The Simple Health Habits That Changed My Leadership | Jason Kunz

Intro & Teaser [0:00]

Jason Kunz: People wanna do the right thing when it comes to their health. Most of the time what I see is people just don’t know what the right thing is. Most nutrient dense food on the planet, pure protein and pure omegas right there. And people are like, don’t you ever get sick of eating that first? No. But second, does a Ferrari ever get sick of premium fuel?

Charles Eide: Coming up this week, uncleared for takeoff, we have Jason Kunz. He’s gonna talk us through all the health habits and little things we can do to have a huge impact on our health and our life. 

Jason Kunz: You’ll eat whatever there is to eat and 99% of the time it is garbage. And for people who don’t have food is fuel.

For people who have food is love. It can be really hard to consistently eat in a healthy way. 

Charles Eide: Most of humanity struggles with this principle. How do you make such a change? 

Jason Kunz: And the majority of business leaders have never seen this equation, and no one talks about it, which is fascinating to me. It’s called the change equation.

C, which is change equals D times V times fff. [00:01:00] What does that mean?

That’s called a physiological sigh. Like people are like, well, you’re nervous. Take a deep breath. They intend well, but it’s the worst advice. If you want to calm down, all you need to do is make your exhales longer than your inhales. Harvard reports that the most desired trait in supervisors, leaders, and managers is awareness of self.

Hugely powerful, but awareness of self means nothing without

Charles Eide: Jason Kunz, 

When Health Became Non-Negotiable [1:32]

Charles Eide: it’s great to have you. 

Jason Kunz: It’s good to be here, Charles. Thanks for having me. 

Charles Eide: You know, something you and I have talked about a lot now is that being healthy is a part of being a leader, and you’ve been such an advocate. Online and with your friends and your family about this principle that if you really want to be the best you can be, that your wellbeing, your health is a big [00:02:00] piece of that.

And so I just want to ask you, when did you realize that health and wellness was not optional? If you wanted to perform at your peak? 

Jason Kunz: Hmm. Yeah. Well, I think there’s, there’s multiple situations and scenarios, but if I think what’s likely most applicable to your listeners, I think about the pandemic. And I think for context it’s important to understand that during the pandemic I was with the corporate health and safety group at the 3M company.

So 90,000 employees, 55,000 within manufacturing and supply chain. And while many companies shut down, we were producing more than we had ever produced in the history of the company. Think about respirators and N 90 fives needed everywhere. And what I realized is I worked for our leader at the time, his name was Perry.

What I very quickly realized was that the nervous system of the leader became the nervous system of the organization. What does that mean? Well, Perry is one of the most regulated people I have [00:03:00] ever met. He’s one of my closest friends now, comes over a few times a week for a sauna now, but he’s so stable and so consistent and so focused on his physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health that that became, that consistency and that stability became this consistency and stability of an organization during one of the most challenging periods of our team and our entire company.

All because one person said, all hell is breaking loose out here, but internally, I’m going to be stable, which is gonna create stability within my team and within my company. So that would be a thing for your listeners for me. You know, like many teenagers and maybe college kids, I beat the hell outta my body for a long time.

And I woke up one morning, it was the day after Wei Fest. It was a week before two Aday started, and I was playing college football at the time, and it was Bemidji, Minnesota. And I woke up and I thought my stomach had exploded. I was like, well, that [00:04:00] can be good. So drove to the local er, spent about four hours waiting in the er, didn’t get into the er.

So then I had to drive home to Duluth, Minnesota the next day went in and what the doctor had told me is that I had basically drank and chewed and supplemented my way into a hole in my stomach, an ulcer per se. And I was like, okay, well that’s a bit of a problem. So I needed to wear a pack on my chest with a tube down my nose and down my throat for 48 hours.

And my physical health at the time was obviously in a major problem, but my mental, emotional health were also not in great shape because I drank through the entirety of those 48 hours or so. 

Charles Eide: You were drinking booze? 

Jason Kunz: I was drinking booze, yeah. As this thing was testing the acidity of my stomach. And so of course those results didn’t turn out very well.

And so for me and I, I didn’t take very good care of myself for high school and for college. And it was that moment where I said, I need to get my physical health in order. [00:05:00] And then we’ll talk a little bit later on about where I realized I needed to get my mental health in order. 

Charles Eide: So what did, what did it teach you when you just fast forward working under Perry when you watched him be such a stable rock for the organization and he was so in control?

Awareness of Self vs. Management of Self [5:20]

Charles Eide: What did it teach you? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, great question. You know. Leaders talk a lot about, business owners talk a lot about awareness of self. I, I think awareness of self is hugely valuable. I believe Harvard reports that the most desired trait in supervisors, leaders, and managers is awareness of self. Hugely powerful.

But awareness of self means nothing without management of self. So that’s what I learned from Perry, because yeah, he had incredible awareness of his self and of the situation at hand. But I knew because I was close friends with him at the time, that he was dealing with stress, frustration, anxiety, his own personal health challenges, right?

But he was able to manage them [00:06:00] in a way. Right where it managed the organization in a way that it needed at the time. So I think what I learned, not only awareness of self around the health pieces, but also just he was so able to manage his self. And I think what we should do today is talk a little bit about some of the ways that him and other high performers are able to do that.

’cause theory is good, but I think people want practice. 

Tracking Your Health Data [6:20]

Charles Eide: Do you think most people are in worse shape than they think? Not just shape, but their wellness is worse than they think it is? 

Jason Kunz: I think most people don’t know how. How would you know your financial health if you’re not checking your bank account Daily?

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Jason Kunz: Or weekly. Right. How would you know the health of your business if you’re not consistently checking in with your financial team? Yeah. Most people may have assumptions around how healthy they are, but if you’re not tracking your data, measuring and monitoring your health metrics, I would say daily, then you just have no idea.

See a lot of people who maybe look healthy from the outside and they might be [00:07:00] dying on the inside. At the same time, you look at people that maybe they don’t look as healthy or they look, excuse me, they don’t look as healthy on the outside, but maybe on the inside they’re healthy as a 22-year-old and they’re 62.

It’s impossible to tell if you don’t have data. 

Charles Eide: Well, and I would imagine in today’s world, data’s probably easier than it’s ever been with trackers and all these tools, right? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, right. I mean, I, my health coach exposed me six years ago to this little ring called the AA ring, and I haven’t taken it off for six years.

It’s like attached to me. I feel naked without it, and it transformed my life when it comes to health, as grandiose as that sounds. But when you realize that as little as one drink, speaking for myself, as little as one drink destroyed my deep sleep. Moved it from, eh, let’s say 18 to 20% of my total sleep was deep sleep down to two to 3%.

And deep sleep’s for the body. Rem sleep is for the brain. I wonder what, I was [00:08:00] fatigued all the time. Well, because every time I had even one drink, I wasn’t getting any deep sleep. Well, so it’s not just a health tracker, right. It’s a habit creator, because what do you think I did? I adjusted, I was like, well, that’s not really serving me, so maybe I’m not gonna drink.

And ever since this ring and I started seeing the data, I haven’t had a drink now. And I think it’s been six years. I think we’re at six years 

Charles Eide: now. Yeah. Yeah. I’m at about three and a half years now. And I’ve, I, I, I came to a point where I was like, this is just going against everything I’m trying to do in my life.

Jason Kunz: Mm. You know, and I, I didn’t have the data to back it up other than it made me fat, sick, and tired. I did when I started wearing my Garmin watch, it started telling me like, your sleep was really bad. And I was like, oh my gosh, there’s maybe something to this. 

Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: So when you look at all of this data, first of all, you have to invest in getting the data.

Are there certain tools, you mentioned the Ora ring, are there other tools you think are are [00:09:00] worthwhile tools? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, I think, um, it’s a great question. You know, ’cause there’s a lot of tools out there. So I use the Ora Ring, I use the Garmin watch. I wore the Apple Watch. I just didn’t appreciate the notifications, the endless notifications.

So I, I don’t use that anymore. But I think what’s important is, you know, we talk about blood sugar and we talk about being consistent and stable. That’s what we opened with. And well, how do you know how the things you’re consuming. Is impacting your blood sugar. 

Charles Eide: So before you get into that though 

Jason Kunz: Yeah.

Blood Sugar & Energy [9:31]

Charles Eide: What, what, what does blood sugar have to do with anything? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. I mean, I’m not the expert on a lot of these things, let’s say that. Right. I’m, I’m the guy who I’ve tried just about everything when it comes to how can I be physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, as healthy as I can be. Right? Don’t have the degree, the PhD, but I, I’m the practitioner and the experimenter.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: And so blood sugar, right? This is what I know when it goes up, we’re dysregulated. So we can be, let’s say, a little agitated, a little anxious, a little [00:10:00] irritated, a little touchy. Or when it goes down right. Probably not a good thing. I think that’s when we crash, right? I think like. If we were to think about the things that we could consume that would raise our blood sugar and force us to crash, we could think about like high glycemic index carbs, like things like white rice, things like rice, rice cakes, things like cereals, things like that.

You’re gonna get a blood sugar spike like this. You’re probably feeling pretty good. You know, you’re really alert for a moment or a minute or whatever it is. And then you experience like so many people can relate to this crash oftentimes in the mid-afternoon, won’t this because your blood sugar’s gone up like this and then it’s kind of crashed through the floor like this.

And so it kind of feels like, for most people, I would say like they’d be on a rollercoaster. I don’t know about you all day. All day. Like I want to be as consistent as possible for the people. I’m responsible for family, friends, customers, and clients. And I just don’t think you can do that when your blood sugar is [00:11:00] so dysregulated up and down.

Charles Eide: So you, you had mentioned getting data around your blood sugar. How do you do that? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, and you know, even five years ago, I think it was more difficult to do so, but now CGMs continuous glucose monitors, which I wear consistently, my personal health coach, she wears consistently. You can purchase those just about anywhere, and you plug it into the back of your arm right here, put a little piece of tape around it and it tells you instantaneously, second by second what your current blood glucose level is.

Charles Eide: So it’s like a Fitbit for glucose. I 

Jason Kunz: think that’s a perfect way to explain it. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of tracking steps like a fit foot would, it tracks the amount of blood, excuse me, the amount of sugar in your blood based on the decisions you’re making at the time. Sure. Based on what you consume, based on how you’re moving or how, how do you put 

Charles Eide: that type of thing on your arm?

Is it like, uh, I know you said tape, but it must be some sort of needle or probe that goes into your 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, it’s a little needle. Like when you think of the finger prick, you know, when you go to the dock and they [00:12:00] prick that, and then you get a little blood. It’s the same thing. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: It’s a little prick, little level of pain, but then you don’t feel it once it’s in.

Charles Eide: And how long do you leave it on? 

Jason Kunz: Um, I mean, I’ve worn mine for seven days at a time. 

Charles Eide: Sure. 

Jason Kunz: You know, I don’t know. So 

Charles Eide: throughout that time, it’s tracking everything 

Jason Kunz: endlessly. Second by second, minute by minute. 

Charles Eide: Wow. 

Jason Kunz: Right. And so, 

Charles Eide: so have you ever been like, I’m gonna try eating this and see what happens? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah.

Yeah. Well, the, well the goal is of course, is you want to keep your blood sugar as stable as possible. So, ’cause when your blood sugar is stable right? You are feeling mentally, emotionally stable and consistent. And so yeah, I’ll experiment with, for example, white rice and it is just like poof, like not a blip on the radar.

I’m talking like a Mount Everest on the radar. And it’s good to see that because I may feel good for a moment, feel full or satiated. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: But then it’s almost inevitable where there’s gonna be a level of fatigue or tired or man, I just want to take a nap. Like we’ve all had that experience before and directly correlated to our blood sugar.

