When Mao Shing Ni was 6 years old, he fell from the rooftop of his family’s three-story home in Taiwan, slipping into a month-long coma and suffering a spinal cord injury and brain damage. Doctors warned his family that he would either spend his life in a vegetative state or in a wheelchair.
Neither prediction came true, thanks largely to his father, a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) doctor, who treated him daily with acupuncture, bitter herbal teas and patient rehabilitation.
“Chinese medicine saved my life,” he says. “And that had a huge impact on me when it came time to choose my path.”
Ni chose to follow his ancestors into the family profession of TCM, making him the 38th generation of his family to do so.
“I was inspired to be able to offer hope to patients who otherwise would not have any,” he says. Chinese medicine is very different from Western medicine “in that we believe the body possesses natural healing capabilities,” he explains. “Our job as doctors is to awaken that healing capability, and then to guide it. So, our work really is about empowering patients’ innate healing capabilities.”
A wellness prescription
For the past 40 years, that has been his calling: guiding patients back to health — and restoring hope when it’s in short supply.
Known as “Dr. Mao” to his patients and staff, Ni has carried out that mission in many roles — as a practitioner at his clinic, Tao of Wellness in Santa Monica, California, USA; as past president of Yo San University, the institution named for his grandfather; as the author of multiple bestselling books on health and wellness, including the popular “Secrets of Longevity” in 22 languages; and as a nationally recognized voice on longevity. Across each platform, his focus remains the same — helping people live better — not just longer.
— Mao Shing Ni, traditional Chinese medicine practitioner share
In March, the YPO member will visit Bangkok to accept his Best of the Best Award for his YPO chapter and to participate in a YPO Thought Leadership Advisors (TLA) panel. He will discuss how to extend life, drawing on practical wisdom from four decades at the forefront of integrative medicine and longevity science. He will join other leading experts offering deep insights into wellness best practices, shared exclusively for chief executives on YPO’s video platform, The Source.
“Ultimately, everyone’s looking for longevity — better quality of life, for sure, and living as long as you can, of course,” he says.
Lead your health team
Ni urges leaders to take charge of — and not outsource — their health.
“A lot of people surrender their health care and their health to the doctors,” he says. “But that’s not how it should be. This is your life. Nobody knows your health better than you.”
It’s clear to Ni that longevity is a leadership skill — one that CEOs must prioritize.
“Of course, get the best doctors on your team, but who’s driving the team? You are,” he says.
For lasting vitality, Ni outlines a four-point longevity playbook with simple, actionable steps focused on the “tried and true,” not the latest trends, to guide leaders to reclaim their health and sustain it long term.
Step 1: Eat less, live longer.
It’s his first and most important principle. “Because we’re well off, we can afford to go to a steakhouse and eat a 16-ounce porterhouse steak,” he says. “But the question is, should you?”
To help people eat healthier, Ni authored a bestselling cookbook, “Dr. Mao’s Secrets of Longevity Cookbook: Eat to Thrive, Live Long, and Be Healthy,” where he interviewed centenarians around the world, gathering their favorite recipes and their top habits for good health.
Step 2: Move regularly. Movement is medicine.
In Chinese medicine, the concept of energy is central to how the body functions and heals. “Energy carries all the signals throughout the body,” he says.
Blood follows qi — the life force or energy — making circulation essential for delivering nutrients and oxygen while removing waste products. Regular movement, therefore, becomes critical to health. Regular is the key word here. Going to the gym first thing in the morning and then sitting for eight hours undermines the benefits of exercise.
“Sitting for eight hours is as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes,” he says.
If you sit at a desk for most of your day, Ni recommends standing and moving every hour. He advises short walks, doing 10 squats or even jumping rope. It doesn’t have to be intense to keep energy and blood flowing consistently throughout the day.
“I’ve met centenarians around the world who’ve never gone to the gym,” he says. “How do they live to be 100? They walk everywhere.”
Step 3: Reduce stress. Stress ages us faster than time.
Ni calls stress a “silent killer,” connecting chronic stress to cortisol, inflammation and accelerated aging. And the reality is, chief executives live in a world of constant demands and urgent needs, keeping their bodies in constant survival mode, with adrenaline and cortisol pumping.
He urges leaders to listen to their body and create moments to reduce stress, like with meditation, breath work or reflective journaling.
“I look at peace as a health strategy,” Ni says.
To find that peace, leaders must regulate their nervous system because, he explains, “If you don’t, it will regulate you and cause all kinds of functions to malfunction.”
As a YPO certified forum facilitator, Ni reminds his CEO peers of the simple forum best practice — starting every meeting with a centering exercise, like a breathing practice or visualization. And those moments of peace “change you and everyone.”
His hope is that the leaders continue to use those techniques every day in their life so that they can speak and act from a place of clarity, not emotionality.
Step 4: Treat longevity as legacy.
“It’s not what you build. It’s the life force that built it,” he says, adding, “It’s your life force that allows you to continue to build.”
Leaders need to eliminate what is extraneous and draining in their lives, so they can live a focused, purpose-filled life. Doing more just to accumulate more is not a path to longevity.
Ni says, leaders need to ask themselves: Is it worth it — exchanging my life force for wealth? “Because on every deathbed, no one will say, ‘I regret not spending more time to make more money,’” he says.
The answer
For Ni, the answer to longevity is following the path of simplicity. He watched the habits and studied the choices of over 100 centenarians and found it’s not money giving them this longevity — it’s the simplicity they choose for their lives. Simple but nourishing foods. Movement. Peace. Legacy.
“They are vital. They are healthy,” he says. “And they can still dispense wisdom and advice with clarity.”
It’s really this simple. “Longevity requires no fancy things,” Ni says.
