Kevin Brady on Reaching Peak Health in Middle Age

00:52
Erin
So when it comes to your health, you’ll want to work closely with your own medical and health professionals to determine the right course of action for your unique situation. With that said, I think Kevin’s story can give us ideas and insights and possibly questions to investigate with our own health professionals so that we can be leaders in our health journeys. Let’s dive in. Hi everyone, I’m Erin Mayo and this is the Fulfillment Equation. For some of us, a decision to focus on really living is more of a gradual, organic process. We may be able to trace it back to a certain period of time, but not a singular moment. And for others, like today’s guest, the decision to make the changes necessary for really living came out of a moment of crisis. 

01:43
Erin
Today I am thrilled to have the opportunity to talk with Kevin Brady. After a near death experience, Kevin made an immediate and significant change to say goodbye to a lifestyle full of busy and stress and instead adopt a lifestyle focused on health and well being. In fact, Kevin’s mission is to inspire and motivate Canadians of all ages to reach their peak health using simple steps. A little background about Kevin. He has been a leader in the health and benefits field since starting his own employee benefit company which merged with NFP in 2013. He has also founded Advica Health, a leading medical concierge service in North America. Kevin has been recognized with many important awards for his extensive volunteer work and outstanding community leadership. He has also qualified for the Triathlon World Championships representing Canada many years in a row. 

02:35
Erin
In his latest book, It’s Never Too Late to Be Healthy, Kevin shares his remarkable story of overcoming his near death experience and using it as an impetus for not only shaping his well being, but also reaching peak health in middle age. He is a husband and a father to three grown children and just an all around incredible guy. Welcome Kevin. 

02:56
Kevin
Oh thank you Erin, and great to be here. 

02:59
Erin
So nice to have You. So I touched on your story a little bit in the opening there, but I was hoping you could walk me through it in your own words. So what did life look like before? What happened during that moment of crisis? And then what were the changes that followed? 

03:16
Kevin
Yeah. So I’ll take you back in time to 1999 and maybe I’ll just ask your listeners to think where they were in 1999. So I’ll just share where I was in my life. So I had actually just left a major insurance company and started my own employee benefits firm. I was 36 years old at the time, had three children at the time. Eight, five and two. 

03:41
Erin
Oh, small. 

03:43
Kevin
Yeah. So you can just imagine very busy starting a new business and raising children and all the busyness that we all know that goes along with that. And I actually thought I was pretty healthy because I worked out every day. I ran pretty much every day. In fact, I ran marathons. So on May 30, 1999, I had a life changing experience. And just to walk you through it, I was running actually my fifth marathon. And so I knew what marathons had felt like. And so I. And it was actually the Burlington Millennium Marathon. So I was actually raising money for Joseph Brant Hospital. And it was a little warmer that day. I finished the race, wasn’t feeling well. 

04:30
Kevin
So I went to the medical tent and I went and the medical director, I remember he took my blood pressure, took my heart rate and he said, kev, he says, you’re fine. He says, go home. He said, you just ran a race, your heart rate’s up a bit, your blood pressure’s up a bit. And fortunately, because I had run four other marathons, I know typically for those that have done cardio, typically after that type of event, in five or 10 minutes, you’re feeling well again, you’re back and you’re feeling good. And I wasn’t, I was feeling the other way. And one of our other children actually had a recital. So the idea was my wife and I were going to go to the race. 

05:03
Kevin
She was going to watch me run the race and then with the kids, we were going to go to a recital after. And the reason I share that is she actually backed our SUV up to the finish line right beside the medical tent for me to get in. And I just, I didn’t, I said, I’m not feeling well. I said, you go ahead, go to the recital and come back and get me after. So she left me with my 8 year old son. And I remember just not feeling well and I went over to this area, this was down at LaSalle park, which you would know in Burlington. And I went to this embankment where nobody could really see me and I was guzzling Gatorade and just doing everything to feel better and I wasn’t getting better. I, I just. 

05:44
Kevin
When people say how did you feel? I actually felt like I was gonna die, for anybody that’s kind of had that experience. And so anyways, I mustered up all my energy and I went to the medical tent again and I demanded an ambulance. And the last thing I remember is getting in, climbing in the ambulance with help with paramedics, with my 8 year old son because my wife had left our 8 year old with me. And that’s the last thing I remember. So I obviously blacked out then. And in reading the medical reports it. They rushed me to Joseph Brant Hospital. My wife actually was on her way by this point back to pick me up. 

06:22
Kevin
And little did she know that the ambulance, she passed with the lights flashing and the sirens wailing that I was actually in the back of it with our eight year old son. So they took me to the hospital again reading medical reports. It took 11 doctors and nurses to tie me down and until they could sedate me and then they knew I was in serious shape. So they actually shipped me up to Hamilton General Hospital where I ended up intensive care for a week. I was actually in a full coma. So I had machines keeping me alive. I had a ventilator, a respirator that were actually breathing for me, keeping me alive. 

06:59
Erin
Wow. 

07:00
Kevin
And halfway through that week on the Wednesday, they called Barb in and they suggested that she get her affairs in order that I had less than a 10% chance of making it. And fortunately I did make it. Obviously I’m here today and came out of it, but I had a brutal recovery. It took me like two or three months to even get walking again and other things. But you know, when I look back at that incident, I, I was fit, but I wasn’t healthy. You know, like I was under a lot of stress. I was not sleeping. I just started my company. I was running a family and I thought as long as I work out every day I’m good, right? And how wrong I was. And you know, for years I blamed the heat and blamed other things and when I look back it just. 

07:46
Kevin
I was not. I thought I was healthy, but I wasn’t healthy. I was like pushing the pedal to the metal in every area of my life and my body basically, you know, surrendered. Right. So. Yeah, yeah. 

08:00
Erin
And what would be some of the warning signs you would say, like now that you can look back with clarity for others. How would you identify some of those warning signs? 

