In this episode of Executive Connect, Melissa Aarskaug sits down with Jeff Zwiefel, longtime Life Time executive and wellness leader, to talk about what it really takes to build a healthy way of life and why wellness is no longer a side conversation for high performers. Jeff shares how Life Time grew from seven clubs and $130 million in revenue to a national brand with 180 clubs, 1.5 million members, and $2.3 billion in revenue, while staying rooted in member experience, culture, and long-term health. He also explains why longevity, recovery, strength training, and community are reshaping the wellness industry, and why leaders who ignore their own health are quietly weakening their performance.

This episode is for executives, founders, and operators who want to lead with more energy, build stronger teams, and stop treating wellness like an afterthought. Listen before your calendar becomes your cardiologist.

Chapters:
(0:01) Why wellness shapes leadership
(1:17) From trainer to industry leader
(5:05) The member point of view
(10:33) Building a healthy way of life company
(16:05) Why longevity is changing wellness
(21:21) Leading 30,000 people through crisis
(28:34) Building trust through casting and standards
(35:57) The future of wellness for leaders
(47:58) Final advice on purpose and performance

Jeff

(0:00) I would just strongly insist that if you’re not making that investment, you’re already in your own health and your own wellness. (0:09) You’re doing yourself a disservice and it will catch up to you. (0:12) Maybe not today because you’ve still got youth on your side, but those investments that you make now or the deposits that you’re taking out will pay dividends either negatively or positively somewhere down the road.

(0:27) And that accumulation happens rapidly over time.

Melissa

(0:31) Health isn’t just about the gym or what’s on your plate. (0:36) It’s about building a life that actually works for you. (0:39) My guest today knows that better than almost anyone.

(0:44) Jeff’s WeFull has nearly four decades in health, fitness, and wellness. (0:48) And he’s been the driving force behind turning Lifetime into the nation’s premier healthy lifestyle brand. (0:57) He’s led teams of 30,000, steered billions in growth and kept moving forward even through a global pandemic.

(1:07) If you want to know what real wellness leadership looks like, you want to lean in and learn from this one. (1:14) Welcome Jeff.

Jeff

(1:15) Great to be here, Melissa. (1:17) Thank you.

Melissa

(1:17) Now you started out in product development at NordicTrack and ended up running one of the largest healthy lifestyle companies in the country. (1:30) Walk us through that evolution. (1:32) How did those early experience shape your leadership approach today?

Jeff

(1:37) Thank you, Melissa. (1:38) I appreciate the opportunity to who doesn’t like talking about it themselves, right? (1:44) No, it was a wonderful journey.

(1:47) You know, you look back on it with almost four decades in the health and fitness and wellness industry. (1:53) And it’s just, you know, always been a passion. (1:57) I have a lot of executives that have come into the health and fitness business from other categories.

(2:04) And once they get this in their blood, it’s super hard to ever leave it because what you have the fortunate privilege to do in this business is change lives. (2:16) You know, I feel like it’s one of the most amazing things of (2:20) callings you can be involved in because throughout my career, starting as a personal trainer (2:28) in the front line at $7 an hour with my graduate degree in exercise physiology (2:34) and being a strength and conditioning coach and working in hospital-based healthcare and (2:39) being able to work there with really diverse other end of the continuum care of prenatal, (2:46) postpartum, senior programs, cardiac rehab, orthopedic rehab in diabetic populations. (2:52) I was then able to say, okay, here’s how we need to make sure we’re meeting the needs of this really broad range of consumers from elite athletes, being a strength coach with the Minnesota Vikings and at the collegiate level and high school level. (3:06) And then at NordicTrack, developing product for people that they would use, right?

(3:12) It was also an amazing marketing machine at the time. (3:17) We went from about $70 million in revenue in 1988 to $500 million in revenue in 1998 when I left and started at Lifetime. (3:29) And at Lifetime, you know, it was just amazing because the company only had seven clubs at the time.

(3:35) We were doing about $130 million in annual top-line revenue. (3:40) And we were only in Minneapolis, Minnesota, our home base where I’m at right now. (3:45) And we grew to $2.3 billion in revenue over my 25 years there, 180 clubs, 1.5 million members, and 36,000 team members across the portfolio. (3:59) And that’s the most satisfying part of the job is impacting so many lives, not just members, but more importantly, the professions of so many people that share the same passion and enthusiasm over the industry of health and fitness and wellness.