Charles Eide: [00:13:00] So if we’re drinking at night and we don’t sleep very well, we wake up not fully rested. Right. You go to the office and you’re like, I got big meetings today. Usually drink a bunch of caffeine. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Right. So is that, how do you break that cycle? Because then you know, you might reach for something that’s got a sugar boost in it, a, a donut or whatever.

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Which I cut out a long time ago. But I think a lot of people are stuck in that, how do we, how do we, like, we gotta get the data. 

Jason Kunz: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: But then how do we start, like you said, you know, uh, understanding and being aware is one thing, but managing is a totally different thing. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: How do we, how do I get better at managing my day-to-day routine, my food, my sleep, so that I can truly show up the best version of myself?

Environment Shapes Behavior [13:53]

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Well, I think it’s important to acknowledge this, and I didn’t say this, James Clear wrote this in Atomic Habits, that environment is the [00:14:00] invisible hand that shapes human behavior. And so what does that mean? Well, that means if you want ideal behaviors, you need ideal environments. So I’ll just give you an example At our home, you know, if our ancestors weren’t able to access it 200 years ago as far as food goes, then it doesn’t exist in our home.

Because I’ll tell you like my wife this Christmas, right? We step outside of our protocol sometimes and she made some coconut sugar cookies. Like they were okay. You know, she’d tell you, she’d tell you they were okay. Not her best work. But I ate 11 of them one night and they weren’t like this, but they were like, they were cookies, 11 of them.

’cause you know, like I know myself enough to know that I don’t have enough inherent discipline to say no. So I make it easy to say yes. 

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Jason Kunz: Right? To say yes to the right thing and not have to say wrong consistently, not have to say no consistently to the wrong thing. And so what does that mean? Couple things, right?

Like I said, if it didn’t exist [00:15:00] 200 years ago, it’s not in our house. That’s one thing. Um, but the other thing I think that’s really important is to acknowledge when it comes to movement, to make it as easy as possible. One of the first things we did is we put a little garage gym in. And you don’t need thousands and thousands of dollars of equipment.

You need a pull up bar. You need a squat rack. You need a bench. Like you can get done for, I don’t know, a thousand, $1,500 or so. And every hour throughout the day when I’m working remote, working from home, I’ll just walk outside, do five to seven pull-ups, few pushups, right? And whatever it happens to be.

And so it’s like, how do you make the right way, the easy way for yourself? Well, I think you need to set up an environment that makes the right way conducive and easy, and make it consistent. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. I mean, our home, our, I mean our homes are just full of packaged junk today. I feel the same way. I mean, we, we do something similar.

We, we do have rice cakes though. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Rice cakes are 

Charles Eide: pretty crazy. Yeah. They didn’t have those 200 years ago. But I, when it comes to changing those habits, you know, a lot of people have [00:16:00] families, they have kids a lot of times. I mean, I’ve heard it a hundred times, well, my kids won’t eat like that. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: You know, you’re, you’re a newer father, but you’re also forming your first child Right now he’s two and a half.

Feeding Your Kids Right [16:14]

Jason Kunz: Two and a half, yeah. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: Today actually two and a half. 

Charles Eide: So how do you, how do you set your children up to, to live in? Or do you think we’re just saying that ’cause we want to eat that cereal at night too? 

Jason Kunz: Well, I think, I think let’s acknowledge that all of this is really, really hard. There’s so much pressure on people to not be healthy.

You know, 70% of foods in your typical grocery store, 70% are ultra processed. You know, 90%, from my understanding, 90% of the foods that exist today did not exist a hundred years ago. It’s our entire environment is putting all of the pressure on people to have to be perfect in their decisions, which is impossible.

None of us are gonna be perfect in our decisions. So first, let, [00:17:00] let us acknowledge how hard it is for anyone to be healthy in today’s environment, especially in America. But let’s talk about my two and a half year old, right? Because we also need to be really intentional about, let’s say this two and a half year old and the beliefs that we’re giving him around sleeping, eating, and training.

You know, ’cause beliefs, drive behaviors, behaviors, drive results. I think you’ve had a guest on that spoke about that before. Mm-hmm. A good friend of ours. And so what are some beliefs we wanna have him understand around eating? For his first birthday, he got a watermelon cake. So like 

Charles Eide: how do you do that?

You like cut a watermelon down and make a 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, yeah. My wife is, you know, she’s 50% Samoan man. So when it comes to pineapples and watermelon, she’s, she’s a magician, you know, she’s incredible. And so you, whoever she did it, it was looked like a cake. And he hammered that thing and he left it. So now his belief around celebrating birthdays is like, I do get to celebrate and nourish [00:18:00] myself and get to do so in a way that I really enjoy, not consume something that has 50, 70, 90 grams of sugar.

Mm-hmm. And then he’s bouncing all over the place and he’s dysregulated and he is like, well, this must be the norm. So for him, we just wanna make the healthy way seem very normal to him. At the same time, we want him to be a two and a half year old. But I’ll tell you at this point, he really hasn’t consumed any sugar.

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Jason Kunz: Now, when he’s three, four, five, six, seven and starts going to birthday parties and things, he’s gonna be able to make the decisions that he needs to make. But when he comes home with a stomach ache, I need to, and my wife, we need to educate him on, Hey buddy. Yeah. You know, the reason you have a stomach ache is because of X, Y, or Z.

And then he could make the decision for himself at that point. But I think it’s our job to create the environment for the kids, but then also to educate them on some of the repercussions of some of the decisions that they may or may not make. 

Charles Eide: I get such a kick when you go to a restaurant and they give you the kids’ menu and it’s all.

Junk food. It’s [00:19:00] garbage, it’s chicken tenders that are heavily deep fried and processed. It’s french fries from a bag that came off of a truck. It’s, it’s not real food. It’s pizza. It’s crappy burgers where there’s more bun than anything else. And I, I Why do you think as a society we treat our kids like, oh, well kids eat this stuff, you know, I need to work on, you know, eating more salad or whatever, you know, more meat.

Why do you think we do that to our kids? Is it ’cause it’s cheap? Is it ’cause it’s easy? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. It’s a really good question. Why do we do that to our kids? You know? It is cheap. Let’s acknowledge that like you referenced. I think it is easy. Yes, no question about that. But if you look at just the general population of the US from the adult perspective.

We’re not very healthy. And so let’s talk about if we’re not living very healthy, if we’re not sleeping well, if we’re not eating well, if we’re not moving and training, then how can we show up as our best selves for [00:20:00] our kids? Well, we can’t. And so if the decision is between do I actually make a salad or let’s say some actual chicken or some steak for my kids, right?

Or do I take the easy and fast and quick and cheap route? I think the majority of the time, if we’re not caring for ourselves because we are tired, we’re fatigued, we’re emotionally dysregulated, I think we’re gonna take the path of least resistance the majority of the time. So I think just to take a step back, I think it starts with us getting our how we’re eating, how we’re sleeping, and how we’re training dialed in first.

We can be the model for our kids and not have to make just the easy path and easy choice, but to make the right one. 

Charles Eide: It’s funny you mentioned that because last July, so it’s, it’s been about eight, nine months now. I, a doctor friend of mine, uh, said, Hey, why don’t you try something? ’cause my blood pressure was outta control.

My, uh, cholesterol numbers were outta [00:21:00] control. I had acne that was just relentless. And he said, I want you to eat only meat and eggs and maybe a little bit of dairy, like butter or whatever, mostly a carnivore diet. And if you need carbs, eat some fruit. He said, can you do that for a month? And I said, well, I, I mean, I can do anything for a, a month, I guess.

I just need to make sure that I’m enjoying it, so I’m gonna buy nice steaks that make me really want ’em, and you can eat eggs. And so I, I started on this kind. Path. ’cause my friend who’s a doc said to do it. And obviously that bled over into the family where the kids are now. I, I’m making the same food for everybody.

And so a typical dinner now for us is some sort of steak with fruit and that’s about it. And last night I cooked up some steak and I peeled a bunch of sumo oranges ’cause I love sumo oranges. And that’s, that was all that was on the plate [00:22:00] was, was steak and oranges. And you know, my kids, they’re, they’re a lot more stout than the other kids.

You know, the other kids look like paperclips. My kids look like bricks. You know, my 10 year old’s just jacked. And he, I mean he, you know, he plays basketball. But it’s amazing how just changing their diet changes a lot of things about them. Now I still struggle with some things, like they want sweets all the time.

Just like any kid. And you’ll learn that as your son and your children get older. But it is pretty amazing when you change that. It does bleed into your family as well, like you were saying. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Yeah. And I think what’s something you’re pointing to is really important also for folks to take a look at is, you know, what do you associate to food?

Mm-hmm. 

Food Is Fuel, Not Love [22:49]

Jason Kunz: What do you associate to food? You know, growing up I was the middle two sisters, younger sister, older sister, and we were in every activity that a, uh, any child could be in. I mean, I remember playing tennis, baseball, [00:23:00] football, basketball, baseball, golf, um, geez. Like in the, in the As swimming, wrestling.

So I think I counted eight right there. And my sisters were also in six to eight activities. So it’s like, imagine what our day-to-day looked like as far as consuming fuel. And so my association to food, Charles is food is fuel period. Where a lot of people have associations where food is love. Right.

We’re like big families and we’d eat at big family and like, and like when mom or dad cook, like you didn’t say no because they spent so all day preparing for you. And so you’re like, oh, I have to eat this. And I have, and so that, that’s really shaped my family and how we consume food. Like my most common piece of food, which I think we’ll talk about today, sardines in a can.

And people are like, my sister-in-law the other day, she was over hanging out with our little guy and she’s like, don’t you ever get sick of eating sardines? And I’m like, first, no, but second I was [00:24:00] like, does a Ferrari ever get sick of premium fuel? You know? And like I was being a little arrogant, you know, of course.

But, but, but then I go, well, you are, you are kind of being the, uh, that’s. It’s a pretty arrogant response, man. But then I took a step back and I’m like, because for me, fuel, food is fuel. That’s it. And so I’m always thinking, how can I get the most amount of nutrition, the most amount of fuel in the shortest amount of time?

And for people who don’t have food as fuel, for people who have food as love, or some other association, it can be really hard. Right. To consistently eat in a healthy way. Really hard. So I wanna acknowledge that as well. 

Charles Eide: People talk about, you know, how expensive food is, which it, it is, but it is the fuel of your body.

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Eating Healthy on a Budget [24:46]

Charles Eide: Are there ways to eat? I mean, I would imagine sardines in a can aren’t like gonna break the bank. Yeah. Yeah. But are there ways to do this kind of eating? Like there’s there, for example, you go on the road and you [00:25:00] travel, you know? And if you’re trying to eat healthy on the road, that’s hard to do.

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: You know? But are there, and we can get into talking about travel ’cause I want to hear your hacks on that. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Are there ways that you can eat healthy without breaking the bank? Because I think a lot of people, they go, yeah, we’ll, eating steak every night, it’s just not in the budget. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, for many people right now, anything beef related is not in the budget, based on the inflation related. That’s why I got 

Charles Eide: cows growing out in my 

Jason Kunz: pasture. Right. Yes. Smart man. Right. Smart man. For those people that don’t have cows and don’t have pastures. Right. There’s options for sure. Um, you gotta look at what’s gonna work for your budget of course.

Right. Like we go to Costco once a week and we load up on whatever there is to load up for us right now. Little bit of beef. Yes. But prices are outrageous right now around beef, so it’s actually a lot of chicken, a lot of eggs, and a lot of pork for us right now. For some reason, pork is through the floor.