08:10
Kevin
Yeah, I would identify it as. I mean, in my book that you mentioned, I talk about the wheels of health and having balance. And just to explain, the concept of wheels of health is there’s four wheels of health, like four wheels on a car, and we need to keep them fully balanced and inflated. And, and we all know what happens when you get a flat in your car. You know, you got to put one of those little fake tires and, you know, even if you’re driving a lamborghini, you’re going 50 kilometers an hour. So the wheels of health, you know, when I look back, there’s really four wheels of health. There’s eating well, which is how we fuel our bodies, sleep, which is how we recover, mindfulness, which is how we manage stress levels, and exercise, which is how we move. 

08:55
Kevin
And if I look back and I have a ranking system from 1 to 5 and that I share in my book, but if I look back, I would have ranked myself a five out of five on exercise, but a one or probably a one or two out of five on all the other areas. You know, I wasn’t eating well, I thought I was actually eating well, but now I look back, I wasn’t. My stress levels were through the roof. You know, three kids, just started a brand new company, meeting payroll, everything that goes along with that. And I wasn’t, you know, obviously no sleep as well. Right. You’re just so, you know, no sleep, stress. And my outlet was actually exercise, which when you’re not doing all those other things well, it’s even more stress on the system. 

09:39
Erin
Yeah, no kidding. So you’ve taken us to the point where you’ve begun to recover from this episode. What changes did you make in your life after that? And, and you know, was it gradual or like, how did you implement that? 

09:54
Kevin
Yeah, I really didn’t. I mean, if I look, it’s funny, at the time I thought I was making changes, so I thought, oh, I’m going to get healthier and all this type of thing. It’s amazing how you go back to doing what you were doing. You know, like, you just, it’s. You go back to basically your life again. And I. Was I eating healthier? Yeah, probably a little better. Was I sleeping better? Maybe a bit better. But you know, they weren’t monumental changes. And so unfortunately I needed a second wake up call. And I’m not sure if I’ve ever shared this with you or not, Erin, but I, I would go for my executive medical every year. 

10:28
Kevin
So executive medical meaning my, they go and do like at a medcan or Cleveland Clinic where they do all your blood tests and do ultrasounds and basically look at all your systems in one day, right? And report on it. And I would go every year and go through the same tests and every year everything was fine. And for anybody that’s been through those executive medicals, I mean the month before, you behave and you don’t eat and, or you eat well and you don’t drink and you do everything right. And then you go have your test and you go, oh good, I’m good for another year. So I went for my executive medical and I’d been going every year and the doc, this time the doc came in and he says, Kev, I gotta put you on some scripts. Prescriptions. 

11:11
Kevin
And I said, for what? He said, you have high blood pressure, you have high cholesterol, you’re diabetic and you’re about 50 pounds overweight. And I was just in like shock. And, and I challenged him on it. I said, you know, I said, even if you give me the prescriptions, I’m not going to take them. Like, I said, give me a month to change things around. And of course he kind of rolled his eyes and you know, said, yeah, right. And a couple things he said to me, you’ve been abusing your body for years, Kev. Like, it’s not going to change in one month type of thing. And so I, I basically begged him to give me some time to change things around. And a couple other things that were interesting that he pointed out. 

11:57
Kevin
One of them was he said, Kev, you’re middle age. He says, this is like normal. Like I’m in my 40s at this point, right? And he says it’s normal. And, and I said, well, it’s, you know, it’s not my normal, but I, I just thought, is that normal? Like you hit your 40s or 50s. Suddenly you’re, you know, you got to go on all these medications. And then the other thing was interesting. I said to him, you know, I’ve been pretty much living the same lifestyle. Why all of a sudden is everything off the charts, right? Like, and he pulled out my five year or five year history and he showed me and it was basically a graph. 

12:31
Kevin
All my readings had been going up every year, like My cholesterol been going up, my blood pressure been going up, my sugar levels were going up. And he says, oh no, this just didn’t happen this year. It’s been going on the last five years. Every year it’s been going up. And I said, well, why didn’t you tell me? Like, why didn’t you share that with me? And you probably know the response. The response was because you were in the norm. You know, you get your blood tests and you’re in. He says you weren’t in the danger zone. And I, I just thought, is that how broken like our system is? Like you have to be actually have a health condition before they treat it? Like, it’s like, you know, I equate it to your car. 

13:10
Kevin
Like you don’t wait till your car breaks down before you get a service. The service light goes on, you go and get it service. 

13:16
Erin
Right. 

13:17
Kevin
It just, it just, you know, I just thought if he had told me about this two or three years earlier, if even that it was increasing, I likely, hopefully would have changed a few things. Right? Yeah. So that was really a turning point. So back to your question is, you know, when did things change? It was really after that second wake up call, which was in 2009. And I went, shared with my wife Barb, what transpired and that I was supposed to go on all these prescriptions and stuff. And she had just seen a nutritionist and I was reading her program. I remember I was reading what her protocol was up in bed that night. And I said, you know what, that doesn’t look very difficult. I’m just going to go on her program. 

14:02
Kevin
So, so I went on her, I just followed what her nutritionist had prescribed for her in terms of, you know, food and diet and other things. And right away started feeling better, had more energy, I was sleeping better, I was losing weight. In fact, over the first month I lost 14 and a half pounds. And people were noticing, like I remember people saying, my co workers or people in my office are saying, what are you doing? Like, you’re looking really good. Because I was losing weight, sleeping better. And so I actually, after a month I phoned the doc and I said, I’d like to get my blood tested again. And he, and again he said the same thing. He said, kev, you’ve been abusing your body for years. You’re not going to change things around in one month. 