Melissa

(4:30) Don’t just watch, act. (4:32) Such an amazing and inspiring journey. (4:35) And as a Lifetime member, it’s an impressive club and it really does get into your blood and changes the way you experience gyms.

(4:44) And I love that you shared that because I feel like the industry is evolving since I’ve been, you know, going to gyms, there’s been a lot of evolution of, you know, just a gym with weights and benches. (4:59) So talk to me a little bit about when you realized the industry itself was beginning to evolve.

Jeff

(5:05) No, it’s a great question, Melissa, because the industry historically has been, you know, very fad and fashion oriented. (5:13) And a lot of times the industry has followed trends, quick fix trends, right? (5:21) Because it’s so interconnected between weight loss and diet, nutrition and fitness.

(5:26) You know, Brahma Karate, the founder of Lifetime, always had this vision anchored and mission centered approach, starting with what we call MPV. (5:39) And MPV stands for Member Point of View. (5:42) And really darn simple, right?

(5:43) You just do everything that you do is focused on this human centric view of the customer. (5:50) And if it wasn’t serving the member as our filter, as our North Star of all our initiatives and everything we want to do, then we would go a different direction. (6:03) So, you know, that idea of that deep member centric approach has always served us really well.

(6:10) We looked very early at the business and particularly an inflection point of 2008, 2009 recession, when everybody chased, you know, the bottom of the market relative to the health club industry and the boutique industry, because people were trying to control their pocketbook. (6:30) And, you know, discretionary income was a challenge. (6:35) We even tested some concepts that were what we call the high volume, low price APLV.

(6:43) And we failed miserably at it because everything in our DNA at Lifetime was centered on creating a tremendous customer experience. (6:53) It was about delivering, Melissa, the best people, the best places and the best programs. (6:59) And that sounds really easy, but the complexity of that is amazing.

(7:04) Lifetime’s always been about and when we opened our first club in out of Minnesota, state of Minnesota, in Detroit, Troy, Michigan, we opened that club at $39 a month. (7:15) That same club now is probably around $150 a month dues. (7:22) And that tells you the simple continual elevation of our customer experience and everything we want to do.

(7:29) It’s always about putting all these amazing products and services conveniently located at one price under one roof. (7:36) But we’ve continued to add dimensions to that and elevate our standards and fundamentally build a very significant differentiation and deep and wide moat. (7:51) We call it a room full of fitness equipment, right?

(7:53) That’s what a lot of people do in this business. (7:55) As you talk about treadmills and ellipticals and free weight equipment, anybody can open a room full of fitness equipment. (8:03) But when you really think about the experience of the customer, the idea of what really attracts and retains the customer in there, it really starts with the people and the relationships that you create with the people, the front desk, the trainers, our hospitality team, our spa technicians, the folks in the cafe, the folks in the childcare for us, the folks that do your swim lessons.

(8:33) And as you can appreciate in our model, the more of those connection points we can gain with the customer, the greater the stickiness is, the greater the retention. (8:42) We were as high as plus 50% annualized attrition, Melissa, in the 2008-2009 time frame when the market really crashed. (8:53) Historically, we’ve got a 35% annualized churn, if you will, and with no contracts.

(9:00) The business now is around low 20% annualized attrition. (9:06) And that all speaks to the relentless commitment to that customer experience and making sure that those three P’s of people, place, and programs are truly extraordinary. (9:19) As we know, that room full of fitness equipment is a sea of sameness in this industry.

(9:26) And what we want to do was be extraordinary. (9:30) So hopefully that answers your question.

Melissa

(9:33) No, and I think it’s so true. (9:35) I mean, I’ve been in, I don’t know, I’d say hundreds of gyms, and they’re all not created equal. (9:40) I think the ones that are aware of what I’m trying to do, they’re helpful, they’re engaging, they’re motivating.

(9:49) It’s a whole different attitude leaning into my workout versus someone that’s next, next, and we’re not having kind of that interaction, making sure our customers are appreciated, feel welcome, they have what they need to whatever that may be to get their workout. (10:08) And I know you’ve helped transform Lifetime from kind of what you were saying, a traditional health club operator into what you called a healthy way of life company. (10:21) What did that shift look like behind the scenes?

(10:25) And why was it so crucial for the company’s growth from, you know, the 39 to $150?

