How ULTM8 Actually Works

I introduced ULTM8 a while back at a high level — the free tool I'm building to stay on top of my health and my wealth, across eight pillars. A few people asked how it actually works, so here's the look under the hood. It's simpler than it sounds, which was very much the point.

It starts with an assessment

The whole thing kicks off with a short assessment — a set of questions across all eight pillars, four on the health side and four on the wealth side. Nothing invasive, no bloodwork, just honest answers about where you're at: how you move, how you sleep, what your finances look like, how ready you are for the long run.

That's the raw material. From your answers, ULTM8 works out where you stand on each pillar and turns it into something you can actually look at, rather than a vague feeling that you "should probably eat better" or "really need to sort your pension out."

Everything rolls into one number: the Longevity Score

Here's the bit I care about most. Rather than hand you eight separate metrics and let you drown in them, ULTM8 pulls everything together into a single Longevity Score. One number for your whole picture — health and wealth combined.

I did this deliberately. When you're tracking a dozen things at once, you track none of them. But one score you can hold in your head? That you'll actually check. It's the same reason a credit score works — it takes something complicated and gives you a single, honest read you can watch move over time.

The octagon: seeing your balance at a glance

The score tells you the headline, but not the story behind it. That's what the octagon is for. Your eight pillars are laid out as an eight-sided shape, each one stretching further from the centre the stronger it is.

The magic is in the shape. A big, even octagon means you're strong and balanced across the board. A lopsided one — spiking on a couple of pillars, caved in on others — tells you exactly where the gaps are. Maybe you're an absolute machine on fitness but your retirement pillar has collapsed inward. You see that instantly, without reading a single number. It's the whole "which letter am I neglecting" idea made visual.

The four zones: where you actually stand

To make the score mean something, ULTM8 sorts you into one of four zones depending on where you land overall:

Surviving — you're getting by, but there's not much of a buffer. This is the starting line for a lot of people. Building — the foundations are going in; you're doing the work and it's starting to show. Hustling — you're in good shape and pushing to strengthen the weaker pillars. Thriving — strong and balanced across health and wealth, the goal we're all working toward.

The zones give the score a bit of meaning and, honestly, a bit of motivation. Watching yourself climb from Surviving toward Thriving is a much better story than staring at a number in a vacuum.

How I actually use it

The way it works for me is simple: take the assessment, see my score, my octagon, and my zone — then focus on whichever pillar is pulling everything down. Do the work, retake it later, and watch the shape fill out and the score climb. That feedback loop is the entire point. It turns "look after my longevity" from a vague ambition into something with a scoreboard.

It's still very much a work in progress, and I'm building it in the open — so this is roughly where it's at today, and it'll keep evolving. It's free, over at ultm8life.com if you want to try it and see your own score.