14:48
Kevin
I said, just for fun, send me the requisition. So he sent me the requisition. And I. So I went and had my blood tested. Didn’t hear from him that week. The next week, I get this call, had no idea who it was. And at the other end of the phone, it was. He didn’t even introduce himself. He says, you’re my star patient. And I said, who is this? He says, this is Dr. Randy. He said, I don’t know what you’ve been doing. He says, I just got your blood test back. He said, all your levels aren’t just in the norm, they’re at the low end of norm. He says your cholesterol is super low. Your sugar levels are now at the low end. You told me you lost 14 pounds. I’m sure your blood pressure is back in check. 

15:26
Kevin
And he said, let’s just schedule a follow up in three months. And that’s when, Erin, that’s when the light really went on for me. I just thought, you know, what, if you can change your health in one month, imagine what you can do if you really dial it in. And not that I’m perfect by any means, but, you know, for the last number of years, I, I try to live healthily and, you know, do my workouts and other things most of the time. So I have a rule in my book, a chapter actually called the 80% rule, which is, means if you pay attention to your health, 80% of the time, that’s pretty good. You’re. You’re probably in pretty good shape. Right. So, and you mentioned, I mean, since then I’ve made the World Triathlon Championships. 

16:09
Kevin
I’m going my ninth year this year representing Canada. 

16:11
Erin
Oh, my goodness. Congrats. 

16:13
Kevin
Yeah, thanks. So I just, you know, I just. Not again, not perfect, but I’ve made it a kind of my life’s work now to not just improve my health, but improve the health of – our eventual goals to help a million Canadians have better health outcomes. Yeah. 

16:32
Erin
I think your story is so amazing, Kevin, because on the outside, for you to be participating in marathons and then have the results that you experienced in both of those medical crises, it just doesn’t even make sense. And so I can see how it would have been easy to not be able to acknowledge that there was an opportunity there to really be more healthy, to be able to, you know, live better. And I think, you know, for a lot of people, it may not even look that great on the outset anyway. It’s just, it’s just a remarkable story in terms of the amount of change that was available to you even though you were already doing things that on the surface seemed quite healthy in nature. 

17:19
Kevin
Yeah, that’s in. Yeah, that’s interesting because you’d think that, you know, with that even just running marathons or just working out because that people would. And even myself, oh, yeah, I’m healthy. But meanwhile, it was the exact opposite. 

17:34
Erin
Yeah, yeah. There’s an awareness component that has to come first before the change. And I also really liked what you were describing in terms of looking at a trend with the results of your health tests rather than waiting for that flag. So, you know, how many of us wait until the light comes on in our car to fill up with gas? Most of us are tracking how that meter for the gas is going down and we choose to fill up or make changes long before that light comes on. 

18:07
Kevin
Yeah, yeah, for sure. 

18:08
Erin
Yeah. I know in your mission you talk about helping people reach peak health using simple steps. What are some of those simple steps? 

18:18
Kevin
Yeah, the. Well, first of all, it really relates around the wheels of health that I talked about. So I, people are, I think most people are looking for the magic bullet. You know, they’re saying, what pill can I take? What’s the easy way? I mean, if you just think of those four wheels again and just say, you know, mentally, how am I doing on those things? So eating well, you know, are you eating whole foods, non processed? How are you doing on that wheel of health? Like, are you know, four out of five on that sleeping well, are you getting your seven or eight hours of good quality sleep a night? You know, I, I use an aura ring. I’ve used a whoop. I realized that for me to get eight hours sleep, I need to be in bed for nine hours. 

19:01
Kevin
I used to go to bed at, let’s say 11 and get up at 7 and go, oh, I had eight hours sleep. I what I learned from using one of these trackers, I always get an hour less than I actually think I’m getting. Right. So yeah, so sleep, managing your sleep, managing your stress levels. Right. So are you are on a scale of 1 to 10, like where are you from a stress standpoint? And if you are stressed, then that generally is causing you to have issues with sleep. Right. So one wheel affects the other. And then exercise, you know, are you exercising on an ongoing basis? So, you know, I always say you need to get those four simple things in line first. Like, people are looking for supplements and should I take testosterone or should I take vitamin D or vitamin B? 

19:49
Kevin
Yeah, maybe you should. But first of all, start with those four simple things, right? And you just pay attention to those every day. Not that you’re going to be perfect every day, but if you pay attention to those four things every day, you’re going to, you’re just going to be so much better, feel better, you’re going to look better, you’re going to have more energy, you’re going to better for your kids, better for your company, better for your employees. Like all, it all goes together. And you know, the other, the misconception I often hear people say is, well, they do one of those things really well. And I’ll use me as an example. I thought, oh, I exercise, right. Nor the other three wheels of health. I hear people say, oh, I meditate or I do yoga. That’s great. 

20:30
Kevin
But you need to really focus on all four. And if one’s out of whack, it throws them all out of whack. And I’ll use stress as an example. Let’s say you’re super stressed today or your listeners have a stressful day tonight, they’re probably not going to sleep well because of that because they’re under stress. Then tomorrow morning they’re probably not going to work out because they’re going to, because they had a lousy sleep, they’re feeling bad. And then they’re going to reach for sugary or salty foods because they didn’t feel well and they need that sugar fix. And guess what? Tomorrow night they’re probably going to have a lousy sleep again because they’re dry sugar and coffee and everything else. 

21:07
Kevin
So I always say, you know, what we do is a lot of advanced testings and we help people get through the system and get the very best health solutions in the world is really our mission. But I always say you need to look after the basics. And those basics are just so simple. You know, am I sleeping well? Am I eating well? How are my stress levels? 

21:27
Erin
Yeah, and I imagine those basics are true at any age. But is there anything about reaching peak health that differs between the first half of life and the second half of life? 

21:40
Kevin
Yeah, great question. Because I, and I’m often asked what is middle age? You know, and as I get older, I keep extending what middle age is. Now I say it’ oh, 50 to 70. I probably used to say I was 40 to 60, but I think at any age. And actually, as you mentioned, it’s the title of my book, It’s Never Too Late to Be Healthy. Yeah, reaching peak health in middle age. Right. Is really the title and whether you’re 30, 50, 80, if you pay attention to those principles, you will be healthier. And as a result of that, because you’re healthier, you’re going to live longer. Longevity is an interesting thing. So I do a lot of speaking and when I go out and talk to large audiences, I’ll ask a question. 