Jeff

(10:33) Yeah, that’s great. (10:35) Appreciate the opportunity. (10:36) You know, I think our competitive advantage early on in the company’s evolution was that idea of all these amazing products and services under one roof at this amazing price.

(10:55) But, you know, that also became competitive. (10:59) And as you know, the barbell differentiation in the industry became the Planet Fitnesses, you know, the Crunch Fitnesses, the Anytimes, and so on at the bottom of the continuum and the Lifetimes in is really a market of our own. (11:23) Equinox is there (11:24) on the West Coast and regionally, the Bay Clubs are there, but the premium luxury operator, and we (11:31) knew that that’s where we wanted to continue to push our strategy day in and day out because (11:38) we were looking for the customer, Melissa, that was interested in the value of time versus the (11:46) value of money necessarily, and the value of their time, making sure that they absolutely get the (11:53) most out of their time that they spend at the club, at our athletic luxury resort. (12:00) We knew (12:01) that if we were only about fitness and much as I’m passionate about fitness as a physiologist (12:06) and being in this business for 40 years, we knew we needed to be about entertainment, (12:13) we needed to have a social dimension, we needed to have a sports component of, you know, pickleball (12:21) to our founder’s credit, he saw this trend earlier and we now have over 800 dedicated (12:29) pickleball courts around the country, obviously amazing social sport. (12:33) We’re the largest provider (12:34) of tennis, we have the largest number of bodies of pool of water in the country now with our (12:41) indoor and outdoor pools, so sports was a very critical dimension for us, basketball, (12:47) and then we’ve also pushed into anti-aging, right, and the idea of making sure that we (12:57) continue to able to meet the customer’s needs right now throughout that entire continuum (13:03) and not just be this one dimension of fitness and exercise, and that’s the part I think that (13:10) has created a halo effect for the brand and the ability for us to continue to have (13:17) pricing power. (13:19) The company has right now, Melissa, for example, it’s a little complex formula but everybody can understand that we have a rack rate, the retail price that we put our clubs at, right, that you see everywhere and you go into a club and you buy a monthly membership with your self or your spouse and your family, and then we have the legacy rate which the existing members are paying. (13:46) That delta is worth about $19 million a month for the company right now of dry powder and what that does as a secret sauce and the really business benefit is allows us to allow the existing member to have that privilege of holding on to that lower dues rate because we don’t have contracts again that we lock people into.

(14:09) Our contract is delivering the experience month in and month out because you can cancel at any time with a 30-day rolling average, rolling cancellation rate, because we never wanted to do that. (14:22) So that’s been an amazing opportunity for us to keep the customer tremendously excited and engaged and then gradually increase that legacy price increase slowly to ensure that we don’t create a lot of attrition but we’re able to continue to grow the membership.

Melissa

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(15:29) I think we’re all just trying to integrate our life, you know, our health, our wealth, our family, our work or play and I feel like something I love about the gym is how it integrates this concept of lifestyle integration and really reshapes the way that I have thought about, you know, a whole person or wellness in general. (15:55) So talk to me a little bit about this concept of lifestyle integration and how it really reshapes the business.

Jeff

(16:05) Well, I think, you know, it’s a really interesting time because I believe this movement that we’re calling longevity now is really a transformational approach that’s probably the most significant trend that we’ve seen in our lifetime. (16:27) And longevity can start at 30 years old, you know, 38 years old, 72 years old, it doesn’t matter. (16:36) And we’re seeing customers start much earlier.

(16:39) It used to be right about an aerobics class or cardio exercise, right? (16:46) I had a high intensity and cardio day in and day out, get your heart rate up, improve your cardiovascular training. (16:55) Now we’ve seen this massive shift, of course, Melissa, towards strength training.

(17:00) It’s the most significant growth trend in the industry. (17:04) A disproportionate amount of our fitness floor now is dedicated to increasing muscle. (17:11) I believe that muscle is the currency of aging.

(17:15) And we’re recognizing that after the age of 30, muscle declines dramatically at a 2% to 5% rate per decade. (17:25) And we have to work hard to retain that. (17:28) So I think this idea of now, not only cardiovascular exercise, flexibility and range (17:36) of motion, resistance training through muscular strength and endurance, but you’re also seeing (17:42) a dimension of recovery that consumers are starting to understand that there’s all kinds of, (17:49) you know, things like stretching, assisted stretching, lymphatic massage, (17:57) all kinds of different vibration equipment in the clubs now to allow people to have this dimension (18:05) that they didn’t have before. (18:07) So I think it’s becoming a much more, as you say, holistic and balanced approach to training than ever before.

