MasterMind Summit 2013.”
Brian Buffini, Buffini & Company
He was just brilliant! Our attendees gave Dan a much-deserved standing ovation and were left buzzing about his work long after his talk.”
Positive Psychology Center University of Pennsylvania
Dan was one of the highlights at our quarterly company meeting. Employees described him as ‘eye opening’ and awesome!”
Tony Hsieh, Zappos.com
On behalf of Sterling-Rice Group, I wanted thank you and the Blue Zones organization for making the trip to SRG and Boulder yesterday. Our group was very excited about your talk; folks were buzzing about it all day. And a few of us were especially impressed with your suburb presentation skills (one person exclaimed, “ He never looked at any notes!”) I’ll be sharing a summery with our entire organization so we can all get inspired to move more, find time to commune with friends and nature, drink wine and also get more sleep!
It was a delight meeting you — may we all be so active and energetic in our retirement! If you find yourself back in Boulder, do not hesitate to check in and say hello and get some good restaurant recommendations!
A partial list of Blue Zone’s clients
- Allianz
- Ameriprise
- General Mills
- Healthways
- Target
- Clinton Global Initiative
- Capital BlueCross
- Morgan Stanley
- World Healthcare Congress
- United Healthcare
- Northwestern Mutual
Travels From: Minnesota
City: Minneapolis
$30,001 and Up