22:25
Kevin
And the question is, who here wants to live to be 100 years old? Put up your hand if you want to live to be a hundred. And I get usually about 5 to 10% of the people, right? And then I reword the question and I say, okay, now if you’re 100 and you’re active and you can fly and you can play with your grandkids and you can go hiking and you can, you know, do day-to-day activities, now who wants to live to 100? And everybody puts up their hand, right? 

22:53
Erin
Yeah. 

22:54
Kevin
And the reason we don’t, most people don’t want to live to 100 is because they picture their parents or their relatives or grandparents where the last third of their life, they’re existing like they aren’t living their existence right. And a lot of people go, yeah, I don’t really want to do that. But there’s a group of people in the world, and you likely know this but called centenarians, which are people that don’t just live long, but live long and healthy. And there’s Dan Buettner’s book called The Blue Zones, and he’s actually identified five of these blue zones in the world where people don’t just live long, but live long and healthy. And his life’s work is what do these people do differently than the rest of the world? Because they aren’t a few percent more centenarians. 

23:40
Kevin
They’re like 10,000% of, let’s say, other communities or in North America. And I visited two of these communities. One of them was in Sardinia, Italy. And it’s amazing here, like you walk around and you know, all around you in the villages are like old people, but they’re walking and they’re hiking and they’re on the streets having their coffee, their americanos, and they’re having their wine and they’re in the fields and they’re, you know, they aren’t existing. They’re living right. And I think so it’s, you know, there’s two things when it comes to longevity is living long, but you want to live long and healthy. Right. And again, I think, you know, going back to the basics, and a lot of that is just what the centenarians are doing is, you know, how are they sleeping, how are they managing their stress levels. 

24:30
Kevin
What foods are they consuming? Like, it’s not processed stuff, it’s whole foods. And are they exercising? And I’ll say to that, most of these people aren’t hopping on a treadmill or getting the 30 minutes in, walking in the fields, they’re walking in their villages. They’re, you know, they’re just, they’re for what they do every day, they’re exercising. Right. Just. They’re living. 

24:50
Erin
So, yeah, it’s the way that they’re living. And then. Yeah. That distinction between longevity and quality of life. 

24:57
Kevin
Yeah, yeah. Which is, which is what I refer to as health span. So lifespan is how long we live. Health span is how long we live healthfully. 

25:08
Erin
I love that. So I’m going to switch gears a little bit and we’re going to dive into some of the fulfillment foundations. So there are 10 right now. I’ll remind you what they are. Happiness versus fulfillment. Rewiring your brain, finding freedom, chasing adventure, feeling an intuition, creativity, nature and solitude, purpose, health, and community and connection. So I know we’ve touched a lot on the health one already, but as I read through the list, which other one popped out for you and what was your first thought? 

25:44
Kevin
I mean, a lot of them did. And as you. It was interesting as you went through the list, I was thinking of what is my first thought on that? So a couple. A couple that are super important. First of all, it’s just happiness, you know, and I don’t know, I don’t know what the equation is for happiness, but if we’re happy, if we get up every day and we’re excited about life and we’re excited about what we’re doing, you know, that helps you, it helps your family, it helps the people you interact with. Like, you’re just, you’re. And then you have a bigger social network. Like you’re just people, like hanging around people like that. Right. As, as you probably know. But another one that stuck out for me was adventure. Because I, I do. I mean, I like adventure. 

26:34
Kevin
Some people think I’m pushing it too far, especially when I’ve already come close to death. But, I mean, for example, I just did a. About a month ago, I did a backcountry ski trip in Switzerland. And most people don’t even know what backcountry skiing is, but it’s. You’re not on chairlifts, you’re actually climbing like you’re skinning. So you put seal. In the old days it would be seal skins, but you’re putting skins on the bottom of your skis and you’re. We’re climbing mountains and then maybe doing one or two runs into, you know, into a hut or. And then we’re, you know, sleeping the night and then doing another. And we did this for a week in Switzerland and while were there, there was two avalanches. Fortunately we weren’t caught in any of them, thank goodness. But there’s risk there. But there’s also adventure. 

27:23
Kevin
Right. And to me that’s super important. You know, I also have done this bike race over in Italy that’s a six day, you know, thousand kilometer bike race that’s a week long and you know, it’s one year I got taken out. Somebody touched my, the person in front of me, I was falling, just touched my front wheel and I went down and I had a massive hematoma and had to use my own health company to get better. But you know, again, it’s just, it’s super challenging and exciting and it’s adventurous and you know, one of the reasons I think I race triathlons because I keep asking myself, why do I go through this? Like this morning I’m out running at 6:00am and you know, I didn’t feel like happy. 

28:08
Kevin
You just do it and then you, and then the races are super stressful because you know, you’ve got to qualify for the world championships and that type of thing and it’s commotion and you know, everybody’s swimming and you’re basically swimming with your fists. So, so because, so you don’t get taken out and I asked myself why do I do that? But I keep going back. Right. So I think in my life anyhow, adventure is very important and I think it actually keeps me young and you know what’s interesting is now I’m, I, I tend to, on trips I’m going on and other things. Often it’s with younger people. You know, like I just did this 100k for charity bike event in Panorama BC and it finished 20km up a mountain. 

28:54
Kevin
Most of the people at this event were in their 20s, 30s, you know, like there weren’t many, I’ll say people my age that were there. Very few, you know. 

29:02
Erin
Right. 

29:03
Kevin
So, yeah, so I think that, I think adventure is just super important. 

29:09
Erin
Yeah, you brought up an interesting question for me because you used the word risk. And now I’m curious about whether risk is. 

29:17
Erin
Is it a necessary component for adventure. Does all adventure involve risk? 