(18:14) And then I think the dimension that I mentioned earlier, that’s probably one of the key elements of longevity, and as you read the Blue Zone, is the social dimension. (18:27) Having community, having a tribe, having like-minded people that you participate with in things that you enjoy. (18:35) And that might be, you know, coffee or a shake after the workout that we see so commonly with our senior population now more than ever before.

(18:45) Or, you know, talking with folks in the Life Cafe or in the spa or on the Fitness 4 in a group fitness class or a small group training class. (18:56) These things, I think, are amazing because you’re not only to get your full dimension of your workout in, but you’re able to fill your cup with the social element that people crave and need so much, particularly after the pandemic.

Melissa

(19:11) Yeah, and I love kind of all that you mentioned. (19:14) I think there’s so many things we know now about wellness that I think about when I was a, you know, competitive athlete in the 90s. (19:22) If I had known a lot about, you know, health and wellness back in the 90s, you know, how could I have recovered faster from an injury or how could I have, you know, use different techniques outside of massage to make me recover faster versus getting back in there.

(19:42) And so I absolutely agree with every single thing you said. (19:45) And I do find the one thing that I think about as you’re mentioning this community is, you know, competitive sports, there was that team approach to everything. (19:56) And so we were interacting a lot in sports or even at the gym, there was a lot of, you know, interacting.

(20:02) And, you know, I don’t know if it’s the pandemic or technology or what happened, but there’s kind of been this shift I’ve seen, you know, where people go to the gym, they exercise and they leave because they’re so focused on, you know, rushing in, rushing out, or they got to catch up on a podcast or catch up on whatever they’re catching up on. (20:21) But you’re spot on when you have somebody that’s going to meet you at eight and exercise, that’s going to hold you accountable and be there. (20:29) And they’re going to say, Hey, john, I didn’t see you this week, (20:33) how are things going, you’re more likely to continue to go, you know, to exercise to keep (20:39) that up, because now you have an accountability partner, whether you’re, you know, paying a (20:44) trainer or not paying a trainer, I think it’s the community building that really makes people (20:51) continue to come back and realize, you know, hey, I’m trying to lose 10 pounds, or hey, (20:56) I’m trying to get my body back after a baby or hey, out of shoulder surgery, that camaraderie (21:02) helps people cheer for each other.

(21:06) And really, you know, so you’ve led teams up to 30,000 employees and navigated a challenging challenges ranging from IPO grow to the COVID pandemic, a lot of unique things. (21:21) And so what’s the secret to keeping organizations that large, aligned, motivated and future focused?

Jeff

(21:30) Yeah, that’s the million dollar question, right? (21:33) And I’d first say that it’s not easy. (21:36) And I have a deep appreciation that, you know, organizations and listeners are all different places relative to their corporate or company culture.

(21:48) And for me, you can control your controllables, right. (21:53) And the key for me is building a culture of trust. (21:59) You know, there’s no doubt that the speed of trust, which, you know, Covey wrote a great book on is key, but in times of difficulty, right, they say that, you know, calm waters never, never built skilled sailors.

(22:19) And it’s easy when things are going well in an organization or in a business and you have strong tailwinds and it’s calm waters. (22:30) But it’s, I think the real telling part is the readiness of an organization to see around the corner and anticipate that tough times will come. (22:42) A new competitor might become a new market.

(22:44) A new technology might be developing. (22:47) How is AI being embraced by you and your competitors in a way that is becoming an accelerator, right? (22:54) Not a competitive disadvantage.

(22:57) And so companies that have that healthy sort of paranoia that they want to build the next lifetime, right, that’s the way you need to operate in a way that creates a really strong defense and a really deep and broad moat. (23:20) But I believe that building a culture of high, what I call say-do ratios, right, do what you say, say what you do and follow up and follow through is probably the most crucial foundational ability for the company to weather these really difficult times and gaining strong alignment. (23:48) I mean, alignment and communication.

(23:50) I was on video every week with our 30,000 plus team members during COVID and I didn’t have an answer. (24:01) We had 400 page operating playbooks that we were creating state by state to reopen each of our 180 clubs that we had to close during COVID. (24:12) I had to furlough 30,000 team members and take a paycheck for six months because we went from 475 million of adjusted EBITDA in 2019 to nothing in March 2020 and shut down everything and we didn’t get any government assist or anything like that because we were too large of an organization and not essential services.

