Would You Write the Same Book in Ten Years?

Strong convictions, loosely held only works if you separate the principles that stay from the tactics that change.

The question about the book

If you rewrote your book in ten years and it came out exactly the same, would you call that consistency or a problem?

Peter Attia was asked something close to that about Outlive, and his answer was that it would worry him. Either he had gotten too rigid, or science had made no progress. That landed differently for me than it would for most readers, because Attia has been a part of my health journey and even part of why I tried rapamycin. I wrote about it in Health Journey: Healthspan, including the videos, the book, and the Sunday dose.

So I paid attention when he marked about 400 episodes in AMA #90 by walking through positions he has changed. He no longer views metformin as geroprotective for people who are already metabolically healthy. He describes growing uncertainty about rapamycin (I had to ditch it due to side effects myself), which is a strange thing to hear from the guy who pointed you at it. He has also moved away from heavy barbell squats and deadlifts, which made me smile a little, because I've started skipping deadlifts to protect my lower back. A caveat: the full episode is members-only, so you'll hit a wall if you follow it.

Why the loud pivots are harder

Notice the difference in how I handled those two. The deadlift I changed with no ceremony. The rapamycin reversal I announced in a post (in part because I had advocated for it), and I suspect that's exactly why revising it feels heavier. I think we run leadership the same way. The call you made out loud at kickoff is the hardest one to walk back, even after the evidence turns, because a pivot can read as drift (plus, no one likes being wrong). So we defend the plan well past its expiration date and I've watched that cost more than the pivot ever would have.

Principles versus tactics

What I'm taking from Attia is the structure underneath. As the episode summary describes it, the emphasis is on durable principles, strong foundations, and sustainable practices over marginal optimization. For me the principles are short: sleep, move, eat, protect your muscle, and don't hide from the numbers. Deadlifts and rapamycin are tactics. They earned their place for a season, or until they've proven something one way or another.

What to do

Hold everything loosely and you have no spine. Hold everything tightly and you stop learning. Which call are you defending right now only because you made it out loud?