29:23
Kevin
Yeah, I don’t think so. And I try to do everything to minimize my risk. Right. So, you know, anything I can do to. To minimize that risk. But you can do adventure with, I’d say, little risk, depending on what you’re doing. Could be like hiking. Could be just hiking a mountain to a mountaintop. Right. What’s the risk? The risk might be there’s a bear. The. The rest, you might injure yourself. Right. So there might be a few risks. But I mean, every day we’re taking risks. Right. We hop in our car and drive and don’t even think about it. That we could be. Somebody could sideswipe us or hit us, you know, like that. Right. So I think. Think there’s risk everywhere. What I always say is I like to take calculated risks, you know, and minimize my risk. Right. As much as possible. 

30:08
Erin
Yeah. And I didn’t mean to necessarily make it a bad word because I think that as an entrepreneur, you have a certain comfort level with risk as well. Or at least an observation I’ve had of entrepreneurs is that they have a certain comfort level with risk. I mean, they kind of have to. To get into that line of work. 

30:29
Kevin
Yes. 

30:31
Erin
So you probably bring that both to business and to your adventures. I guess what I’m thinking about as well, though, if people don’t necessarily have a comfort level with risk, is that something. Is that a skill to build or. And I mean, I guess the second part you’ve kind of answered already, which is there, adventure is accessible to anyone, even if you are a little bit risk adverse. 

31:00
Kevin
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know if it’s a skill. I think people are just different. They have. Have different risk aversions. Like if I look at, you know, my family or my wife, for example, she isn’t as apt to do the things that I would just do. 

31:16
Erin
Right, right. 

31:17
Kevin
So more risk averse, more safety conscious, let’s put it that way. 

31:21
Erin
Yeah. 

31:22
Kevin
I’m not saying I’m right by any means. I mean, I have people, even friends, that say, what do you do? Like, why are you doing this stuff? You know, and. And I’m not saying I’m right, but for me, it’s very. It’s fulfilling, Right? 

31:33
Erin
Yes. 

31:34
Kevin
It fills something in me that I. That’s. That’s important to me. Yeah. 

31:39
Erin
I’m gonna move us into the topic of freedom. So there are a few different aspects to this, financial freedom, location freedom, time freedom from stuff. Do you feel like you have these types of freedom in your own life and you know, how did you do it? How did you, how have you brought those types of freedom into your own life if you have it? 

32:01
Kevin
Yeah, I, I feel like freedom is super important. And, and I, how I have done it is through, I’ll say working hard, you know, working very hard. First of all, you know, on the corporate side in the insurance business, climbing their corporate ladder and then making my own decision to go out and help companies with their benefits and growing my consulting, benefits, consulting firm across Canada, and then again through my newest business, which is now helping Canadians and companies and employees and individuals access the best healthcare supports. You know, through all those things, it’s given me freedom. Right? Because through that you get through that. The reward of that of working hard like that and building those things is, it’s economic reward, right? Financial reward. And financial reward then allows you to enjoy those other freedoms. 

32:54
Kevin
It allows you to enjoy the freedom of time, you know, the freedom of, I’ll say working or not working, like at this stage of my life. I mean, I’m often asked, why don’t you just retire? And I say, well, I don’t want to retire. I want, I’m building a business. Right. But I could have the freedom to retire right now, you know. 

33:13
Erin
Right. 

33:14
Kevin
So I think, you know, if I look back at my life, working hard and then reaping the financial rewards of doing that has allowed me all those other freedoms and freedom to choose. Like freedom to choose whether I work, don’t work, freedom to choose whether I work out, don’t work out. You know, it’s allowed those other freedoms. 

33:36
Erin
Yeah, it’s interesting how working hard has led you to financial freedom. Working hard was also one of the factors that led you to a health crisis. How do you, like, how do you reconcile that? 

33:51
Kevin
Yeah, I, I would say it was working hard, plus all those other things going on in my life. Right. That, that. So I don’t blame working hard. I blame, you know, there was a bunch of factors that, I think that contributed to those health challenges. But, you know, even now, I mean, right now I’m working super hard, super long hours and everything, and I love it. And it’s not at this point providing financial freedom from that business at all. It’s more the satisfaction of helping people. Every single day, you know, every day we’re helping people with their health challenges. 

34:29
Kevin
Whether it’s heart disease, cancer, whether it’s, you know, MS, whether it’s proactive testing, like it’s nice to me at this point in my life, it’s super nice to put my head down on the pillow every night and know that every day we’re helping people. And even, you know, the people we attract in our company, the reason they come to work for us is they want to do the same thing. They want to feel, they want to help people. Right. And feel good about what we’re doing on a daily basis. 

34:58
Erin
Yeah. And I guess what I’m hearing you say is that it’s possible to work hard and have those four wheels healthy at the same time. 

35:09
Kevin
Yeah. 100 percent, yeah. I mean, I’m doing it right now. I’m working hard, you know, I’m working out, I’m managing my stress levels. And again, because I monitor all this stuff, I’m sleeping super well, you know, not every single day am I doing all those things. Five out of five. But you know, because you go off track. But most days, you know, four, four or five out of five on each of those different wheels, you know. 

35:32
Erin
Yeah. And then you’ve got your 80 rule. So you’ve given yourself some grace who are needed. Yeah, yeah. 

35:37
Kevin
And you know what? And often I save that, I’ll say for the social things like the weekend or when we see friends or you know, you want a glass of wine or that type of thing. So by no means am I like 100 percent perfect because I think I always look at, you know, why does everybody, why do New Year’s resolutions all fail? 

35:55
Erin
Right. 

35:55
Kevin
99 of the time they fail. And the reason they fail is because it’s all or nothing. Right. It’s like people don’t allow themselves to have any freedom or any mess ups, I’ll call it, or cheat days. Right. So if you think about 80, like, I don’t know when, I don’t know about you, but when I went through school, if I got an 80 mark, I’d be happy. I’d go, oh, that’s a great mark. Right? 