(24:37) Although I would argue that health would have been the most essential service to provide during that time, right? (24:44) But we had to figure it out and I didn’t have the answers, but I knew that communication and alignment and being transparent and vulnerable was crucial at that time. (24:57) That we would get to the other side and we’d get to the other side safely, but we had to make sure that we were doing it together and we were going to figure it out together and it built amazing resilience.

(25:12) Coming out of COVID was a blessing for our company, right? (25:16) Don’t let a great pandemic pass you by relative to opportunities. (25:20) We re-engineered the entire company and created a new omni-channel approach of accelerating our customers’ digital experience to match better our phenomenal customers’ physical experience or brick and mortar experience in a way that would have never been done, Melissa, if the pandemic didn’t come.

(25:43) I mean, we stood up a library of digital content overnight for our customers to be able to access and have a community through digital subscription within our membership that we would have never had to done before, right? (26:00) And there’s so many examples like that I could use. (26:05) So communication, trust, I mean, we leaned into these leadership principles of courage, passion, empathy, you know, thrust, integrity, love, vision, and these things became the way that we did business.

(26:23) I called it operations from the heart. (26:27) We were always a high-performance organization and I was a high-performance individual as a former athlete and coach and we over-delivered. (26:37) We call them BHAG, Big Hair Audacious Goals.

(26:40) We always over-delivered to our board, to our investors, and Wall Street. (26:45) But we had to balance that now coming out of COVID and so it was a culture of care. (26:51) It was performance coupled with compassion and that was what I would say was most important.

Melissa

(26:58) So much in that to unpack but I would agree with you. (27:01) I think, you know, without our wellness and our health, whatever we’re driving towards and our money doesn’t matter and so I would agree with you. (27:11) I think the pandemic for me was one of the first times I slowed down and I didn’t move my body my entire life and I noticed my moods, my emotions, my energy.

(27:22) I saw a huge drop-off even for myself and so I realized quickly I needed to get moving even if the rest of the world wasn’t. (27:34) And so, you know, I absolutely agree with really protecting your health just like you protect your wealth. (27:41) It’s so important to make that forward and focused in your life despite all like we all have thousands of things to do each day but figuring out that what works for you is so important.

(27:56) And kind of a second point about building trust in an organization and a culture at scale is really, really hard to do. (28:07) And, you know, kind of your second piece of love. (28:10) Love is another really important thing to do to really love the job, love the people, love what we’re all pulling towards.

(28:19) And so how do leaders like yourself build trust across thousands of employees and really get that attitude like you were saying of love, integrity, trust within the culture?

Jeff

(28:34) Yeah, great question. (28:36) First off, I would say it starts with what we refer to as casting, not hiring. (28:43) Casting.

(28:44) And there’s a distinct difference. (28:46) You know, we casted people for specific roles looking at their personality and did it fit the requirements. (28:56) We wouldn’t hire somebody that was responsible in the club for the pool pumps and the HVAC systems and, you know, the back of the house as an engineer to greet and meet people in the front desk as a concierge.

(29:14) Very different set of personality and skills. (29:18) And so for us, it started there. (29:20) We built what’s called the Lifetime University early on in the company and used to run it, which was our casting and certification arm of the company.

(29:30) So not only did we build the SOPs, the standard operating procedures for the organization that established the quality and consistency that we wanted to deliver, that established the standards. (29:45) If a company doesn’t have a high standard and how they cast and how they hire, how they certify employees and how they hold them accountable to that standard, which is not a place for everybody. (29:58) Go work somewhere else if you don’t want to live and operate within a high standard.

(30:05) But for example, our general managers go through like a Navy SEAL certification course of flying to Minneapolis here at our headquarters, going through a 10 to 12 day intensive where they have to report out at in their final presentation to an executive panel how they will deliver their club at artistry level. (30:29) Artistry to us is that unique combination of the art and the science. (30:36) And when I say the science, I mean the KPIs, the numbers, the metrics, the budget, the science, the art is the feel, the energy, the six senses, the connection of the members and the team members and that energy.