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Jason Kunz: Right. And then we’ll also pick up, you know, large quantities of fish. Right, and then we’ll prepare meals 2, 3, 4 times a [00:26:00] day for our family. In that regards, it doesn’t break the bank for us by any means, right? And I, I often think, right. Here’s the thing, and, and this might be, I don’t know, people might question this or challenge this, but protein leads to society.

Satiety, satiation. The more protein you consume, the quicker you become full. And all of this food that’s ultra processed, you know what’s fascinating about it? It never makes you full. And so instead of eating a plate of chips, you eat a bag of chips, instead of eating a bowl of cereal, you eat a box of cereal.

And so I think to help people out in that regards, right, instead of spending the majority of the resources on things that never lead to satiation, making them feel full, just eat protein first. And what you’ll notice is you don’t have to eat nearly as much of it, which we’ve shown in my household is therefore we don’t have to buy nearly as much of it.

Does that make sense? For sure how I’m explaining that 

Charles Eide: For sure. I mean, that’s the life I live right now, but it took a long way to get there. 

Jason Kunz: [00:27:00] Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Because it’s, it’s, it’s way less expensive to buy the stuff on the inside of the grocery store and not the fresh stuff on the outside. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: And I’m with you on there.

Uh, I mean. Eating pro. I always make my kid if they’re, like, if we go out for a nice breakfast for a holiday or something, I’ll be like, well, sure. Once in a while you can have pancakes, but you’re having bacon and eggs first. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: And then if there’s room left over and they can never finish the pancakes ever.

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: I mean they’re, they’re like, oh, you made me eat all these eggs, dad and the bacon. You know, so the, but, but making ’em eat the protein and the fat first has certainly, uh, helped me get the nutrition into them better. And they’re like you said, they’re full longer. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, no doubt. And, and, and that’s a principle that you’re touching on that’s really important.

Trade Sweet for Savory [27:49]

Jason Kunz: That’s becoming more mainstream. You know, one of the biggest improvements or changes people can make that’s really straightforward is at breakfast, all you do is you just trade Sweet. Food for savory food. [00:28:00] So trade. Trade, sweet for savory. So what does that mean? So you would trade cereal, you would trade a bagel, you would trade a croissant.

You would trade a donut, move that out of the household, move that out of the environment, and just have fat and protein. Fat and protein, which would be savory. You make that change, you’re gonna have consistent levels of energy throughout the day, right? What you’re gonna do is you’re going to sleep better.

No question about that. Because you’re not gonna have blood sugar spikes, highs and lows throughout the day, and you’re just gonna, emotionally, mentally, and physically, you’re going to feel better. I know that’s very subjective, but you’re going to feel better about yourself throughout the day, and that’s what you’ve done with your kids.

And then when you want the croissant or the pancake, you’re not gonna have room for it because you started with savory versus sweet. 

Charles Eide: How do you make such a change? I mean, most of humanity struggles with this principle ’cause it’s quick and easy. How? How do I. How do you do that? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, I mean, and something I remind myself of consistently, and it come, I [00:29:00] first heard it from Tony, but it’s in everything man.

It’s in health, it’s in business, it’s in speaking, it’s in safety, which I do. You know, it’s, you focus on where you’re going, not what’s in the way. You focus on where you’re going, not what’s in the way. And so you gotta have a clear vision of who you want to be. What is, who is the ideal Charles? I, as a business leader, as a team member, as a father, as a husband, as a community member, as a member of whatever it is, whoever, Charles, what is the ideal version of myself?

And then let me obsess and focused only on becoming that person. And then what’s fascinating is the things we’re afraid of, or the things in the way, or the things we would traditionally do, those things almost disappear in a way. Like, I remember when I left three MI was horrified. 15 years at a company.

Incredible salary, right? Just poured everything I had into this company, and I love the company and I love the people I work with, but I was being called to something different. There was a thousand reasons [00:30:00] why I should have stayed at that company and focused on all the obstacles and reasons why I shouldn’t have left that company.

But it’s like I just obsessed over where I was going because this is what I knew. I couldn’t tell my son to be courageous. I couldn’t tell my son to go live his dreams. I couldn’t tell my son to really go for it. If he saw dad partially fulfilled in a role that he was comfortable in, not fully going for my dreams and not fully going for it in my life.

Like I can’t be like, Hey buddy, go, go do this. Yet I’m not doing it. 

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Jason Kunz: And so I, I think for people who are like, this is really hard. It is, where do I start? How do I go? You gotta create an ideal vision and version of who you are and then put that on paper and just start with your health. Right. When you go up the stairs, how easy is it for you to go up the stairs?

Right? Like so many people, man, and I get this, you go up and down the stairs one or two times and they’re, they’re gas. 

Charles Eide: There was a time when we had, first had our daughter, [00:31:00] she was, I remember she was maybe two or three years old, and I remember chasing her up the stairs. That’s like 14 steps. And at the top of the steps I was winded.

Like I just run something. It occurred to me. I was like, that doesn’t make sense. Why is my body feeling like this? Well, what I, you know, had let myself do is I, I let my weight get outta control. Dude, I was almost 300 pounds. I was, you know, I’d see like 2 78 and be like, oh, at least I’m not two 80. You know, at least I’m not two 90.

But it had crept up from, you know, two 20 when I met my wife and I looked down at these stairs and I’m like, something has got to change. And at first I thought it was just, I need to work out more. Food. I don’t know, food. I’m full. I take care. You know, I’m not eating cookies every day and I had to cut out the booze and all that, but you’re a hundred percent right.

The Change Equation [31:57]

Charles Eide: That was a wake up call for me. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. And, and [00:32:00] see here’s what you’re touching on and, and the majority of business leaders have never seen this equation, and no one talks about it, which is fascinating to me. It’s called the change Equation developed in 1979, has been proven and proven and proven and proven whether organizational change or personal change.

C, which is change equals D times V times Fs. What does that mean? C equals D times V times Fs change equals, and it only happens if we’re first dissatisfied with the current state of things. And that can be painful. It’s like you are experiencing it like 14 steps chasing my two or 3-year-old and like, this is not who I want to be because when she’s 12 or 13 or 22 or 23, I want to be.

Whatever it was, these things for her. Right. So you were first dissatisfied with the current state of things in order for change to happen. That’s the first variable or step. The second step though, is you have to have a clear vision of who you wanna be, and then the third is because [00:33:00] we get analysis paralysis.

You’re like, yeah, but I wanna be 180 pounds. They don’t wanna work out three times a week, and I only want to eat Whole Foods. I don’t wanna be emotionally and mentally regulated for my friends, my family, my team members get kind of analysis by paralysis, so we need the FS as the first one to two steps.

So that’s what I would ask people to do, right? I’d ask them to first ask themselves how satisfied are they with their current bill of health? Second thing is, what’s the ideal version of who you wanna be when it comes to your physical, mental, emotional health? And then finally, what are just the one to two steps that you can take today to move you in the direction of who you want to be?

That’s what you did. Yeah. That’s what you did. Whether you realized it or not, you had the perfect variables all in place. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: Right. For the change to happen. And that’s why it did happen. And that’s why we’re sitting across the table now and you’re one of the healthiest guys. I know 

Charles Eide: it’s been a hell of a journey and I still got a [00:34:00] lot of work to do, but I wanted to go back to, you had mentioned your, your son and how the way you look at things has changed since having him.

Right. You looked at a lot of things different. 

How Parenthood Changes You [34:12]

Charles Eide: Do you think having kids changes you 

Jason Kunz: do I think having kids changes you? Um, 

Charles Eide: I know what I think. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Yeah. So. This is what I’ll tell you. Um, you know, last year, this was my first full year in business. I gave 66 keynotes last year. 

Charles Eide: Wow. 

Jason Kunz: It’s a lot of keynotes right now.

That doesn’t mean I was on 66 flights. I had nine keynotes in one week in May, and eight of them were in, were in MSP where you and I currently are, so that’s helpful. So I can be a loving husband and a present father. Like my wife asked me the other day, she’s like, if you could only, and this is a good question for anyone to ask, if you could only be remembered for one thing, what would it be?

I was like, let me get back to you on that. It was so clear. I was like, babe, it’s [00:35:00] not one thing. It’s two things. Like I want to be a loving husband where she’s just like, he was so committed to me and then I wanted to be so present for my son where he’s like, dad was always there when I needed him. You know ’cause because I had, I had parents and many in our generation, Charles will relate to this, is they loved us so much.

Like my parents loved me so much and I pray yours did as well. They oftentimes just didn’t know how to reach us. And so I like look at that and I’m like, loving husband, present father did having kids change me. The greatest change I think I’ve ever gone through in my life was the result of having a baby boy and looking at him and saying, I can no longer just be okay.

I can no longer just be average. I can no longer even be good at what I’m doing. I have to [00:36:00] do everything that I know I know how to do, and I need to do so in excellence, not for me, but for him. So I think the, one of the reasons to have kids is, you know, in life it’s like to see how far we can go, like to see how far we can go.

And it’s like to see how far our kids can go. And I think the goal is like our kids just embarrass us with how much further they go than, than we were able to go. And I think about it this way, you know, I think there’s kind of two types of leaders back to businesses. You got the one guy who loves to be on the stage getting the trophy, and then you got the other guy who would rather be on the stage giving the trophy.

And I think that’s what parenthood did to me. 

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Jason Kunz: I love the spotlight, man. I love being on the stage, peak performer, top salesperson of the year, whatever it was, you know? I was like, oh, basking in the glory. And then it was like overnight for me, it was like I would so much rather be handing this trophy to someone else.

That feeling, [00:37:00] I think, fills us up more sustainably and more consistently than being the guy getting the trophy ever would 

Charles Eide: I see people who don’t have kids, and I always think to myself, I think having kids would be good for you. You know? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Like, I think it would be good for you. It, it teaches you so many things that you just didn’t even know, that you didn’t know.

You’re just so unaware. And then you have kids and you’re like, this is. Whole level I just had no idea about. And you know, you have those friends that are like, no, I know. Like when you have kids, it’s like this. You’re like, you don’t know. You can say it all day long. But it’s so true. Like all you want to do is help them achieve Now I would never put my kids in the number of sports you were in.

That’s insane. Yeah. Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: It’s 

Charles Eide: too much. We said you’re allowed one sport and piano and that’s it. Uh, so let’s, I wanna talk about travel. [00:38:00] ’cause travel is such, you, you, you’ve spent a career traveling, you know all about this and you’ve developed some really good ways to take care of yourself while you’re traveling.

And I, I will say when I have bouts of travel that extend, you know, you know you’re back for a few days and whatever it is so challenging to take care of your body. You almost get back and you’re like, oh, I need to get back on track. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, 

Charles Eide: right. Because there’s food everywhere and dinners and meetings and no gym at the hotel or whatever.

Staying Healthy on the Road [38:33]

Charles Eide: So how do we stay on track? When we’re traveling. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. So, so first, lemme acknowledge to what you just said. Travel should not make us more fragile. It should make us harder to kill. Like, that’s the first thing, right? But like you just said, nine outta 10 of your listeners will be like, I, I so relate to what Charles just said.

I go on a trip and I come back and I feel like shit. It’s like, [00:39:00] no, you should go on a trip. You should come back and you should feel refreshed, reenergized, recharged. So you can actually show up for the people who need you most, right? Mm-hmm. Which are husband, wife, kids. And your clients are always gonna be there.

You give them the, your best, your clients on the road, and you give your family and your kids your worst. That’s the current state of travel. Right? We’re inverting that. We’re flipping it inside, down and outside Out. Right. Upside down and inside out. So how do you do that first? I’ve traveled 50% of my life for 15 years.

