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I’m 73, still working, and walk 20,000 steps a day. I can do the splits — and I’m not slowing down.

by with No Comment Xpandfy

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Victor Chan, a 73-year-old living in Singapore. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Health is wealth, and I’ve always believed that. I’m 73 now, and I still work five days a week. My job as a pool supervisor keeps me active — and staying active keeps me working.

When I was younger, I got into bodybuilding after some friends encouraged me to join them. We trained together, and on weekends we’d head to the beach.


Vintage photos of a man from his bodybuilding days, and from his days as a swim coach.

Victor Chan took up bodybuilding in his youth and briefly worked as a swimming coach.

Provided by Victor Chan.



Looking fit was part of the appeal, and it was motivating to see people notice our physiques. I even competed in community-level competitions.

I eventually outgrew the sport and took up running instead, partly because of my job. I’ve worked at a military training facility since 1978.

I’ve participated in ultramarathons and Ironman races before. The only times I truly stopped exercising were due to injury, and even then, it was never for long.

Slowing down didn’t mean stopping

When I was around 50, I began experiencing the early symptoms of intervertebral disc degeneration. I couldn’t walk or stand for long, and even sleeping was hard. I ended up relying on painkillers.


Two photos of a Singaporean Chinese man competiting in the Ironman races.

Chan has always led an active life, even competing in multiple marathons and Ironman races.

Provided by Victor Chan.



It was scary, and I felt life no longer had meaning. It was a big step down from how fit I was at the time. Fortunately, I was still at a stage where physiotherapy could help.

In addition to the prescribed exercises, I started devoting time to stretching and planking. These days, my back no longer bothers me.

I can still run, just not at the same intensity as before. Walking has always been part of my routine, and I still aim for about 20,000 steps a day.


A man at the finish line of an Ironman race.

Although he no longer competes at Ironman races, Chan still believes in the importance of staying active in order to age well.

Provided by Victor Chan.



To hit that, I walk up and down along the pool I work at and avoid taking public transport. I just walk, take my time, look around, and keep moving.

I’m part of Team Strong Silvers. We’re a group of older adults who enjoy working out and staying active, regardless of age. From time to time, we’re invited to take part in healthy-aging workshops and lead exercise sessions that encourage other seniors to keep moving.

I first joined the team in 2016 after the group was short on members for an event, and I ended up staying on.

People are often amazed when they find out I can do the splits. Practice makes perfect, and I’ve always believed in the importance of stretching — especially for older adults.

I stretch every day and do a range of flexibility and balance exercises, including headstands.

A lot of what I do comes from watching YouTube videos and trying things out on my own. My wife says, “You’re crazy. You’re not a youngster anymore.” But I feel that staying flexible helps me move more confidently and react better, even if I fall.


Two men doing headstands at a fitness corner in Singapore.

Chan (shirtless) exercises and does headstands at a fitness corner in Singapore with his Team Strong Silvers teammates.

Amanda Goh for Business Insider.



Staying strong is about more than workouts

Apart from exercising regularly, I also watch my diet.

My wife does the cooking, and she’s very health-conscious. She uses very little oil and salt, and even the rice we eat is basmati rice, which is healthier. Honestly, I’m the only one in my family who can really accept this style of cooking. My kids — no way. But that’s what she cooks, and that’s what I eat. I don’t complain.

I mostly go for vegetable dishes. I do eat meat, especially since I work out, but I don’t really fancy fried food. I do enjoy desserts once in a while. After all, life has no meaning if you can’t have anything.

Having friends is important too. If you don’t socialize, you can feel lonely, and that’s not good. I talk to my neighbors and colleagues, even though many of them are younger than me. Staying connected gives life balance, and it’s just as important as staying active.

For older adults who want to start exercising but don’t know how, my advice is to start slowly — find a local community center offering healthy activities like walking groups.

When you exercise with others, you get to socialize and make friends. That makes it easier to keep going.




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Melia Russell smiles

Docusign’s former CEO took a risk jumping into an older corner of legal tech. The numbers suggest it’s working.

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For years, the software that companies use to draft, sign, and store contracts was legal tech’s center of gravity. Then ChatGPT arrived.

Budgets and attention snapped to agents and copilots, and legal pundits started declaring the contract software category a ticking time bomb.

Ironclad, one of the contract-lifecycle management (CLM) companies that rode the boom, says the obituary is premature.

The company told Business Insider it has crossed $200 million in annual recurring revenue, up from $150 million last May, and its customers include OpenAI, Salesforce, L’Oreal, and Mastercard. Founded in 2014, Ironclad has raised $333 million from investors including Sequoia Capital, Accel, and Bond.

“I mean, not surprisingly, we’re pretty bullish on CLM,” Ironclad CEO Daniel Springer said on a call.

He’s swaggering in a moment when the category is routinely declared dead. Springer bet his career on it. Early last year, he was a free agent, having stepped down as CEO of Docusign in 2022. He said he spoke to 40 companies before taking the Ironclad job in April. Since then, Springer’s been recruiting heavily, pulling in chief technology officer Sunita Verma, who spent 17 years at Google, and longtime Microsoft engineer Herman Man as Ironclad’s new chief product officer.

Springer said he’s heard the “CLM is dead” debate so many times that he compares it to the endless calls for email’s demise. Ironclad’s view is that the need for companies to contract with each other isn’t going away. What is changing, Verma told Business Insider, is how the work gets done: away from rigid workflow software and toward agentic systems that can do chunks of work on their own.

That shift has turned contract lifecycle management into a high-stakes catch-up game. The same platforms that once won clients by organizing contracts now have to show they can automate what legal teams do inside them. In November, Ironclad released a fleet of virtual assistants that it said can handle tasks such as intake, negotiation, and extracting information buried in contracts. Springer said a third of recent new customers also bought its agentic add-on, Jurist.

In that world, Ironclad isn’t just competing with other CLM vendors like Agiloft and Sirion. It’s facing a swarm of startups built on large language models, including Ivo and Spellbook, that promise to handle pieces of contract review. Even the foundational model makers are moving closer to legal workflows. OpenAI has publicly written about building a contract review tool for its own teams. More recently, Anthropic rolled out a legal plug-in that it says can speed up in-house tasks.

Ironclad eyes dealmaking

Springer said Ironclad is open to doing deals this year as it tries to capture more of the market. Some close competitors are for sale, he said, and he’s looked and passed. He added that he isn’t eager to buy another CLM platform, arguing that many older products “aren’t the platforms of the future.”

Instead, he said Ironclad would consider acquisitions that bring a crack team in-house, especially technical talent building something original that might struggle to break into large enterprise accounts on its own. Industry watchers expect more consolidation this year as buyers tire of single-use tools, and more founders start looking for distribution (or a soft landing) inside larger platforms.

Even so, Springer doesn’t think the CLM category is done spawning new entrants. He expects founders will keep building contract software — even if they try to dress it up in new language for the AI era.

“Maybe they won’t call themselves CLM,” he said. “But I will bet you dollars to doughnuts they will call themselves CLM, because that’s what the customer knows.”

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at mrussell@businessinsider.com or Signal at @MeliaRussell.01. Use a personal email address and a non-work device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.




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