(30:51) So we make it intentionally difficult, but we’re super clear up front on here’s the standard, here’s the expectation. (31:02) And we need to put people in a position, Melissa, in our opinion, to ensure we know they know. (31:10) If we haven’t done that simple thing, then we shouldn’t be sitting there trying to yell at them or insult them or, you know, put them on a performance review in a way that we haven’t established that clarity in the first place.

(31:28) And that’s, I think, hyper crucial. (31:31) And I also say to your earlier point around this health and fitness category, it’s a really confusing category right now. (31:38) And we’re all becoming these little mini biohackers right now.

(31:42) I have an aura ring on now, right? (31:44) First thing I look at in the morning is my eight sleep metric and my aura sleep, right? (31:49) How was my deep sleep?

(31:50) How was my REM sleep? (31:51) I mean, HRV is really important to me, heart rate variability. (31:56) You know, I will argue that VO2 max is the most important metric you can have.

(32:01) I’ll tell you that, you know, the biohackers right now in the longevity space will give you a test of, you know, how can you do a two-minute farmers carry walk equivalent to your body weight? (32:14) Can you hold a two-minute parallel squat against the wall sit? (32:18) You know, can you do a dead hang for two minutes of your body weight?

(32:23) Can you do 10 reps at your own body weight of a deadlift, right? (32:29) And are you at 75th percentile of your age-related VO2 max? (32:34) These are pretty well established standards.

(32:37) The important thing is you were referencing simpler is move, right? (32:42) Move, stay active because I would encourage listeners to say, it’s not just for people like me. (32:49) I’m in my, I’m 63, but I want to live like I’m 48 or 45 years old.

(32:56) I want to function like that. (32:57) So you have two variables of it, right? (33:00) Melissa, you have your, your lifespan, which is your biological age, and then you have your health span.

(33:08) And my health span for me is my quality of life. (33:11) The average American lives 14 years of their life in chronic poor health, 14 years. (33:17) You live to the end of your life and you’re in a nursing home, you’re in a wheelchair, or you’re on meds, or you’re hit by the one of the four horsemen, cardiovascular disease, cancer, dementia, or glucose dependency diabetes.

(33:32) I mean, those are the four horsemen, right? (33:36) That will lead to the chronic early death or the reduced health span. (33:44) And that’s what we want to encourage at Lifetime.

(33:46) That’s why I developed Miura, that’s anti-aging and longevity performance business, because what are you going to do? (33:53) Go to your doc and they’re going to tell you you’re just fine. (33:56) Sadly enough, they’re very great at dealing with disease.

(34:01) U.S. healthcare system is the best in the world, but they’re not great at dealing with optimal health. (34:08) And there’s a big difference. (34:10) There’s a massive difference.

Melissa

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(34:49) To learn more and get a free white paper, oil and gas demystified, just visit www.summitven.com forward slash executive connect. (35:04) I would, I would absolutely agree. (35:06) I think it’s one thing to treat a symptom and it’s a whole nother thing to understand why that symptom is happening.

(35:14) And so instead of treating symptoms, we treat the problem in my opinion, in the wellness industry, we’re looking at why is this happening for this person? (35:25) Is it the diet? (35:25) Is it the exercise?

(35:27) Is it something that’s wrong genetically with their body? (35:31) And so I think the wellness industry is changing so quickly and there’s so much boutique firms, digital platforms, lifestyle integration. (35:41) I mean, you could spend hours and hours, tens of hours trying to find things.

(35:46) So I want to get your perspective on how do you see this next chapter of wellness unfolding and what should leaders in this space be paying attention to?

Jeff

(35:57) Yeah. (35:58) The first thing is you and I were talking before we started the call today. (36:03) It’s undeniable the very direct and clear correlation between how we take care of our bodies and how we take care of our minds and how well we’re able to perform as a leader, as an executive in having the bandwidth and the resilience and the capability to continue to perform at the high level that we’re being asked to.

(36:32) So I would just strongly insist that if you’re not making that investment, you’re already in your own health and your own wellness. (36:44) You’re doing yourself a disservice and it will catch up to you. (36:50) Maybe not today because you’ve still got youth on your side, but those investments that you make now or the deposits that you’re taking out will pay dividends either negatively or positively somewhere down the road.

(37:08) And that accumulation happens rapidly over time. (37:13) And so to be your best self, to perform at the highest level, to be resilient and recover and adapt as an executive, you need to take care of your health. (37:24) You need to take care of your mind.