International, been to 36 countries, been to every state except for Alaska. Okay. Used to drive 80,000 miles in the company van, selling 3M products across the upper Midwest. So like. If there was a way to figure out how to do it and still have all of the conditions not to be able to do it, get harder to kill on the road.

I had all the conditions about how to get more fragile on the road, but I figured out how to get harder to kill. How do you do that? Few things. Can we bring out some props? 

Charles Eide: Dude, I love props. 

Jason Kunz: Is that cool? You brought [00:40:00] props. I brought a duffle. Bring. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

Jason Kunz: So first, right, we talked about sardines, right?

The Travel Food Kit [40:07]

Jason Kunz: Here’s the thing. You’ll eat whatever there is to eat and 99% of the time it is garbage. It’s garbage, right? Our friend Renee calls it the system One table from Daniel Kahneman thinking fast and slow. It’s emotional, it’s immediate, it’s reactionary, and it is just right there. So we do it without even thinking about it, and there’s 

Charles Eide: so much of it, 

Jason Kunz: and there’s endless amounts of I don’t want to go to waste so much of it.

I might as well put it 

Charles Eide: under 

Jason Kunz: my skin. Charles paid good money for this. I can’t let it go to waste. Yeah. And so you immediately have to remove yourself from that situation by removing the temptation of ever having to consume what’s available. How do you do that? I go to the market before every single trip or immediately upon landing, I go to the market.

For me, it’s usually a Whole Foods or a local food co-op, and I get the same thing every single time. Okay. I get canned fish. [00:41:00] 

Charles Eide: Okay, so these nutritional powerhouse, 18 grams of protein, 18 milligrams of E-P-A-D-H-E-A, Omega-3 per serving. 

Jason Kunz: Not bad, right? 

Charles Eide: Extra virgin olive oil. I’d imagine that’s probably pretty good for you.

Jason Kunz: It’s amazing, right? It’s amazing for you when, when I think about the most nutrient dense food or fuel on the planet, for me it’s sardines and olive oil. You and I love Wild Planet. There’s a lot of options out there. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: That’s anywhere between $2 and 50 cents and $3 and 50 cents a canned. 

Charles Eide: So not 

Jason Kunz: bad.

Not gonna break the bake. Not bad at all. And it 

Charles Eide: fills you up. 

Jason Kunz: Fills you up. And it always gets through. TSA, every once in a while they might flag it, but they’re gonna open it up. Open your bag up. Because I never check a bag, haven’t in 15 years and be like, oh, okay, good. Have a good day. Mr. Ide is like this guy eating 

Charles Eide: sardines.

Yeah. Get him 

Jason Kunz: outta here. Right. 

Charles Eide: And Mercury’s not an issue. ’cause these aren’t big fish. 

Jason Kunz: Nope, not big fish. Great point. Right. You get into sword fish, right? You get into which that is tuna fish. Yep. You wanna watch your consumption of larger fish. Yeah. Right. Because of where [00:42:00] they’re at in the food chain.

Mm-hmm. Great point. Mercury is a big deal. Salmon’s a great option. Little more expensive. That’s looking like more of the four to $6 range. That’s why I lead with sardines. And then there’s two other things. I always travel with three other things. I like beef sticks because they’re quick and easy and if you open sardines on the jet, you will get punched in the face.

Okay, so let’s, I’m tried it. Right. Do not do that. I once opened sauerkraut on the plane and the lady next to me, like, she was like, I thought she was gonna stab me with her fork. It was brutal. So, but when you need something quick and it doesn’t disrupt your seat mates. 

Charles Eide: Yep. 

Jason Kunz: Right. I love walnuts. Right. I love almonds and I love just some type of beef stick with one ingredient.

Charles Eide: One ingredient 

Jason Kunz: beef stick. Should have one ingredient. Yep. All good food. Should have one ingredient. Is the food itself grass 

Charles Eide: fed? Finished beef and water. 

Jason Kunz: Oh, there you go. Okay. All right. Two ingredients. Water. Yeah, I would disregard water as an ingredient, but that right there. Okay. 

Charles Eide: And then the other thing is 

Jason Kunz: I love greens 

Charles Eide: [00:43:00] powders.

Okay. Okay. 

Jason Kunz: You and I are AG one. Yep. Guys. Fuel is a great one. HUEL. 

Charles Eide: Yep. 

Jason Kunz: Because right. It’s really hard to get your greens on the road. Does, and 

Charles Eide: now do you need ’em? 

Jason Kunz: What do you mean? Do you need ’em? Well, 

Charles Eide: do you need greens? 

Jason Kunz: That’s a good question. I mean, 

Charles Eide: you’re saying the nutrient density of what’s in here is pretty, 

Jason Kunz: yeah.

This is, I think this gets back to knowing thyself, right? And awareness of self, which you and Ryan talk so much about. It’s like for me, whether I need them nutritionally or not, I feel better when I have them. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

Jason Kunz: I’m like, okay, I got my greens today. Good. Yeah. I understand it was in a powder form, but at least I got something today.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: So here’s the thing. Either before you leave on a trip or immediately upon arriving, you have everything you need for the entirety of that trip. And that can be pretty intense, right? But I’ll tell you this again. In 15 years of travel, I’ve never once checked a bag. 

Charles Eide: And 

Jason Kunz: I’ve always had everything that I needed on me, [00:44:00] or I’ve had the map, the route mapped out.

Went to Charlotte three weeks ago. I knew that I was going to a Whole Foods after I landed at the Charlotte airport. It was downtown. It was 17 minutes to get there. You 

Charles Eide: like recon this stuff. 

Jason Kunz: Recon man. And AI makes it so easy. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: Hey, I am landing in Charlotte voice to text. I want to go to a Whole Foods and then I need to go to North Charlotte and I’m doing it during rush hour.

What’s the best way to do this? And, and within 30 seconds you got your map. But it used a lot harder five years ago. Yeah, it’s easy now, but I think what people need to note is it’s never convenient. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Jason Kunz: Driving downtown and then having go, going back to North Charlotte. 

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Jason Kunz: I think this was two weeks ago now.

It, it, it wasn’t convenient. I didn’t want to do it, but now for the next 48 hours, had everything I needed when the client rolled out subway sandwiches for lunch and then spaghetti for dinner. Thanks. And thank God that I don’t have to, 

Charles Eide: so what do you do in that instance? They roll out the subway sandwiches.

Are you just like going in, [00:45:00] going into your trusty bag and you’re like, all right, well you guys, you, you guys can eat that crap. I’m gonna eat the sardines. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. You, you become an expert in consuming, in a really discreet way and making sure you’re not the center of attention. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: So, um, I, you’re 

Charles Eide: not like, guys, watch this.

Jason Kunz: Yeah, yeah. Lemme 

Charles Eide: open. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Make sure, make sure the camera’s rolling. Would you, um, 

Sardine Taste Test [45:21]

Charles Eide: we should eat these. 

Jason Kunz: Right now. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. I mean, if you want to, 

Charles Eide: how do you, do you just eat ’em straight outta the can or do you mix ’em with something? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, I do. So, Sarah, do 

Charles Eide: we have a bowl or a fork or something somewhere?

When, 

Jason Kunz: when I’m on the road, it’s, it’s hummus or mustard and that’s it. ’cause it’s easy. Yeah. Because you can always get a little spoonful of hummus or put a little mustard in the can I wanna try 

Charles Eide: this. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, man. I mean, I, after I post on LinkedIn related to health Yeah. I always get a screenshot via text or email from someone out in the universe.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: And they call it the Jason Coon starter pack now. And it, and then they ordered everything off Amazon. Okay. And then they send me a screenshot of their [00:46:00] cart at Amazon. So it’s like, I think people, you know, here’s the thing, man. Let’s, let’s keep it real concise for people. People wanna do the right thing when it comes to their health.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: Most of the time what I see is people just don’t know what the right thing is. Yes. And so, and so for, for this, it is one of the healthiest ways you can travel. No doubt about that. 

Charles Eide: So is this, is this like your dinner then? Like, what do you like on a, they roll out the spaghetti. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Yeah. 

Charles Eide: What do you, is it, are you like, no, let me order something off the menu, or, good 

Jason Kunz: question.

Jason’s Daily Routine on the Road [46:31]

Jason Kunz: More props. Right? More props. Okay. So I don’t travel with this. I have travel packs of this, but 

Charles Eide: Perfect. Oh yeah. 

Jason Kunz: Body. I don’t, I don’t eat until lunch. It’s just me. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: I don’t eat bre fist, right? Yeah. Break fast. Yeah, break fast. I don’t break my fast until lunch. So what do I do before that? Every morning, no matter where I am, I have 30 ounces of water.

I have electrolytes, I have creatine, and I have perfect amino amino acids. 

Charles Eide: Okay, hold on. Let’s do that again. Perfect. Aminos, amino acids, [00:47:00] electrolytes. And 

Jason Kunz: creatine. 

Charles Eide: And creatine. 

Jason Kunz: And I do 10 grams of creatine. 

Charles Eide: Do you want to just. I’ll just grab it from you, Sarah. 

Jason Kunz: Thank you Sarah. Sarah’s awesome delivery.

Charles Eide: Okay, so, so that’s your morning routine? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Is you will do that. Then what are you doing around, and that’s like, you know, seven, eight in the morning whenever you’re up. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: You’re drinking that. 

Jason Kunz: Yep. First thing. First thing is I’m drinking that first thing I do. 

Charles Eide: So you’re drinking aminos? 

Jason Kunz: Yep. 

Charles Eide: Great.

Electrolytes. And creatine. 

Jason Kunz: Creatine. And if I am at home a full lemon. 

Charles Eide: A full lemon. 

Jason Kunz: Yep. Yep. If I’m not at home, it’s all good. I got electro the juice 

Charles Eide: of it or you blending a whole lemon? 

Jason Kunz: Just the juice of it. Yeah. Great question. I haven’t gotten that extreme. Just the juice of it. Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Okay, so you’ll do that and then lunchtime.

Jason Kunz: Yeah, lunchtime. And 

Charles Eide: I use the same every day. Same thing. Every 

Jason Kunz: single day, every 

Charles Eide: day 

Jason Kunz: food is fuel. Yep. For me, feud is fuel. I have no association other than I need to put the best fuel in my body that I can. 

Charles Eide: Yep. 

Jason Kunz: Um, let’s keep it on the road. Let’s not talk about at home. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

Jason Kunz: So if I’m on the road, I’m usually speaking.

Charles Eide: Yep. 

Jason Kunz: Okay. [00:48:00] And so what I’ll do is I’ll have sardines. Yes. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

Jason Kunz: And then I’ll have one or two beef sticks, because every meal, your listeners should write this down. Which ones? Every meal needs to have 30 grams of protein. 

Charles Eide: 30 grams. 

Jason Kunz: Yes. If you get 30 grams of protein, you will not be hungry for anything else.

The reason you get 30 grams of protein is because that initiates protein synthesis and it builds muscle and cuts fat. You only build muscle and cut fat if you’re getting 30 grams of protein per meal. 

Charles Eide: Okay, 

Jason Kunz: so that has what, 20? I think this 

Charles Eide: says 18. 

Jason Kunz: 18. Cool. So I’ll eat a couple of these, whatever will get me to 30 grams.

Charles Eide: So one of these chomp sticks is four. 

Jason Kunz: Cool. So then I would eat three. So those are the mini ones. So I’d eat about three of those. 

Charles Eide: These are the chomp, lings 

Jason Kunz: chomp links. Yes. So if we had the full, 

Charles Eide: and you’re not affiliated with any of these companies? 

