CEO School

Why Health Span Determines Wealth Span with Rajinder Rai

February 16, 2026

Key Takeaways Copied to clipboard!

  • High-achieving women often prioritize productivity and external responsibilities, leading to unaddressed physiological stress that accelerates aging and burnout. 
  • Rajinder Rai's DOSE of PAUSE framework (Power, Awaken, Unravel, Self, Elevate) provides a structured method for processing decisions, shifting identity, and restoring capacity. 
  • Health span, defined by cellular vitality, must be prioritized because wealth accumulation cannot be sustained or enjoyed if one's biological age is significantly greater than their chronological age. 

Segments

Prioritizing Future Vision
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(00:00:00)
  • Key Takeaway: Failing to envision long-term goals ensures they will not be scheduled or realized amidst current building efforts.
  • Summary: If you do not prioritize envisioning what you want in one, five, ten, or twenty years, those goals will not make it onto your schedule. This lack of future planning means desired outcomes will not materialize. The conversation introduces Rajinder Rai, a functional medicine practitioner specializing in women’s health and longevity.
Health as Business Metric
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(00:00:24)
  • Key Takeaway: Leaders must treat their bodies with the same rigorous monitoring applied to business financials.
  • Summary: You regularly review your business numbers to assess health; similarly, you should know what is happening inside your body. The episode focuses on how health span determines wealth span, inviting high-achievers to reassess the cost of success.
Guest Background and Shift
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(00:02:15)
  • Key Takeaway: Rajinder Rai transitioned from pharmacy to functional medicine after personal health crises revealed her productivity-driven identity masked underlying physiological issues.
  • Summary: Rajinder Rai, a licensed pharmacist, owned brick-and-mortar pharmacies, serving patients from fertility through end-of-life care. Her shift was prompted by personal crises, including blood clots at 37 and her daughter’s Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis, which highlighted her own pattern of neglecting self-care for productivity.
Stress and Unprocessed Events
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(00:05:54)
  • Key Takeaway: Unprocessed life events and chronic stress, even microaggressions, accumulate physiologically, impacting women disproportionately as hormonal support depletes.
  • Summary: The body keeps score of stress and trauma, which doesn’t require a single major event but can be cumulative. Women often push through due to hormonal support (estrogen/progesterone), but this facade breaks down in the 40s and 50s when depletion occurs.
DOSE of PAUSE Framework Explained
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(00:10:38)
  • Key Takeaway: The DOSE of PAUSE method is a process for decision-making clarity involving evaluating power, present awareness, self-reflection, and elevation.
  • Summary: P stands for Power: assessing if an activity is depleting or replenishing you. A stands for Awaken: checking if you are present or on autopilot. U involves Unraveling your underlying stories, like fear-based productivity, to shift identity from proving worth to operating from abundance.
Foundational Habits Over Biohacks
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(00:17:43)
  • Key Takeaway: Longevity and vitality are primarily secured through basic habits like consistent, timely sleep, nature exposure, and proper nutrition, rather than complex biohacking.
  • Summary: The secret to longevity involves shifting sleep time to align with natural cycles, such as sleeping early enough for growth hormone to kick in between (10:30) PM and (11:30) PM. Simple actions like taking coffee outside for sunlight and prioritizing sleep are more impactful than advanced biohacks.
Biological vs. Chronological Age
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(00:20:07)
  • Key Takeaway: Health span is determined by biological age—cellular health—which can be younger than chronological age, and this metric dictates the ability to sustain wealth creation.
  • Summary: Biological age reflects the actual speed of cellular aging, contrasting with chronological age (years lived). If health span shrinks, the wealth created may be spent on long-term care, preventing enjoyment of longevity. Knowing your biological age empowers better leadership decisions.
Women’s Debilitated Longevity
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(00:22:50)
  • Key Takeaway: Women live longer than men but often in a more debilitated state due to compounding stress, caregiving roles, isolation, and failing to process life events.
  • Summary: The body accumulates damage from unaddressed stress, which compounds until a debilitating state is reached. It is never too late to start making changes, as knowing your health data (like biological age) provides the map for reversal or maintenance.
Hormone Health Resources
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(00:28:17)
  • Key Takeaway: Women should seek specialized care for perimenopause/menopause and be selective about their healthcare team, utilizing resources like the Menopause Society directory.
  • Summary: Recent FDA action removed a black label warning, reducing hesitation around hormone use, and specialized doctors are now focusing on perimenopause care. Natural does not mean enduring symptoms; women should explore the spectrum of options, including pharmaceuticals and holistic treatments, based on their personal biology.