Marcus Anders (76) - Lifestyle Guru and SelfProclaimed “Happy Old Fart”

When Marcus Anders retired from his office job at 75, he became one of the most prolific fitness gurus for aging people with over 23 million followers, who he dubbed his “Silver Rippers”. Around his 70th birthday, he had a revelation: “I was doing all this work, all these workouts, jumping through hoops for self optimization - I was ripped, fit, healthy by all standards. But was I happy - no! And all the Silver Rippers who were following my advice like the gospel - were they happy? I don’t think so. But they were too busy self optimizing to notice.”

Over the next 5 years, he embarked on a remarkable, highly mediatic journey to question his own assumptions and teachings. With the whole world witnessing, he went to therapy, interviewed psychologists, caregivers, aging researchers, he visited the islands of centennials where people just forget to die (Ikaria, Okinawa, Sardinia) and talked to many of his Silver Rippers.

WIthout mercy for himself, he ripped apart his own teachings and mantras. The highlight was his 2039 “Sorry I Made You Go Through This” viral video where he apologized to his followers for betraying their trust, letting them down by leading them down a path towards self improvement hell.

At the end, he performed pretty much a complete 180: he broke away from the regime of workouts, ambition, self-obsession and self-optimization, and instead started focusing on how to be happy at old age: self care, caring for others, having a healthy social life, pampering yourself and your loved ones, enjoying the big and the little things.

His remarkable transformation, combined with his motivational coaching style made Marcus more successful than ever. Last week, he cracked the milestone of 40 million followers – which he now calls “Happy Old Farts.”

He coined a number of memorable quotes that became the mantra of a new generation of aging neo-hedonists: “What do I care what the doc says? I’d rather be happy and enjoy my daily glass of wine than squeeze out three extra years living like a Spartan…”

“Live a little - there’s only a little time left...”