Jason Kunz: No, I have zero affiliation with these companies. Yeah.

Charles Eide: So, so you pop this open for lunch. 

Jason Kunz: Pop it open. Yeah. Okay. 

Charles Eide: Should I do it? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, pop it open. If I have hummus, man, I’ll put some hummus in there. 

Charles Eide: You just put it in a bowl? 

Jason Kunz: Yep. If I, if 

Charles Eide: you eat it outta the can, 

Jason Kunz: I’ll put it in a bowl. You put it because especially with olive [00:49:00] oil, it gets messy. You know, you get olive oil on your clothes and now you got a little bit of a mess.

There you go. Don’t cut yourself sharp tin. There you go. Look at that. Oh, 

Charles Eide: I got some on my hand. 

Jason Kunz: Look at that. I 

Charles Eide: might need 

Jason Kunz: a can. Can we get a napkin or a, might 

Charles Eide: need 

Jason Kunz: a napkin rag or a cloth for Charles. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Well, okay, so there’s like three. Big ass sardines. Four big ass sardines in this can. That’s 

Jason Kunz: right, man.

Charles Eide: Okay, so, so I’m just gonna hold one of these up for the, oh, there’s three. 

Jason Kunz: There you go. Meaty. Look at that. Pure protein and pure omegas right there. Healthy fats, man. Well, thank 

Charles Eide: you. 

Jason Kunz: Most nutrient dense food on the planet right there. That is, you are putting the highest quality, you’re putting rocket fuel in the rocket.

Is what you’re doing 

Charles Eide: there, my friend. Okay. So I don’t know if the camera can see that, but it’s very much olive oil and fish. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: And the bones are in there too. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Yeah. Um, but they’ve been, they’re teeny tiny. 

Charles Eide: They’ve been cooked though, so I’m sure they’re, yeah. Okay. So do you, do you mash it up or [00:50:00] do you just grab one and go?

Jason Kunz: If I were eating them like that, I would just grab one and go. I think the mash would be a little too much from a Oh, falling 

Charles Eide: apart 

Jason Kunz: from a dexterity point for people. 

Charles Eide: All right. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, there you go. 

Charles Eide: Oh. There’s, you can’t feel the bones. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: It’s pretty mushy. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Yeah. It’s not like you have, I, 

Charles Eide: it doesn’t taste bad.

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, that’s now, that’s, that’s as I’ll say, extreme as you can get. You pop a can, you put it in a bowl and you’re, so 

Charles Eide: I’m doing the worst It could be 

Jason Kunz: doing. The worst it could be. It only 

Charles Eide: you ever eat two of them to hit 36 grand? 

Jason Kunz: Yes. Certainly. Yeah. Yeah. From time to time, no question about that.

And 

Charles Eide: didn’t know Jason Kunz was buying lunch today. 

Jason Kunz: Let’s, and let, let’s talk about, you know, how you can soften the blow of just eating raw fish out of a can. Yeah. We talked about mustard and hummus, but I’ll throw some kraut in there from time to time. 

Charles Eide: Sauerkraut. 

Jason Kunz: Oh yeah, man. Kimchi or sauerkraut. 

Charles Eide: What’s the benefit to that?

Jason Kunz: Yeah, it helps with the di digestive process. 

Charles Eide: Are you getting jealous? You want a fork? 

Jason Kunz: No, I’m good man. I’m good. I’m, I won’t eat for [00:51:00] another 40 minutes or so. Oh, you’re so, but that does look good. You’re on a schedule. It does look good. Um, 

Charles Eide: well there’s a little spine in here. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. And, and, and, and to that point, I try to get a probiotic, right.

I try to get a probiotic with every meal. So whether that be just a shot of apple cider vinegar or whether that be a little bit of Greek yogurt Okay. Or a little bit of kimchi or crowd. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll throw that 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

Jason Kunz: Into there as well. 

Charles Eide: There’s a bite there going down. You guys are probably judging my manners right now.

Whoops. 

Jason Kunz: I also want people, your listeners are probably some of the busiest people on the planet. 

Charles Eide: They are. 

Jason Kunz: How, what did it take? Zero to full consumption. What was that in a time? Two 

Charles Eide: minutes. 

Jason Kunz: Two minutes 

Charles Eide: maybe. 

Jason Kunz: Now, 

Charles Eide: do you drink that juice down too? 

Jason Kunz: Depends. Sometimes the olive oil, I’ll drink it down. Yeah, some of it doesn’t have olive oil.

It’s just sardine sitting in water like that can, I would not drink that personally. But if, Hey man, you want all the new drinking? I’m 

Charles Eide: not drinking 

Jason Kunz: it. If you go, no, the olive oil, I would, but just the water, the probably not. 

Charles Eide: So I should just drink this shot of, 

Jason Kunz: yeah. Or give it a half sip. You [00:52:00] guys see that?

Maybe. Maybe take half of it down or, so 

Charles Eide: I live on a ranch. Okay. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Hey man. Hey man. Man. 

Charles Eide: Actually that tasted really good. 

Jason Kunz: See? And it’s like, is 

Charles Eide: there salt or anything in there? 

Jason Kunz: I think they do have a little bit of salt, a little bit. Some of them are salted, some of them are not. Like this one says no salt added right on the packaging.

That one may have 

Charles Eide: to see salt. This one, it has a little bit of saltlake. I don’t see it on the package, but. But it was really, actually it was pretty good. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. In two to three minutes, man. 

Charles Eide: So, so that couple of those, and your lunch is done, you’re not eating the subway, are you eating anything else with it?

Jason Kunz: Um, on the road? 

Charles Eide: On the road. 

Jason Kunz: On the road, if I’m like speaking in the middle of a workshop and all I have is a few minutes, I’ll grab an ag one pack, throw it into a cup with some water. 

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Jason Kunz: Right. If I do have time, I’ll have some spinach or arugula or kale and I just grab a couple handfuls of it, hammer it real quick, and then I’m good to go.

Charles Eide: So you’re pretty much never eating what’s provided? You’re like, Nope, I’m on a special diet, I’m not eating what’s provided. 

Jason Kunz: Even when, so lemme answer your question. [00:53:00] In an ideal state, I will never eat what is provided an ideal state. I’ll never eat what I would fast before eating what’s currently available.

And also you get the, you know, I fast a lot, man. 16 eight. Every single day. 

Charles Eide: Every day. 

Jason Kunz: Yep. 16 hours. So 

Charles Eide: 16 hour off, 

Jason Kunz: eight, eight hours on. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

Jason Kunz: 1 24 hour fast a month. 

Charles Eide: Wow. 

Jason Kunz: And then one I’ve gotten out of this, unfortunately with a two and a half year old, but one three day fast, a quarter 

Charles Eide: Whoa. 

Jason Kunz: Harder with a 3-year-old.

I haven’t done that for them, or excuse me, with a two and a half year old. I haven’t done that as consistently as I would like to. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: But so what, that’s the benefit 

Charles Eide: fasting. What does it do? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. I don’t want to get too much into that. Um, tons of benefits. Anyone can go on Google or, you know, use your AI right now.

Well, what 

Charles Eide: better yet, what have you seen for yourself? Yeah, 

Jason Kunz: self-discipline. So if you don’t believe you can fast, then when whatever’s available, if you haven’t ate since breakfast, for example, you’re going to eat it if it’s in front of you. For me, I go, I’ve done five day water [00:54:00] only fast. I go, I don’t need to eat every six, eight, or 12 hours.

Most people don’t eat because they’re hungry. Most people eat because they’re emotionally addicted to food. And so if you can break that emotional addiction, well, it’s noon now, which means it’s noon and it means I must have to eat. Well, it’s five o’clock now. It means I must have to eat. ’cause that’s all I’ve known for the 40 years of my life.

It’s like, no, like our ancestors ate once every 1, 2, 3, 4 or five days. And there were some of the healthiest human beings that ever existed. And so for me, it’s just this belief where I don’t need that unless it’s going to put me in a peak physical state and a peak level of conditioning for the people who I need to show up for.

Charles Eide: Okay, so you’re, you’re, you’re out on the road, you did your lunch thing, 

Navigating Client Dinners [54:46]

Charles Eide: now it’s dinner time and they’re like. Jason, come to dinner. We’re going to x, y, Z restaurant and we would love you to join us. And they’re your favorite client. Yeah. So you gotta go to dinner. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: What are you doing? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, great question.

So this is really [00:55:00] challenging and really difficult for people. And, um, I think you have to be committed enough to your journey versus caring and interested what people think about you. That’s the first one. 

Charles Eide: Repeat that. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. So you have to be committed enough to your own health journey, committed more to your own health journey than you are to caring what other people might think about your health journey.

You got that? 

Charles Eide: Yeah. ’cause you don’t want you in your mind, you’re like, well, they might think I’m judging them right now. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. And someone’s gonna order the biggest pasta with, um, eight pounds of cheese on it, and you’re gonna order a salad with no dressing. Like they’re gonna be like son of a, you know what?

Like, and, and they could feel judged. You are not responsible for how someone else feels based on the decisions that you make in your life 

Charles Eide: for your health, especially, 

Jason Kunz: especially for your health. I can’t control how you feel based on the decisions I am making. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: Are you kidding me? 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: I’m not responsible for your feelings.

I’m responsible for the [00:56:00] decisions I make. You need to be responsible for how you feel based on the decisions that I’m making. I’m a big eater. I, I have a big, my back in the day, my brother-in-law used to pay me to finish the pizza when there was like four pieces left and I’d already had six, like I could give you another 20 bucks.

This was when I was like 19, 20, 21, 22, you know? So I got a big. So what I’ll do to answer your question is I’ll eat before I go out to dinner. 

Charles Eide: So they’re like, dinners at seven. You’ll go do something else. 

Jason Kunz: Nope. Not do something else. I always have everything I need in the hotel room. 

Charles Eide: Mm. 

Jason Kunz: Always never have to venture out because you’re gonna venture out to whatever’s closest, whatever’s most convenient.

Remember everything I have, I brought with me or I stopped at a local market. Now it’s in my hotel room. Every hotel room, you’re 

Charles Eide: controlling all the variables. 

Jason Kunz: I’m controlling all of the variables. So I’ll eat something like this, right? And then I’ll go out and Sir, what would you like? I’ll, I’ll have a water with lemon, no ice, please.

And then I’ll just have a salad And, um, no dressing, [00:57:00] no cheese, no croutons, just, just a salad. If you have like a salmon or a chicken or a steak or something, throw that on there. But make sure it’s only cooked in butter because most restaurants cook in vegetable oil and seed oil and stuff. 

Charles Eide: You don’t want, 

Jason Kunz: I don’t consume it, stuff you don’t want.

And so that, that’s how I manage that. And how do you do that? You said it, Charles. You nailed it. I control every single variable that I can. It’s wild, man. This is wild. You can’t make this up. God’s always working, shoveling the driveway last night. My neighbor, who happens to work for, can I say the company?

Yeah. If I’m gonna, yeah. Okay. Works for a iconic Minnesota company. He’s like, dude, I read your LinkedIn post the other day. You never knew. You never know who you’re reaching, right? Most people who your posts make the greatest difference for never engage with your posts ever. They’re just quietly, consistently watching and observing.

He’s snow blowing. I’m shoveling ’cause I like manual labor. He’s like, he goes, you LinkedIn post made a huge difference for me. He is like, we’ve been [00:58:00] telling this for years and nothing ever changes. He’s like, I got in the best shape of my life for my wedding. Three years ago, best shape of my life. It’s like, and then over the last couple years has asked me to travel, and now I’m in some of the worst shape of my life.

Charles Eide: Mm. 