36:17
Erin
Yeah. 

36:18
Kevin
You might have been a way better student than me. But anyways, 80 for me was good. I just look at that in life and I say, you know, if I’m good, if I eat well, 80% of the time, if I exercise well, 80% of the time,. You know, you don’t need to do it every day. But if I do it 80% of the time, that’s pretty good, right? Yeah. 

36:36
Erin
Going back to time freedom. I know you had told me about an interesting exercise once where you use three columns to kind of think about your activities and do a bit of analysis. Can you share that? I thought it was really helpful. 

36:48
Kevin
Yeah. It’s an exercise I’ve used with actually my last two companies, and about a couple times a year we do the same exercise. So it’s basically taking a piece of paper and just drawing. Drawing two lines down it like that. And the left, the top left, or I’ll say the top right column will be things that you love doing. Okay. And you’re. And you. And you’re great at. Right? 

37:15
Erin
Yeah. 

37:16
Kevin
The left column would be things you really don’t like doing. Right. And you’re probably not very good at it either. Like, you don’t like doing it and you’re not good. The middle column is, you know what people think I’m really good at that. And. But I can do it with my eyes closed. Like, it’s, it’s like, doesn’t give me any excitement. Right. And actually from Dan Sullivan, from Strategic Coach, this whole concept, so, you know, what we try to do in our company and what I try to do each and every day, is if we can spend 80% of our time doing the things we love doing and excite us, imagine what a great job that is. And not that you’re going to get rid of all. 

37:54
Kevin
I mean, we still have to do emails, you still have to do certain things we don’t like doing. But if 80% of the time you can do what, you can wake up every day and go, I’m doing what I love doing. Like, yesterday I woke up, I had a speaking engagement. I had some meetings with potential clients. Like, the whole day excited me. Like, I come away from the day, I’m energized. Like, instead, whereas the things you don’t like doing, you’re exhausted. You’re going, oh, that was so painful. You know, it’s painful, right? So, you know, you just try to move more and more of the things over that we love doing and, and excites us. Right. Because that most of the time you’re, you’re in a really good spot, you know? Yeah. 

38:35
Erin
I think it’s neat to think about that exercise in our work. I’ll call it cluster, because I’m going to use Fulfillment Equation language here. But essentially that’s also the exercise of the Fulfillment Equation as a whole. Really looking at how you’re spending your time in the week. And you know, that’s neat to think about blending it with that, where you’re putting these activities or the things that you’re doing into these different buckets. And how can I start to tip the scales a little bit it, to make sure that, you know, more often than not, the thing, the ways I’m spending my time are things that I love to do and that I get joy from, that I get energy from. So that’s neat. 

39:18
Erin
I’m going to see if I can combine that a little bit with some of the fulfillment equation stuff because it’s very much aligned. 

39:24
Kevin
Yeah. 

39:25
Erin
One of themes is rewiring your brain. So this essentially means identifying where in your mind you may have a preconceived idea about something either self imposed or sometimes society can impose these limitations on us. Can you give me an example of a time in your life where you rewired your brain, where you taught yourself to look at something differently or where you identified that you were looking at something in a limited way? 

39:57
Kevin
I’ll use the healthcare system as probably the best example. So the healthcare system is we go to our doctor. And don’t get me wrong, we have docs on our network. Like there’s amazing docs. Go to our doc. And whatever the solution is, we just as, I think as Canadians, we go, oh, okay, so if you’ve got to wait six months to see a specialist, let’s say a cardiologist here, ears, nose, throat specialist, whatever it is, you kind of go, yeah, okay, that’s, I’ll just wait. And I personally had to rewire my brain to go, you know what, there are other options out there. There’s, you know, there’s more than one cardiologist in town. There’s, there’s a whole network. There’s networks across Canada. There’s private options, there’s private options in the US there’s, you know, there’s other ways to get things done. 

40:45
Kevin
And, and so which is really how we started our company and the success of our company is the whole, what we do is we rewire what people’s normal thought process is. Right? Because the normal thought process is oh, I gotta wait six months. You go, oh, okay, I guess I gotta wait six months for that. And, and so a lot of what I spend, a lot of my time out is educating and sharing there are other ways. Yeah. 

41:12
Erin
Give an example of rewiring your brain outside of your business life. 

41:17
Kevin
I’ll use my Kids probably as an example. So I grew up as a, you know, typical, you go to school, you then get a job working for a company and then you kind of retire. Right? 

41:30
Erin
Right. 

41:32
Kevin
What we’ve tried to do to rewire our own brain and I’ll say rewire our kids brains was, you know, do what you love doing, follow what you love doing and you’ll figure out a way to make money doing it. Right. And, and I’ll use our daughter Lauren as an example. When she went to school, she, when she graduated grade 12, she won the highest award for business and the highest award for arts. Right. And all her. And everybody’s going, oh, you got to go business, you got to go to Western. You know, you’re excelling in business. But her passion was graphic design. Like arts, the arts. Right. So we supported that. And she went to, she applied to a bunch of schools in Canada, in the U.S. In London, England. 

42:18
Kevin
She ended up going, getting in and accepted to Parsons School of Design in New York City. 

42:22
Erin
Wow. 

42:23
Kevin
Then went on as an intern and now she’s a graphic designer for Ralph Lauren, you know, Ralph Lauren Worldwide. And, and our, both our boys have done pretty exactly the same thing. They followed their passion. They love doing what they’re doing and figuring out how to make a living doing it right. So. 

42:40
Erin
Oh, I love that. All right, we’re going to build your equation. So if I was to give you an ideal week. 

42:46
Kevin
Yeah. 

42:47
Erin
How are you spending your time in. We can just start by identifying where you’re spending your time. 

42:52
Kevin
Pretty. I’m pretty disciplined actually. So every morning I work out. 

42:57
Erin
Okay. 