(37:25) You need to be sharp. (37:26) And there’s no denying the fact that cardiovascular exercise and resistance training, recovery, flexibility, movement, high intensity training, zone two training, sauna work, box breathing, all these things have been proven to help you become more productive and more efficient on the job. (37:50) So what I see going forward is I see that data and biometrics are going to become a really crucial tool.

(38:03) But we as consumers now more than ever want to take control of our own health, but we’re lost and we’re also bombarded by more misinformation than ever before. (38:14) So you’ve got to do your homework, but you’ve also got to keep it really simple, stupid, and not make it so complex. (38:22) You’ve got to start with thoughtful biohacks that include movement, that include sound nutrition, that include mental health, that include sleep, and then worry about the latest and greatest hormone or peptide or nutritional supplement or NAD or red light therapy.

(38:43) Those become biohacking stacks when you have the really solid foundation of a healthy lifestyle in place. (38:52) But they can’t precede that kind of thing. (38:57) So it’s really important to understand that appropriate hierarchy.

Melissa

(39:02) Yeah, so much again to unpack there. (39:04) But I love as a technologist and someone who’s worked in tech and engineering my whole life, what I do love about wellness right now is how much tech we have at our fingertips. (39:16) And my great aunties in their late 90s would tell me, Melissa, how you live in your 20s, 30s, and 40s is how you’re going to experience your 50s and beyond.

(39:27) So if you’re not taking care of your health and you’re not doing your doctor visits, you’re probably going to have to spend many more years unpacking what you did in your 20s, 30s, and 40s. (39:40) And to your point, if you don’t have the basics figured out, that’s the foundation for everything that builds upon it. (39:48) And I do see more people looking at holistic health solutions to solve their problem.

(39:54) But back to your point, if you’re trying to do all these holistic health solutions, but you’re eating McDonald’s and you’re not sleeping and you’re drinking every night, you’re not going to have the output that you want. (40:07) And so you really got to give yourself time to get on the right programs. (40:12) Like for me, this has been in my DNA my whole life.

(40:15) So for me, it’s something I’ve known it’s ingrained. (40:18) I have a routine, I have a process. (40:20) But if you didn’t grow up in that capacity, you’re going to have to spend a year figuring out what’s the right meal program and what’s the right fitness program.

(40:31) And if you don’t understand how to lift weights and you get in there and try to crank as many weights out, you might hurt yourself. (40:38) So it’s really one thing to your point, the basics, the sleep, the food, the moving your body and layering everything that comes after that. (40:49) And as a high-functioning, high-performing person, I notice when those things to your point are not lined up and I eat on the run, I don’t sleep, my high performance ability and my quick thinking and my resiliency depletes when I don’t have the foundation set up.

(41:12) And so I think kind of maybe unpacking that a little deeper, these high-functioning leaders who are, like you were CEOs of big companies, what are some of the things that you did or you can share with them? (41:29) They may not have grown up with sports or eating healthy. (41:33) They may just be grabbing things as they go.

(41:36) What are some of the things that you can share as a CEO in a high expectation seat you can share with some of these executives?

Jeff

(41:47) Yeah. (41:47) I think no matter where you’re at, as we all hear so many times about health and fitness, it’s never too late to start. (41:59) You’ve got to take it where you’re at in the current journey and be thoughtful and responsible about the progression, as you mentioned, Melissa.

(42:10) I mean, you’ve got to start moving. (42:11) It’s so easy. (42:13) We know the tremendous sitting is the new smoking, as we know, sedentary lifestyle has dramatic impact on us.

(42:23) The high level of processed foods that in our current American diet and the correlation to this idea of in chronic inflammation, or as we refer to as metaflammation. (42:38) And this inflammation is so important because it is the main driver of and correlated highly to these four horsemen that I talked about earlier, cardiovascular disease, cancer, dementia and diabetes. (42:58) And so the inactivity and the poor diet are the most closely correlated.

(43:05) So you need to start moving. (43:07) I mean, 20 or 30 minute walks have a remarkable improvement, not only just on reducing all cause mortality and morbidity, 30 minutes of resistance training a couple times a week has a 30% reduction in your all cause mortality. (43:28) And so it doesn’t take much to have dramatic impact overall.

(43:34) And you feel better when you look better, you perform better. (43:40) When you look better, you start to build self-confidence, right? (43:45) And it becomes this flywheel, not just of confidence, but of success.