Jason Kunz: Because Brett, 

Charles Eide: yeah. No. No fault of the company. 

Jason Kunz: No fault of, no fault of the company. Right. Most companies do it this way. We’re not knocking this company. 

Charles Eide: No. 

Jason Kunz: We’re sharing a very specific example of how hard it is to do this. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: And how disciplined you have to be if you’re gonna live healthy, even though all the conditions and constraints are steering you in the opposite direction.

And he is like, I felt as good as I’ve ever felt, slept better than I’ve ever felt, had more energy than I’ve ever had in my life, and now I feel like I’ve taken 10 years back. 

Charles Eide: Mm. 

Jason Kunz: I’m like, cool. I’m like, well, what are you doing differently? He is like, I feel like it’s outta my control. That’s how I think a lot of people feel right now.

[00:59:00] They feel like when they have to get on an airplane, especially when they’re on a company’s agenda, traveling with others, that the variables are out of their control. You and I have a belief that nothing is out of our control for the most part. So when it comes to this, you said it. I’m like, and I just asked them, I’m like, what are you gonna do differently moving forward?

He’s like, I’m gonna start traveling with all of the food that I need for all of my trips. ’cause the max distance, I go, max duration is two to three days. He said, I think I can manage that. And I’m like, awesome. Let’s talk in six months and how you feel, man. 

Charles Eide: Wow. 

Jason Kunz: You have to take your health into your own hands because no one else will ever do it for you.

Especially if you’re working for a big company, man, they don’t Right. Nothing. Again, this is not a knock on any big companies. The pizza and the donuts are the cheapest and the fastest and easiest way to three, feed 300 people at a conference. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: And then here’s the thing. This is also what him and I talked about, and you’ll resonate with this big time.[01:00:00] 

Peak State Learning & Corporate Wellness [1:00:00]

Jason Kunz: One of the reasons Tony Robbins is Tony Robbins is because he understands that to get people to deploy learning in a peak state, you have to learn in a peak state, if you learn something in a sleepy state, when you go to deploy it, how will you deploy it? 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Not very well 

Jason Kunz: sleepy state. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: Because it anchors and associates into your central nervous system.

You go, oh, I learned this and I was, after we ate pizza for lunch and I was crashing, and there’s some big inspirational motivational speaker, and he or she was okay, and, and then you go to deploy it on your next sales call, and you’re like, 

Charles Eide: that’s funny. So you’re saying you tie the lesson to the state you were in 

Jason Kunz: 100%.

And you do. That’s, that’s why Tony has sustainable results. Why? He hates the word motivation. It’s not motivation. Right. He anchors it in your central nervous system. And so you’re in a peak state when you learn it. And so when you go to deploy it, you’re in a peak. And you actually implement the insights and ideas.

And [01:01:00] so this is one of the major problems with corporate America is when. People have a big breakfast or a big lunch and they just pay $50,000 for a keynote speaker and everyone’s got a big bump in blood sugar or they’re ready to take a nap, they will do nothing differently. As a result, you feed your people well, right?

You care for them physically, mentally, emotionally. You set them up for the big keynote speaker, right? And now they are wired, they are caffeinated and motivated baby, and they’re ready to consume the information so they can deploy it when they need to. 

Charles Eide: This is a big note for people in my industry. 

Jason Kunz: It’s a, it’s a huge note for people in your industry.

A huge one 

Charles Eide: is, is that if you want your people to learn, you need to feed them the right way. 

Jason Kunz: 100%. 

Charles Eide: What do you do? I mean, ’cause most people don’t eat that healthy, so if they show up and it’s only eggs and bacon and healthy stuff and you know, half the crowd’s like, what the hell? Where’s my donut? You know?

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Yeah. Great question. 

Charles Eide: You’re not sponsoring the bad stuff, I guess. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Great question. It’s like, um, would you rather your people [01:02:00] be fully present?

With high levels of energy and engagement and attention where they are consuming and they’re connected with the content at hand, and you can’t have them miss the strategic plan and the vision for 2026 and the keynote speaker who you played, you can’t have them miss those three insights because they could transform the business.

Would you rather have that, would you have them be a little frustrated because they didn’t get their donut for breakfast? It’s like, you know, it’s like you choose your path, man. Like I’ll, I’ll take the survey results that like, Hey, you didn’t have my bagel with cream cheese. Like, thank, noted and. We just had the greatest year of business that we’ve ever had because we actually started caring for our people’s health so they could show up for our customers.

Charles Eide: Yeah, 

Jason Kunz: I’ll take that every single time. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, the, the extra cost of giving good food to your audience pales in comparison to the results that they could turn up for your business if they actually learn what they’re supposed to [01:03:00] learn. 

Jason Kunz: There you go. Well said. Man, 

Charles Eide: I feel like I’m in a peak state right now after eating sardines.

No, I really, I mean, 

Jason Kunz: yeah, 

Charles Eide: I’ve, I actually feel really good right now. I don’t know if it was the sardines or the olive oil or both, but I feel a lot more clear right now. I didn’t eat this morning either, so. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Aside 

Charles Eide: from a little jerky, 

Jason Kunz: and I want people to reflect on that, what you just shared. I want people to reflect on that.

You know, I want people to consider right now someone who they really look up to and really respect. And, and then I want you to consider and reflect on how well does that person prioritize their mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. You and I were just at a men’s retreat with 40 CEOs three weeks ago, Northern Minnesota.

What percentage of those 40 people would you say, based on what you observed, prioritize their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health? What percentage of those 40? 

Charles Eide: I think it was like maybe four of us. 

Jason Kunz: You think so? 

Charles Eide: Oh, I don’t, I mean, maybe 10%. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: I mean, I watched the, the amount of, [01:04:00] you know, drinking and the food and I don’t know, I, I noticed there’s a, there’s a handful of us 

Jason Kunz: wild, right?

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: Isn’t wild 40 CEOs you would look to as kinda some of them, right? Global. Entrepreneurs, 

Charles Eide: right? Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: Building and sustaining massive businesses. And you said maybe 10%, but the other point for you to acknowledge is that’s ’cause your standard is right here. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, that’s true. 

Jason Kunz: Right? If the, 

Charles Eide: the food was very clean this 

Jason Kunz: year.

Food was very clean because the feedback last time was that the food wasn’t very clean. 

Charles Eide: Yep. 

Jason Kunz: Right. But if you could look at kind of the general person right now, they would look at those 40 from the outside looking in. No one was really overweight. 

Charles Eide: No, no, you, you’re 

Jason Kunz: right. No one was really over. 

Charles Eide: I guess suppose my, my standard’s a little higher by 

Jason Kunz: your standard’s.

Higher. Right. Which is beautiful, right? Because your results reflect your standards. That’s why you look and feel like you do. That’s why you have en endless amounts of energy right now. Yeah. But for most people, and when I ask them, 

Charles Eide: it’s pretty good looking group of people. Like a fitter looking group, 

Jason Kunz: fitter looking group of people, right?

Yeah. And again, that’s compared, if you look at just looking at the average [01:05:00] population from the outside looking in, they would look at those guys and they’d be like. Yeah, those guys really take care of themselves. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, that’s true. 

Jason Kunz: I would agree. But, but what you’re scratching at is two things. Number one, there’s always another level for those guys.

There’s always another level. And then, and then my point is when I ask people to reflect is the person who you really look up to, it’s likely that they’re not significantly overweight. Correct. It’s likely that they do the hard work on themselves mentally and emotionally. Right. They see a therapist, right?

They go to the events, right? They have a mastermind group that’s challenging them. They have an accountability coach or partner, and then spiritually they believe in something, whatever that something happens to be for them. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: And so if we look at that man and I look at that group of 40, it’s like, yes, there’s another level, but generally speaking, some of the highest performing CEOs across the US and potentially the world.

To some extent they really care for themselves. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, they do. 

Jason Kunz: They really do. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: But I love what you said, there’s always another level. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. [01:06:00] Yeah. I mean, uh, I did notice that this year there was a lot less people drinking as much as previous years. 

Jason Kunz: Hmm. 

Charles Eide: And I think people have become, at least in that group of CEOs, they have become more aware of their wellbeing and their health.

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: The Ben that puts it on from Nature Link, I mean, yeah. He just, he was so good about taking feedback last year that this year was really incredible. 

Jason Kunz: That’s one of the reasons why we love Ben so much. 

Charles Eide: And the breath work thing you did was so good. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. 

Breathwork & Nervous System Control [1:06:29]

Charles Eide: We’re running out of time, but we gotta talk about breath work.

’cause you Yeah. You’re like an expert at this. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. I, I’m a practitioner. Practitioner, right. I’ve, I’ve doing expert or you’re 

Charles Eide: an expert practitioner. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. I’ve been doing Okay, I’ll take that. No 

Charles Eide: medical claims. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. There we go. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been, I’ve been practicing it for 15 years, you know, and so when people say like breath work or meditation, it’s kinda like saying sports.

It’s like, well, there’s a lot of sports out there. There’s a lot of types of breath work and meditation. Right? And so what we did, and anyone can value and anyone can benefit from this, there’s a few principles of breath work. First, if you [01:07:00] want to calm down, all you need to do is make your exhales longer than your inhales.

So let’s do that right now. Okay. Do just kind of a quick inhale through the nose and we’ll do a long,

like you and I could track our heart rates right now, 

Charles Eide: like a natural 

Jason Kunz: side. And you do that 2, 3, 4 times, right? And your heart rate is gonna go like this, and you’re gonna feel calm, connected, and present. 

Charles Eide: It is true how you feel more calm even after a couple of ’em. 

Jason Kunz: It’s like an instantaneous shift. You know?

Like people are like, well, you’re nervous. Take a deep breath. It’s like, that’s the worst advice. Take a deep breath. What do you mean take a deep breath? They intend well, but it’s the worst advice. 

Charles Eide: You’re so passionate about the deep breath. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. It’s like, that’s like, I am pretty passionate about that.

That’s like. Like Wim Hof. Two more breathing if you want to get jacked, if you want to go up. 

Charles Eide: Is that the one where you’re like

Jason Kunz: pretty intense, right? Yeah. Like you feel like my face is getting hot. Like you’re [01:08:00] probably three breath, I just got 

Charles Eide: really warm. 

Jason Kunz: Got warm. Right? It’s like, whoa. That’s ’cause your heart rate’s going up. You’re getting norepinephrine or adrenaline like you’re ready to go. Yeah. And so back to awareness, it’s like you wanna understand when you’re under pressure.

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Jason Kunz: How do you respond? 

Charles Eide: Mm. 

Jason Kunz: Some people go kind of hypo where they go down. Other people get really hyper where they get anxious and they go up. Right? And so if I know I would get, like, when I get really under stress, like I kind of check out and want to hide from people. I’ll do some quick two more breaths.

Right now. I’m here. I’m here. I’m ready. 

Charles Eide: It, it got me a little sweaty, not gonna lie. Those few breaths. I’m like kind of getting dewy over here 

Jason Kunz: and we did, when we did it, we did like 10 minutes of it up at the machine. Oh my gosh. Right. My 

Charles Eide: hands 

Jason Kunz: were 

Charles Eide: tingling. 

Jason Kunz: It’s euphoric too, right? Yeah, because you really get the blood and the oxygen pumping.

But if you know, which I often do, I get, like, for me, it’s not hard to get up like I’m ready as soon as I wake up in the morning. Yeah. Before a talk man or a conversation with my wife. That might be stressful. For example, I need to go down and so I’ll just [01:09:00] go,

that’s called the physiological sigh. Proven to be the most effective way, right. To move into a parasympathetic state, which is calm and rest and digest. Right. Stanford University proved that quick too.

