How can the average American add a dozen quality years to their life – without a fad diet, a gym membership, or a single supplement? In this signature keynote, Dan Buettner shares discoveries from two decades of National Geographic-funded research into the world’s five Blue Zones: Okinawa (Japan), Sardinia (Italy), Nicoya (Costa Rica), Ikaria (Greece), and Loma Linda (California). These are the only places on earth where people routinely reach 100 still healthy, mobile, and happy – and the patterns repeat across radically different cultures.

Dan walks audiences through the ‘Power 9’ lifestyle behaviors common to all five regions: how the world’s longest-lived people eat (mostly plants, with beans as the cornerstone of every diet), how they move (naturally, all day long, not in 45-minute gym blocks), how they manage stress through daily rituals, why they keep purpose alive into their 90s and beyond, and how their tight, multi-generational social circles literally extend life expectancy by years.

He debunks the most common longevity myths – the genetics myth, the supplement myth, the 10,000-steps myth – and separates real, peer-reviewed science from wellness marketing. Drawing on stunning National Geographic photography and intimate stories of the centenarians he has interviewed in person, Dan delivers a science-backed blueprint any audience member can put to work the next morning.

Audiences leave with a personal, prioritized longevity plan, a clear understanding of which interventions actually move the needle on health and lifespan, and a renewed sense of agency over their own aging. Ideal for healthcare conferences, insurer summits, retirement-planning audiences, employee wellness events, financial-services associations, and any organization where the audience’s health, longevity, or healthcare costs are at stake.

Most of us are chasing the wrong definition of happiness – and chasing it the wrong way. Working in partnership with Gallup and drawing on survey data covering 95% of the global population, Dan identified the world’s happiest places – Costa Rica, Denmark, and Singapore – and distilled their secrets into a research-backed framework for living a more fulfilling life that holds up across cultures, income brackets, and life stages.

In this keynote, built from his book The Blue Zones of Happiness, Dan explores the three dimensions of true well-being: how we evaluate our life as a whole (life satisfaction), how we experience it day to day (positive affect), and how we connect with deeper purpose (meaning and engagement). He explains why income, fame, and even health have surprisingly small effects on happiness once basic needs are met – and what the world’s happiest people are actually doing differently.

With breathtaking National Geographic photography and case studies from each happiness Blue Zone, Dan offers concrete environmental, social, and financial design choices that audiences can apply at work, at home, and in their communities. He shares the data-backed ‘happiness multipliers’ (movement, social bonds, financial security, sense of purpose) that compound over decades, and points to the small, repeatable choices that drive the largest measurable lifts in well-being.

Audiences walk away with a practical happiness blueprint, a renewed framework for measuring success, and stories they will retell for years. Perfect for company kickoffs, culture and leadership events, association meetings, executive offsites, and audiences ready to redefine what success and happiness really mean – at scale and across generations.

In 2009, the small city of Albert Lea, Minnesota completed a one-year Blue Zones Project that raised average life expectancy by three years, collectively shed 12,000 pounds of body weight, and reduced city-worker healthcare costs by 40% – outcomes Harvard’s Dr. Walter Willett called ‘stunning,’ and outcomes that have been sustained for more than a decade. Since then, Blue Zones Projects have transformed 70+ communities and improved the health of more than 5 million Americans, with results published in peer-reviewed journals and featured by The New York Times, The Atlantic, and CNN.

In this keynote, Dan shares the playbook: how to redesign environments, public policies, and social networks so that the healthy choice becomes the easy choice – at scale. He breaks down the specific interventions that drove the most measurable health and economic gains: walkability and transit redesign, food-system shifts, workplace culture changes, smoking and alcohol policy, social-network reinforcement (the original ‘moai’ concept), and purpose-and-volunteering programs that compound over years.

Dan gives mayors, employers, insurers, and policy leaders a concrete, evidence-backed blueprint for replicating these results in their own cities, campuses, and workforces, with case studies from Beach Cities California, Fort Worth Texas, the State of Hawaii, and corporate clients including major employers and health systems. He also addresses cost containment, employer return on investment, and the political headwinds that derail otherwise well intentioned community programs. Each case study includes the interventions deployed, the timeline, and the measurable health and dollar outcomes the client actually realized in the first three years.

Best for municipal leadership events, employer-coalition meetings, public-health and benefits conferences, and any organization investing seriously in population health, total well-being, or workforce productivity at the community or enterprise scale. Especially valuable for cities and employers piloting their first systemic intervention and looking to model the rollout after proven precedent.