(43:52) And it’s really difficult for you to lead complex teams. (43:57) When you’re not sharp, you’re not waking up every day, understanding, you know, what’s important and how do you prioritize your work? (44:06) How do you be the most productive that you can be on any given day?

(44:10) Why are you getting this brain fog during the day? (44:14) Why are you getting so tired at two or three in the afternoon, right? (44:19) And feel like you need to take a nap.

(44:21) These things can all be addressed by ensuring that you’re dealing with the right level of movement from simple cardiovascular exercise to resistance training multiple times a week, to making sure you’re getting the right sleep and not just total hours of sleep, but the right level of deep and REM sleep. (44:42) And this doesn’t have to get overly complicated, right? (44:46) Eat whole foods, right?

(44:48) Get three to four servings of fruits and vegetables. (44:51) If you’re not able to do that, which I’m not, then I supplement and I use supplements to supplement and augment my diet, not to replace it necessarily. (45:02) And so get enough protein in your diet.

(45:05) Protein, lean sources of protein are crucial. (45:08) It’s particularly as we age and most of us aren’t getting enough of it. (45:13) With the growth of GLP-1s right now of those Zempik movement, people that, you know, 13% of the American population are on the drug.

(45:23) It’s an amazing drug, but if it’s not used right, it’s absolutely horrific. (45:29) We will go from obese population with, you know, 60 or 70% of the American population, even overweight or obese, to a society that’s frail and osteoporotic and can’t function and get off the toilet. (45:48) So we need to make sure that we’re getting an adequate protein.

(45:52) We’re getting the macronutrients and micronutrients that we’re hydrating, that we are doing resistance training and we’re measuring body composition over time. (46:03) Because I will argue, right, as a physiologist, it’s not about body weight. (46:08) I’m overweight if you look at my BMI, but I’m 12% body fat as 63 year old man.

(46:15) It’s about the distribution of fat weight to muscle, right? (46:20) Our body composition. (46:21) So it’s very inexpensive to go get a body composition assessment somewhere, anywhere.

(46:28) You know, check your resting heart rate. (46:30) Your resting heart rate should be around 60, the low 60s. (46:34) And if it’s higher than that, your heart is probably not recovering well enough.

(46:40) You know, do a two minute step test, take a minute recovery heart rate and understand what that looks like. (46:47) That’s a great simple indication of your cardiovascular fitness or your VO2 max, your volume of oxygen consumed. (46:55) Elite athletes, endurance athletes, we’ve seen on the Olympics here, cross-country skiing probably had 80 or 90 ml per kg per minute VO2 max.

(47:06) The average American has about a 30 to 35 ml per kg per minute. (47:12) That’s why Americans generally have a tough time walking through an airport to a baggage claim or climbing flights of stairs. (47:22) Those simple things will in walking on a regular basis, doing some interval training and just adding minutes and intensity to that workout a couple of times a week will enhance your VO2 max in your ability to do things in life, playing with your kids, playing with your grandkids, being able to do the functional things that you need to do.

(47:44) I’m passionate about this stuff, Melissa.

Melissa

(47:46) I love it. (47:47) This has been so great. (47:49) And I want to get any final thoughts or if there’s one idea you want to leave with leaders today, what would it be?

Jeff

(47:58) Yeah. (47:59) You know, my lead would be, you know, figure out your why, first and foremost, and anchor on your own personal mission and vision. (48:12) Make sure that’s well established because that should be your driving force to how you engage with your teams in your organization.

(48:23) You know, if for me, I was in a people first, people centric business. (48:29) I was about our 30,000 strong team members and our 1.5 million members. (48:36) Everything for me was about making sure I understood my team’s why.

(48:43) And that might be, you know, their own personal lives, their own journey. (48:48) They want to have a succession plan. (48:50) They want to achieve certain compensation to take care of their families.

(48:55) I needed to understand that. (48:57) But my last thing would be, I think, balance performance, you know, with purpose and understand those two and performance and compassion to me are the combination of traits and characteristics that are unstoppable in today’s world.

Melissa

(49:16) Beautiful. (49:17) I love that. (49:18) So much good there.

(49:19) For anyone interested in learning more about Jeff’s amazing work that he shared today, we’ll include the links and his contacts in the show notes. (49:29) And if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to explore more conversations in the Executive Connect leadership and legacy playlist. (49:37) Thank you so much for being here today, Jeff.

(49:40) That’s the Executive Connect podcast.