So before I go out on stage, man, I’m doing that for 2, 3, 4 minutes. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: And I’m thinking about who they are and who they can be. And I’m telling myself who I am and who I can be. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: But it all starts with the breath work. 

NSDR: Non-Sleep Deep Rest [1:09:36]

Jason Kunz: And then we did what’s called NSDR. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. That was cool. 

Jason Kunz: This is a, it is cool. And this is a big deal, right?

And I wrote it down, but I’ll remember the statistic, people can fact check me on this, but an NSDR, nons Sleep Deep Rest has all of the benefits of a nap. Without the grogginess that most of us get as a result of waking up from the nap, it also resets our dopamine by [01:10:00] 36%. 

Charles Eide: Whoa. 

Jason Kunz: Which is a big deal. It is a Whoa, uh, usually that requires sugar or caffeine to do that.

Well, if it’s really, if it’s noon or one or two and you’ve hit that afternoon crash, like most people do, the worst thing is sugar or caffeine. Caffeine has a half-life of 12 hours, meaning it stays in your blood for 12 hours for the most part. Right. Okay. In layman’s terms. So if you have caffeine afternoon, it’s really hard to sleep for many people.

So you don’t want sugar and caffeine. You just wanna do 10 to 15 minutes of NSDR. 

Charles Eide: And how do we do that? Like you had a special YouTube video you used? 

Jason Kunz: Yep. Yeah, you can. You can type in NSDR and just type in Ally, a LLY, and she has dozens of videos. And if you’re at your desk, just sit in your chair or you can lay down.

Ideally pop YouTube up. Yoga nidra. Or NSDR Alley and sit there for 10 to 12 minutes and it’s just a body scan. I did it this morning when I woke up ’cause I hadn’t slept that well last night and I was so calm and so connected to what we had to cover today. And I just did it for about 10 minutes this morning.

Charles Eide: 10 [01:11:00] minutes. 

Jason Kunz: That was at 10 minutes. 

Charles Eide: So this is something you could do at your desk if you wanted to. 

Jason Kunz: No doubt. Yep. And it maybe only a five minutes. Five minutes is better than a cup of coffee, I’ll tell you that 

Charles Eide: man. So what is it actually doing all your, because I mean, when we did it, the person on the video was basically just talking through.

Like, just think of the awareness of the tips of your fingers. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Right. What, what is, what is happening? Why are you actually getting rest from that? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. So what it does is it resets your central nervous system. Now, how and why that happens, I don’t understand, but you said it. That’s exactly what it is.

It’s a body scan and it brings your focus in your presence to one thing at a time. Tip of your tongue, center, of your throat, center of your chest. Right side of the chest. And for some reason that reset your central nervous systems and gives you that massive boost in dopamine. 

Charles Eide: And it did. 

Jason Kunz: And it did. And you notice that 

Charles Eide: I, I was like, this is so hokey.

Why? Why are they talking through thinking about the center of my chest? But by the end of it I was like, whoa. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, 

Charles Eide: I feel [01:12:00] different. 

Jason Kunz: And I think you called, that’s an important call out. Like even maybe most of the things we discussed today, people will consider hokey. Or hacks. Right. Or woo or whatever it is.

Like all of this now is scientifically backed and proven. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: This isn’t Charles and Jason making things up in a vacuum. ’cause we went to Costa Rica and went on a, you know, medicinal journey. Like, you know, not that those are bad things, but all of these have strong scientific backed evidence, white papers, research and empirical evidence.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: And then the last thing, which, you know, we talked about this, 

Loving Kindness & Forgiveness [1:12:29]

Jason Kunz: my family and I just lost a significant amount of money in a multifamily real estate syndicate. 

Charles Eide: Mm. 

Jason Kunz: And it was due to incompetence and ego from people who we really trusted. 

Charles Eide: I’m sorry. 

Jason Kunz: Really trusted. And it’s really easy for me to carry the burden of their poor decisions.

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Jason Kunz: A lot of us do that. You know, you’ve heard this before. It’s like. Not forgiving. Someone is like drinking poison and then expecting that person to die. Ever heard that before? 

Charles Eide: I have heard that 

Jason Kunz: one. Like we’re poisoning ourselves. Right? And [01:13:00] we think somehow it’s hurting them. And so what we did last was just what’s called the loving kindness.

And I do this for my son, I do it for my wife, but I do it for these guys ’cause it’s not my responsibility to carry their burdens, so I wanna forgive them. Forgiveness is not letting people off the hook, it’s letting people off your hook and putting them on God’s hook. 

Charles Eide: Mm. 

Jason Kunz: Right. Our former pastor used to say that, and so we just do this.

You think of people who you have resistance towards or people who have wronged. You close your eyes and you just say this, may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be safe, and may you live with ease. You do that a few times and instead of wanting to stab or strangle them, right, maybe you’d be able to at least tolerate them.

And then you get to the point where you may actually wish the best for them. You take them off your hook and you put them on someone else’s. It’s not your responsibility to carry someone else’s burdens and poor decisions. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Uh, that’s powerful. I [01:14:00] remember when we did that. Uh, okay, so there’s a few, I wanna do some quick fire things before we’re done.

Jason Kunz: Cool. 

Charles Eide: Um, 

Quick-Fire Health Hacks [1:14:06]

Charles Eide: I wanna just go through a bunch of kind of like, I don’t wanna call ’em biohacking things, but like little tricks. And I want you to just give me your short, you know, little bit about it. Cool. 10 by 10, 10 minutes of sunlight. Before 10:00 AM 

Jason Kunz: the single best thing you can do for your sleep, your mood, your wakefulness, your metabolism, your energy, and your focus.

Charles Eide: So even in the dead of winter, go outside. Get that sun on your skin, 

Jason Kunz: on your eyes, 

Charles Eide: on your eyes. 

Jason Kunz: Your eyes only do two things. They see and they set your circadian rhythm. When you go outside before 10:00 AM for 10 minutes, you start the engine that is the most complex engine in the world, which is your physiology.

So you have limitless energy throughout the day. You have to start your circadian rhythm. If you don’t get outside, you never start your circadian rhythm. 

Charles Eide: So you go outside and you let your eyes see daylight, basically, even if it’s overcast, that that light is helping with your [01:15:00] circadian rhythm. 

Jason Kunz: Nailed it.

Charles Eide: Okay. 10 minute walk after meals. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Reduces blood glucose by anywhere between 20 and 30%. It helps with the digestive process. Everyone knows this. You have a big meal, you sit down and you feel kinda like pH thud. Mm-hmm. Right. What you’re doing is you’re just expediting the digestion process. You’re using mechanical means to help with a, what would that be?

A physiological process. Using mechanical means to help with the physiological process. So 

Charles Eide: the movement is just helping everything kind of get rolling. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, that’s it. That’s exactly it. And if you don’t have time for a 10 minute walk, I do like a three to four minute plank. Or I’ll just do three to four minutes of pushups after meals.

You know? ’cause sometimes you’re not always able to go for a 10 minute walk. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: The point is you wanna 

Charles Eide: move, just something to move your body. 

Jason Kunz: You wanna move, 

Charles Eide: uh, delay caffeine, stop borrowing energy. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. I never use caffeine to wake up. I only use caffeine to focus. Most people use caffeine to [01:16:00] wake up and they’re stacking cortisol in caffeine.

Cortisol is a stress hormone, which you have a boatload of it when you wake up, that’s what wakes you up. And then they’re taking caffeine and stacking it on cortisol before your body can even absorb the caffeine. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Jason Kunz: So in other words, you’re getting anxiety instead of energy. Right. And so if you delay caffeine for 60 to 90 minutes, now you will have caffeine for the purpose of focus and energy versus just to try to wake you up when it’s not even effective at waking you up.

Charles Eide: Sure. So it doesn’t even do anything to wake you up. It’s the cortisol, but you’re giving yourself more of a anxious feeling. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. You get a boost. Yeah. Right. ’cause you’re at stacking caffeine on top of cortisol, so you get a boost and it feels really anxious, and then you crash later delay at 60 to 90 minutes.

Sustained energy with no crash. 

Charles Eide: What do you think about nicotine? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, good question. It’s a slippery slope. I’ll be real upfront with you. Uh, I use it. Okay. An average cigarette has 18 to [01:17:00] 20 milligrams of nicotine, and I use two milligram nicotine gum before or during a keynote. 

Charles Eide: Sure. 

Jason Kunz: So that would be one 10th of a cigarette worth of nicotine.

Now, all of the data only shows that nicotine is beneficial, both for neuroprotective. 

Charles Eide: Yep. 

Jason Kunz: Reasons. And then for focus and energy, there is no such thing as free rent. So we will find out at some point, right. The detriments of supplementing with nicotine. We just don’t know what they are yet. 

Charles Eide: Mm Uh okay. The perfect week of exercise stress inoculation.

Why zone two boring VO two max is miserable, but necessary. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. So the perfect week of exercise, and this is based on years of research, right? Three to four days of resistance training in that week, that’s moving weights. Ideally 180 minutes of zone two. That’s three hours of moving your body where it’s a conversational pace, right?

But your heart rate is up. So think about jogging alongside someone or rocking with [01:18:00] some heavy weight. Hard to talk, but you can still talk during that three hours, right? 180 minutes total, not at once. In 

Charles Eide: the week. 

Jason Kunz: In the week. 

Charles Eide: In the week. 

Jason Kunz: And then one VO two, right? VO two is the single greatest metric associated with longevity.

Charles Eide: So what does that mean? 

Jason Kunz: What does that means? That the higher your VO two is, the longer you will live and the better you will live. That’s 

Charles Eide: what it means. So when you say one VO two, what does that mean? Run really hard. 

Jason Kunz: Yep. Great question. The best thing to do is no, the Norwegian four by four protocol. 

Charles Eide: That sounds painful.

Jason Kunz: It is every single time. Okay. Once a week, but it’s only once a week for 16 minutes. I grab a rower. I love my rower. It’s in my garage. I do four minutes of all out effort. I rest for four minutes. And then I do that four times. Oh, 30, 35 total minutes. Okay. Every single second. For the most part. After the first a hundred meters.

Is [01:19:00] painful. It sucks. And you’re reminding yourself the whole time, I only have to do this once a week for a total of 16 minutes. You can do anything for four minutes at a time. Bike run row. I found the rower is the most consistent. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Well, I have a rower in the gym here, but we never use it. I think it’s sitting upright right now.

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Well, opportunity. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. I guess I’m gonna be on the rower trade. Sweet. For savory. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, we talked a little bit about that. So whatever. Well, let me say this. Most Americans eat dessert for breakfast. 

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Jason Kunz: Most Americans eat dessert for breakfast. So get that out of the house, get that out of your environment, and have something like you had talked about, bacon, sausage, eggs, avocado, some level of greens.

Right. Have protein and fat for breakfast and remove the carbohydrates. 

Charles Eide: Cold water on the face and neck. Nervous system control. Yeah. Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: So it’s a really quick, instantaneous way to get a boost of no epinephrine or adrenaline in the morning. A lot of people don’t like the cold showers. A lot of people don’t wanna do the three to five minutes and the cold [01:20:00] plunge like you and some of your team members do.

So o often days, I’ll just stick my head. Under a cold shower, 30 to 60 seconds and boom, I’m ready to go. 

Charles Eide: Does it take the breath away from you still? 

Jason Kunz: Um, 

Charles Eide: are you like, 

Jason Kunz: not anymore. No, not anymore. You, you, you kind of train the nervous system where it won’t do that. Um, especially when you’re just sticking your head and face under it.