42:57
Kevin
Okay. Every morning. If I don’t work out in the morning, I’m not starting my day off well. Every day I’m having my Wilson shake, named after our dog Wilson that lived to be 19 years old. So that’s kind of my nourishment to start my day. Nice that now there’s thousands other people starting their day that way. I’m pretty disciplined in my work. So I, I work, you know, Monday to Friday, nine till probably six now, probably longer than I did before. Take an hour for lunch working. I try to do all my office stuff on Mondays and Tuesday. Wednesday, Thursday are my right hand column work from a work perspective. And that’s public speaking. Talking to potential customers, talking to customers, interacting and I’ll say waving the flag for our business. Spend you know, every evening, try not to work at all. 

43:55
Kevin
I learned that during COVID because it taught me the lesson that I was, you know, dinner would come. And then after dinner, I opened my laptop again. So most nights that’s not happening. I spend. Barb and I spend most evenings together. Our children are now out of the house. So when I used to spend time every night with them, taking them to their sports or soccer or hockey or skiing or whatever they are all adult children now, so they’re. They’re all out of the home. So it allows me to work a bit later in building this business and then spend the evenings with Barb and try to get to bed at a reasonable hour so I can work on my sleep wheel. So that’s that. And then weekends, we do take holidays quite a bit, and. 

44:40
Kevin
And often I put it around sport events. So we’re. For example, I’m going to the world championships in triathlon in Spain in October. So then we’ll do that and then we’ll go. Probably we’re. I think we’re going to go to Malaga for a week. So we’ll build a holiday around that, ski a lot and have ski trips in the winter, you know, like a week, 10 days at a time, skiing and. And then weekends are for Barb and I time, like, I very rarely work on a weekend. Weekends are time for, you know, whether. Or. We have a cottage up north, so like after this. Today I’m actually on my way to the cottage. So the cottage in the summer, go to our ski place in the winter. But weekends are for. For family, basically. Yeah. 

45:29
Erin
That’s awesome. 

45:31
Kevin
Yeah. 

45:32
Erin
So I’ve got exercise. Have your shake in here. We can decide whether or not to include that. But I love it. Work, spouse, family, and then ski and travel time. 

45:47
Kevin
Yeah, Ski and travel. Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. 

45:52
Erin
Okay. And I love the way that you described your work. So you do two days a week are for like. I feel like administration is maybe too boring a word. What would you call it? 

46:04
Kevin
Not touching. Like, Mondays I touch base with all my, let’s say, people that work with me. So all the, you know, get all my meetings done for, you know, for the week type of thing. Yes. Right. Yes. For some reason, I’ve just always done that. And then. Yeah. And then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are client interactions. Wednesday, I often I book off for business development, like, so I actually, my calendar is very regimented, as a matter of fact. Like, I know a lot of people say, oh, I. I don’t have control. I don’t have my control. I’m very disciplined about my calendar and I. I don’t start before 9. Because I know I’m working out every single morning. Right. So unless I absolutely have to, unless there’s something, I. I don’t schedule anything, you know, before nine or after five type of thing. 

46:49
Kevin
So I think a lot of that’s just protecting your time. Time. Like just protecting what’s important. What’s important to you. Like, people often hear. I heard it again yesterday when I was doing a speaking engagement. Oh, I just don’t have time to work out. And I said, well, two things. One, it’s not a priority if you don’t have time. And two, book it off. Like, just book it off in your calendar every morning, say from 7 to 8. That’s. I’m doing that. And then you have time. Like I. I always say you first, which people think is selfish. I actually say it’s selfless. Because if you’re looking after you can do a better job looking after your spouse, your kids, your employees, your family, everything. Right? 

47:29
Erin
Absolutely. Step one, book it off. Step two, show up. 

47:34
Kevin
Yeah, yeah. 

47:35
Erin
Because. Right. Because there. There is sometimes the tendency where we can not show up for our own things in the way that we would show up if were booked in with someone else. 

47:45
Kevin
Yeah, yeah, that’s a great point. Yeah. But, yeah, not just book it off, but actually do it. 

47:51
Erin
Yeah. Okay, so we’re just gonna quickly quantify. So that just means that we’re going to attach some numbers to it just because, you know, they’re different proportions, like a good recipe. Some things it’s a cup of this, and some things it’s a teaspoon of that. Now, normally I think about a block as being about an hour, but I think what I’m going to do with your work is sometimes I’ll just do a bigger block. So for that, I’ve given you two big blocks for your internal stuff, plus two big blocks for client stuff, plus one big block for business development. Those that represent your five days of the week for work. Does that sound okay? 

48:31
Kevin
Yeah, yeah. When I’m. When I’m. When I’m not off, that’s what I’m doing. Yep. 

48:35
Erin
Okay. So then for exercise, if we think about like a block being an hour or whatever amount of time you want to designate it as. How many blocks? One a day?

48:47
Kevin
One a day, one a day during the week or one and a half a day during the week. And on weekends, I go long because I have time. It’s longer. It’s probably double to triple that. So it average about two a day, probably. If you’re going to average it. 

49:02
Erin
Yeah, that’s a good way to think about it. Okay, so we’ll give you 14 for exercise time with your spouse. How many blocks would you give to that? 

49:11
Kevin
That would be every evening. So that would be, you know, three hours, I’m going to say during the evening and, you know, on the weekends. I don’t know how you quantify that. Probably six, seven hours each day, you know. 

49:27
Erin
Yeah. And. And it might be helpful to, like, often I’ll prompt around quality time because we can be with our kids or our spouse for a lot of time, but it’s really about, like, how many moments of true connection are you wanting to get in a day? 

49:43
Kevin
Yeah. You know, I would say if. If it’s true connection, probably we’re lucky. You’re lucky if you can get an hour of that true connection a day, you’re probably doing really well. 

49:53
Erin
Right, right. Okay. I’ll give you. 

49:57
Kevin
If you qualify that versus just time together. 

