Thomas Weidlich is the founder of Noēsis, the Longevity Collective, a peer mastermind for people building in longevity. He returns to Connecting the Dots almost a year after his first appearance to talk about what the collective has become, what he has failed to hand over, and why he is putting 40 people in a room in Budapest with no stage and no keynote speakers.The middle of the episode is powerful. Weidlich describes spending five days a week alone with his laptop, spiralling on problems he could not solve, and how long it took him to tell his own community that he was struggling with loneliness again. He talks about co-regulation, about what changed within days of asking for help, and about the rational case for speaking up when you are stuck.He is equally direct about where Noēsis has fallen short. A year in, membership has grown from 12 to nearly 30, but he is still the main builder, the pricing model does not sustain him full time, and the shift from creation to co-creation has not happened. Jennifer Halsall de Wit pushes on why that handover is so difficult for founders.The Unconference in Budapest is his answer to a different problem. Every conference attendee names the same highlight, and it is never the keynote. So Weidlich has removed the stage entirely. Day one builds connection, day two turns that into work on live problems, day three is designed for integration. A clinician working on trauma healing measurement will take nervous system readings at the start and the end. The cap is 40 people, and he explains why the number is both a design decision and a room size.On trends, Weidlich points to longevity hospitality as one of the fastest growing sub-sectors, to biotech as the field most likely to deliver interventions that beat the basics, and to the social wellness movement that Othership helped start. He takes on the argument that longevity has already peaked and become a word emptied of meaning. He also makes the case for mental health as the next large opening, with somatic therapy as the bridge between brain and body.The episode closes with a high frequency human. Weidlich names Melissa Loseke Ablett, a Noēsis member working on peptide regulation and trauma healing.Chapters00:00 Welcome back01:00 A village of 300 and what came after04:00 The empty space in longevity06:00 What Noēsis means07:55 What makes a community a community12:30 Loneliness, anxiety and co-regulation15:40 Asking for help when belonging is your business17:50 Stay stuck or change20:05 One year in: what has worked22:40 Creation versus co-creation27:40 The Unconference in Budapest29:45 Designing for the in-betweens33:35 Why the cap is 4036:35 The conference business model39:05 Who it is for and how to apply42:20 Hospitality, biotech and the peak longevity debate46:45 Making healthy living mainstream49:20 Overestimating the size of the market53:20 Designing for people who are not in the marketing56:25 High frequency human: Melissa Loseke AblettResourcesThe Unconference, Budapest, 21 to 24 January 2027: https://noesis-longevity.com/unconferenceThomas Weidlich on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasweidlich/Noesis, the Longevity Collective: https://noesis-longevity.com/Charles Vogl, The Art of Community: Seven Principles for BelongingAbout Connecting the DotsConnecting the Dots is the podcast from The Collective, a network of independent consultants working across fitness, wellness, nutrition, technology and supplements. New episodes every Tuesday.All episodes: https://www.wearethecollective.world/podcast

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