But again, some of these people are like, well, that’s kind of extreme. Why would I do that? And it’s like, well, just try it. All of these things, anyone that’s listening right, just try one of them. Pick up one of them. Yeah. 

And 

Jason Kunz: give it a shot, you know? Yeah. See how you respond to it. 

Charles Eide: What about apple cider vinegar?

The break pedal? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Yeah. Great question. So that’s the break pedal on blood glucose. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

Jason Kunz: Right. So we’re almost always gonna get a little bit of a bump in blood glucose. Blood glucose after every meal. Just a little one. Ideally. Based on what we’re eating. And so a CV is gonna reduce, or you could say manage your blood sugar 20 to 30% just with a shot of it after each meal.

Whoa. Yeah. And so 20 

Charles Eide: to 30%, 

Jason Kunz: which is huge. Yeah. So after every meal, if I’m at home, I [01:21:00] got a big bottle of it and I’ll swig it and wash it down with some water. ’cause it’s intense on the throat. If I’m on the road, I pick up just a little bottle of it, like, kinda like a Fiji sized one right there. Yeah. A little mini one.

A little 

Charles Eide: micro Fiji. 

Jason Kunz: Micro Fiji. It’s like a micro AC A CV. Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Such a cute little bottle. You 

Jason Kunz: can cuddle it, put it in your pocket. Um, and so I’ll just have that in the hotel room and I’ll take a shot of it. Yeah. Two, three bucks for a bottle of that stuff. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Yeah. So not, not a very high cost. No. I mean, none of these ideas are really all that expensive.

Jason Kunz: I don’t think anything that we discussed today would be unachievable or unreachable for most Americans. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: And, and let’s just talk about that perspective’s powerful, you know? You make $40,000 in America, you’re one of the wealthiest 1% in the entire planet. That’s wild. You know? And so I think that is more of a, we didn’t talk too much about it today, but, you know, emotional health, having appreciation and perspective for, for where we’ve come on [01:22:00] this health journey.

’cause we talked a lot about health today, but then making sure that we’re looking forward and doing everything we can to close the gap. But to answer your question, I can’t speak for everyone, but for most Americans, most of what we discuss today would be achievable. 

Charles Eide: Are there any other health related things you want to tell people right now?

Nootropics & Focus Supplements [1:22:19]

Charles Eide: Share with them any other little, little tricks or hacks you have? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, I think I, I think just a couple things, right? Because, you know, focus is a big, big, big deal. You know, I think in today’s environment, attention is the greatest form of generosity. And so I have a stack, right? It’s gonna work for everyone.

El 

Charles Eide: Brain, Joe Rogan talks about this one. 

Jason Kunz: Yep. Well, he is an investor, so he should talk about it, right? Smart business. But you’re not investor. No, I’m not an investor and so that’s a daily for me. And then before a keynote or a workshop or like before this pod is, I had the instant too, so I stack it. So I just Do you do ’em 

Charles Eide: together?

Jason Kunz: Yep. Do ’em together. So I take a pill in the morning that’s lower release, and then I take the powder. And it’s funny, man, I was in Missouri a couple weeks ago [01:23:00] for a keynote and there was. 600 miners in the room. 

Charles Eide: Can I try this? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s yours. I’m not 

Charles Eide: taking your stash. 

Jason Kunz: Oh, that’s yours, man.

I try believe, have boxes of them. I’m not 

Charles Eide: keeping the bottle, but 

Jason Kunz: I’m gonna 

Charles Eide: try this. 

Jason Kunz: And there were 600 miners in the room. Not like O-R-S-E-R-S. Dirt, sand, gravel miners. Yeah. Big tough guys. Big beards. Lake of the Ozarks, right? Big boys. And after the keynote, one of ’em came up to me and he is like, I gotta tell you, man, you were in the back of the room prepping this morning.

I thought you were a serial killer. 

Charles Eide: What? Really? 

Jason Kunz: I go, I go, Hey. I go, tell me more, man. I’ve not heard that before. He goes, he goes, you were more focused than anyone I’ve ever seen. 

Charles Eide: Really? 

Jason Kunz: And he said this, he said this, he used this term, he said, your physical and physiological state was unlike anything. I could feel it.

And I go 

Charles Eide: like a big magnet. 

Jason Kunz: I, I think so. And I think it was like, this is like, because I was so committed to that room. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: You know? 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: But I [01:24:00] know that these two things, when I do them, allows me, you know, when you have a tough time finding that word. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: Usually I don’t have a tough time finding the word when I use those two things.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: It’s like the word you’re looking for, 

Charles Eide: what’s 

Jason Kunz: tends to always appear itself. 

Charles Eide: What is in Alpha Brainin that makes it, 

Jason Kunz: yeah, good question. 

Charles Eide: So effective, 

Jason Kunz: I don’t know. Let’s check it out. 

Charles Eide: I’m gonna, 

Jason Kunz: looks like the on it flow blend. In the on it focus blend, which, 

Charles Eide: oh, the flow blend. This is peach flavored.

Jason Kunz: Yeah. And always proprietary. But you know, there’s some things here, Elfa, L alpha looks like something Bacopa, el tine, L-theanine, you know, some different things that look like to be effective, but 

Charles Eide: I mean, it tastes fine. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. And, and the thing here is there’s thousands of nootropics. These are called nootropics on the market.

Charles Eide: Okay. 

Jason Kunz: Neutropics just help you focus, bring memory and clarity. That’s what they do. You get a trial them, not everyone’s gonna work the same for everyone. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: So go on Amazon, find out ones with great reviews. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: And try ’em for yourself and see if they help 

Charles Eide: make sure they’re authentic. I don’t know if you’ve heard but.[01:25:00] 

A lot of these supplement companies are having copycats, faking selling the product. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. I’m not surprised. 

Charles Eide: Some supplements I buy right from the supplier now ’cause Amazon, they’ve got so many, you know, fakes not ’cause they want ’em. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: But because people are cheating the system so you gotta look out for that.

Yeah. I’ve had some where they show up in a glass bottle, you know, and then like the next month it shows up in a plastic bottle and I’m like, 

Jason Kunz: no kidding. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Same product 

Jason Kunz: telltale sign. 

Charles Eide: I don’t know. 

Jason Kunz: Hmm. 

Charles Eide: Gotta look out for that. Okay. Lastly, yeah, I know you already spoke about this, but I always like to finish with this question.

What Do You Want to Be Remembered For? [1:25:36]

Charles Eide: What do you want to be remembered for when you’re gone? 

Jason Kunz: Hmm. Yeah, I love that question. I wrote about this the other day, um, because my expertise really is safety. And it is health, no doubt. Right? But I’m usually the guy that gets the call when a company has a serious injury or fatality. Like big companies you would know, manufacturing, construction, [01:26:00] mining, oil and gas, transportation companies, I get the call unfortunately when they have a string of serious incidents or they’re good today and they want to be best in class, like top 0.1% 

Charles Eide: and and safety as it’s referred to as like the operational safety warehouse or on out in the field 

Jason Kunz: nailed it.

Charles Eide: Right. Okay. 

Jason Kunz: Like, you know, it’s very clear that good safety is good business. You know, if you care for your people’s physical health especially, but mental and emotional as a result of that, you’re gonna get good business performance, engagement, retention, productivity, all those things. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: And so it’d be very easy for me to take a look at that and say that’s what I want to be remembered for, to leave a legacy and put a dent in that particular industry.

And that didn’t even show up for me. Hmm. That is like really clear. And just ’cause my wife asked me a similar question to what you just asked, which is such a good question. And I would ask everyone to ask themselves this question. You know, what you just asked. It’s like, if you could only be remembered for [01:27:00] one thing, what would that be?

It’s really clear for me it’s, I wanna be remembered for being a loving husband and a present father, loving husband, and a present father. Like I gave my wife everything that she needed as a husband. I loved her for who she was. And I also loved her for who she was not. Mm. I didn’t try to make her something that she wasn’t, you know?

And then for my son, it’s like I loved him to death, which all of us love our kids to death. But I knew how to reach him. I was emotionally available, was physically available. I was mentally available because I had done the hard work and understood maybe how. My parents, even though they did the best they could with what they had, weren’t able to reach me for whatever reason.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: So if I could be remembered for anything, man, kind of that one thing, which is kind of two things. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. And you got baby number two on the way. 

Jason Kunz: On the two man. Coming on. 

Charles Eide: Congratulations. 

Jason Kunz: In six months, do, do you mind sharing your perspective 

Charles Eide: on what I wanna be remembered for? 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, 

Charles Eide: I mean, [01:28:00] it’s very similar.

I want to be known as remembered as a good dad to my kids. You know, that really popped for me when I was interviewing Craig Leopold from the Wild, you know, this titan of industry. And I asked him that and you know, like deep down you have all these things you want to be known for and whatever. But when it came outta his mouth that quick and he was like to be a good dad, I, I mean, I was like, that is so amazing that he just said that.

It made me feel like that’s enough. Like that is enough, is to be a good dad. 

Jason Kunz: Hmm. 

Charles Eide: And to be a good husband obviously, but that it is enough to just be those things. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: You know? Yeah. Like we all aspire to be way more, but it is enough. 

Jason Kunz: And I think that’s, that’s a beautiful way to start closing things out is, you know, you can still make massive impact and have great influence in whatever world you happen to be playing in [01:29:00] professionally.

You can do all those things and do those things. You’re doing it at Icom, right? And right. Primarily you can still do those things. Right. Just be a good dad and then show up for your wife however you need to show up. You know, it’s like, what is it? Two things can be true. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Jason Kunz: And we make it so like it has to be this or it has to be that.

It’s like no two things can be true. You can be a model for your kids of what it looks like to get everything outta your DNA. Right. 

Charles Eide: Especially with sardines in you, 

Jason Kunz: especially with sardines in you and some alpha brain, and then you can come home and, and roll with them on the floor or whatever it happens to be.

Take them to the game or be fully present with them. You know, I think this is maybe one thing we didn’t get to that I’d love to share is I think, uh, I believe it’s God, some people think it’s a creator or an architect, but I use the term God. I think we’re gonna get to the end and he’s gonna look at all of us.

He’s gonna say something like this. He’s gonna say Charles or Jason. I’ll just use kind of what I see. Hey Jason, I gave you all of the [01:30:00] tools and resources to be an eight and somehow you figured out how to turn that into an 18 and, and I don’t think, I don’t, I’ll speak for myself again, Charles. I don’t think I can get there if I don’t do some of these things that we discussed today.

Because it allows me to love my wife deeper and better when I’m emotionally regulated and consistent. It allows me to be a present father, right? For my son when I give everything I can to my clients and customers on the road. But then when I think I gave everything, I come back and I have significantly more in the tank because I cared for my health, right?

And so it’s like if I wanna somehow one day look in his eyes and he’s like, I gave you the tools to be an eight buddy, but I don’t know how you did it. You 

Charles Eide: a little over you, 

Jason Kunz: you over it too, but 18 man. And it’s like, we’re, we’re all giving a number. You know, we’re all giving a number of what we start with, but I want to see, and I think this [01:31:00] conversation today will help people see what, what, what, what they can be, what’s achievable and possible when they get their health right.

Outro [1:31:07]

Charles Eide: This is so powerful and I’m grateful for you, and I’m grateful for your investment of time for me and our audience. I, I really thank you. And Jason Kunz, thanks for being here. 

Jason Kunz: Yeah, it’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

Charles Eide: If you like this episode of Cleared for Takeoff, make sure you leave a comment, subscribe, turn on notifications.

Of course, share it with somebody that you think would love it, and of course, check out my company EideCom. We do events all over the country, and if you’re looking for the best team in event production, check out EideCom.com.