50:01
Erin
Exactly. 

50:02
Kevin
But we’ll do things together, like tomorrow at the cottage, we’ll go hiking together or, you know that type of thing. Right. So is that quality time? Yeah, I think that’s quality time. We’re out in nature. We’re spending time together, you know. Absolutely together. Right, so. 

50:15
Erin
Absolutely. 

50:16
Kevin
So it’s probably more than the seven. It’s probably. When I think about it, if you add in kind of the weekend time, too. 

50:22
Erin
Sure. What do you want to give it?

50:24

Kevin

Say, 10? 

50:25
Erin

Okay. What about family? So I. I know, like, did we cover that with spouse or. I think I felt like you were talking more broadly about when your. Your kids. Kids come back. 

50:36
Kevin
Yeah. I mean, if you had asked me this 10 years ago, family would have been like. That would have been a huge chunk, but. Because, I mean, they’re living. Our oldest son, Tim lives in the city, Matt lives in Alberta, and Lauren lives down in New York. So, I mean, when we see them, it’s amazing quality time. Like, they’ll come to the cottage for a week or two this summer and, you know, we’ll spend the whole time together and we’re running together and boating together and same in the winter we’ll go skiing together. So it’s. But it’s not as much. I mean, it’s not. It’s not nearly as much because now they’re busy in their lives and they’re raising their own families and, you know. 

51:13
Erin
Right. Okay. I think I might do a first year. I’m going to design a way to put things like family. And I’m also wondering if this is true. For your travel, where it’s difficult to quantify that in terms of an average week, but it’s an ingredient that’s important in the long term. 

51:31
Kevin
Yeah, like we do take a lot of time off. Like I always say when I work, like that week I just gave you, that’s a typical week when I’m here. But we take a lot of time off. We’re probably off, you know, two or three months a year, if at least. 

51:45
Erin
That’s great. All right, so I have your equation as 5 work plus 14 exercise plus 10 spouse. And then long term, we’ve got family and travel and skiing and all of that great stuff in there as well. 

52:00
Kevin
Yeah, nice. 

52:02
Erin
One other question while we’re into your equation, and this is a piece I’ve added for the second season as we’re thinking about connecting our long term strategy into our day to day equation. What is a dream that you have for yourself in 5 to 10 years and how do you trace that back to what’s in your equation today? 

52:23
Kevin
So my dream five years is we’re helping a million Canadians access the very best health outcomes through the work that we’re doing on a daily basis. To me, that’s super important and it would be super fulfilling to do that. You know, personally would be, obviously everybody. Our family healthy, me healthy, My wife healthy. You know, continuing to have great relationships with our kids and their spouses and their kids and, and my wife, Barb, from that standpoint. Yeah. And I, I think, you know, I think those, if I look at those three things I just mentioned, one is helping. Helping people, but helping the world. Right? 

53:11
Erin
Yeah. 

53:12
Kevin
Two is health, because you can’t do that unless you’re healthy. And not just my health, but health of our whole family. And the third is relationships. Right. And like loving long, healthy relationships with your family, your kids, your friends, you know, whatever that looks like. But yeah, that’s probably the best way I can answer that question. 

53:36
Erin
Yeah. And I think it aligns perfectly because you really have three main components to your equation, and that’s work, which aligns with number one, exercise, which links to your health and time with your spouse and your family is your number three. So you’re very aligned. I love it. Let’s do some rapid fire. Are you ready? 

53:59
Kevin
I thought that was rapid fire. 

54:03
Erin
All right, here we go. Finish the sentence. Fulfillment is.

54:05
Kevin

Loving life.

54:06
Erin

Give me an example of a small moment of joy you had in the last 24 hours. 

54:14
Kevin
My run this morning. 

54:16
Erin
What is a book you read or a podcast you listened to that changed the way you think. 

54:23
Kevin
The China Study changed my eating habits. And, and I’ve. And ever since then. I. I wouldn’t call myself vegan, but I’m mainly plant based. China Study. Great book by Colin Campbell. Yeah. 

54:38
Erin
In one sentence, what does freedom look like to you? 

54:41
Kevin
You doing the things that you love and enjoy.

54:45
Erin
What is the coolest place you visited or a place you visited that exceeded your expectations? 

54:51
Kevin
Because it’s recent. I’ll say Backcountry skiing on mountains in Switzerland. 

54:57
Erin
That must have been quite a view. 

54:59
Kevin
Yeah. Oh, amazing. We did a horseshoe. So where we started on the first night, we’re looking across at where we’re going to finish. So every day we basically climbed up and down a mountain around this whole horseshoe and at the end we’re looking back at the place that we started seven days later across a valley. 

55:19
Erin
Oh, neat. That’s actually an interesting example. As somebody who loves math and physics and all sorts of stuff that’s like you’ve brought together space and time because you’re almost looking back at yourself in the seven days earlier when you look across. 

55:34
Kevin
Yeah, you’re going, that’s where we were. I could barely even see the place. Looks like a little stack. 

55:42
Erin
What is something you do regularly to fill your own cup? 

55:45
Kevin
Exercise. 

55:47
Erin
I love it. Kevin, thank you so much for being here. This was just such a joy to learn from you. You certainly seem to me to be somebody who embodies the Fulfillment Equation and is fulfilled in a daily way. So thank you for sharing that with us. 

56:04
Kevin
Well, thank you for having me on and I love being a guest and I love the work that you’re doing. It’s amazing. 

56:10
Erin
Thank you. If you like this podcast and want to support it, tell a friend about it. You can also connect with Fulfillment Equation through Instagram or Facebook for updates on new episodes, daily doses of joy and fun travel tips. And if you are really into it, feel free to join the Fulfillment Equation community through the website at fulfillmentequation.com where you will get a weekly email with insider information and free resources to help you build more fulfillment into your own life. I hope you enjoyed the episode today. There’s lots more to come this season, so stay tuned. 

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