Unlocking Human Potential: The Power of "Healthspan" in Hospitality - Lou Zameryka

Lou: I've always tried to think about where is my passion now and where do I have the right set of capabilities to direct some of my energy towards achieving something that's useful to other people and in service of other people. So first it was travel. And now more recently over the past couple of years, as I continued in my kind of amateur professional-ish running career, I started to get more into health and wellness. As I started to think about how people truly achieve their potential, And how long they would do that in life, I started to think about, well, health really matters. Wellness really matters. How fit you are to go about contributing to this world really would matter. And so, as I went down that rabbit hole further and further, I started to think about transitioning from travel to actually into this area of health and wellness as a way to help with unleashing human potential.

Josiah: Okay, I want to get all into this, but I have to interrupt with a little observation. This thread has, I think, also been a part of your life for a very long time. This is not just you read a book, or you saw a documentary. I remember going years back, probably 10, 12 years ago at conferences and I would see you, and we would talk about runs that you did in that city, wherever the conference was. I've observed you, how you've invited people to join you on those runs. So everything that we've talked about from relationship building to kind of thinking about how do you help people succeed in the long term, both personally and professionally, this has always been a thread of your career, right? And so I think sometimes things don't just come out of nowhere. It seems like deep down this is integral to you.

Lou: Exactly. So it did evolve like that, right? So it started as fitness and I said, well, I need to continue to get into shape. I want to really perform myself in life. So I got into competitive running a number of years ago. And then to your point in travel, I thought, hey, we keep going to all these different places and sometimes you never see the city. I sure would like to see the city more often and then just a conference room or a convention center and an airport. I should go running in the morning. And then I said, well, I don't really know these places, so I should see if anybody else wants to go running. It'd be a great way to meet before the formal kind of programs begin. And so that's where I started. In fact, to this day, when I look at some conference schedules now and agendas, I've started to see running come up with yoga as the morning activities now planned by these conferences. And I start to think, I think I might've did that because I was like, I would offer to these conference producers, hey, I'm going to go do a group run. You want to put it on your agenda. And it kind of caught on. So again, yeah, it's been a theme in my life. And what I just started to realize was that it wasn't just about fitness for the fitness's sake in the moment, but as I matured myself and got older, I started to think about just the future in general. And I said, wow, so it's not about just fitness in the moment, but it's fitness for like all you want to do in life, right? So I don't want to stop contributing, traveling, building businesses, or doing many of the fun things I do when I'm 60 when I'm 70, you know, I'm going to do it until the moment that life is taken away from me. So I said, well, how do I help other people realize that life is long and there's a set of activities and behaviors you can undertake that'll allow you to just live it to its fullest potential the entire time, rather than having to give up early.

Josiah: I want to spend just a moment talking about the here and now, because we've talked about you building this global business, this global success story. What has fitness and wellness done for you in the moment as you were building this company professionally?

Lou: So I'll give you the most simplistic and immature view of this, but it's the reality, right? Again, I'm known for being transparent and authentic. You mentioned earlier about big negotiations and deals. So it always felt like quite an edge, and I would realize it in the early morning, and then it would remind me when I was ready to walk into the room. But because I'm a competitive runner, I run very hard, especially on Tuesdays, there's track work, it's crazy. And it's all year round, right? It doesn't matter, winter, summer, whatever. Yeah. Oh my gosh. The track in Washington, D.C., and I at Georgetown University Hospital, I have a lot of memories together in the dark, cold Februaries. I could see the rowers coming out of the colleges when I'd run over the bridge to head there. But anyway, but it would always remind me that when I was done, I would be done with my workout, let's say 6.30 in the morning, 90 minutes of a crazy workout. that was the hardest thing I was gonna push myself on that day. And when I showed up at that all-day meeting or all-day negotiation, I knew that in that room, no one had already put themselves through what I was willing to put myself through to achieve the outcome that I believe is attached to what I want to achieve. So I always had that kind of mental edge of not just the energy that comes from doing that hard of a workout, post-workout, but also to know that I've already earned that day. And whatever's about to happen, I'm going to go in with great energy, and it'll not be as hard as what I've just had to negotiate with myself to continue those reps on the track and things like that.

Josiah: I appreciate you sharing that story because I think that you just feel alive, right? You feel alive. I want to go back to what you're saying about the sense of life is long and you want to show up in the world on every level at full capacity. You don't want this to end at 35. Tell me a little bit more about how you're thinking about this in terms of it wasn't just about living long. It's about quality of life for the long run.

Lou: Exactly. So, about 18 months ago, as I was continuing to pursue my fitness journey, I started thinking about the idea of just, frankly, being old, right? And saying, okay, well, I look at it and life is, through medical intervention, gonna help you live longer, right? And like you mentioned, longevity has been a pursuit of many people, right? How to add years to your life. And longevity is made up of two things, lifespan and healthspan. So lifespan, simply how long you live, right? And people have been trying to extend that. And some of the ways are expensive, some of the ways are very experimental, and you kind of don't know what you get until the end, right? So you can't really tell if it added those five years on your life until, you're basically dead. So it can be a little hard to pursue for many people. But healthspan, to me, the other element of it, seemed very much something that you could start now, you could feel now, you could measure now. And ultimately, no matter how long you lived, that quality of life needs to be there, right? So as many people may have experienced, especially recently, you may have an elderly family member that you care about, and they have a bad health scare or an actual chronic problem. Medicine will actually keep you alive pretty long, right? But if if that means 10, 20 years of not really living. although you're alive, to me, that's like something that we need to figure out how to solve for with people. And so I started to learn more and more about Healthspan and the pillars that make it up. And I said to myself, all right, this is it. If I can spend some time helping people to understand how to actually unlock their potential and then sustain it for however long they live so that they can be active doing things, helping other people, I'm going all in. So I couldn't help myself. So, you know, when I think about why I chose Healthspan, I chose it because it was very concrete, not just aspirational. So Healthspan, through all the research, is pretty much made up of five pillars, right? They're fitness, nutrition, sleep and recovery, stress management, and social connection and purpose. And if you could touch those five pillars, it's not necessary that you go deep in any one of them, but if you can actually balance your life across those five pillars, it's been shown that you will live the healthiest the longest you can. And I gravitated towards that because, first of all, I like concrete and measurable things, and I find that particularly more useful than What we see right now, which is in general, whether it's in hospitality or overall, the concept of wellness, right? Wellness to me is a little too ambiguous. It can be interpreted a little too many ways, which makes it hard to execute on, which makes it hard to articulate to the right audiences, and thus makes it hard for people to participate in from a both, I'm gonna make an investment in this stage, and also I know what I'm getting myself into. So Healthspan to me seems like a model that is much more useful even in the hospitality setting, right? So if you said, hey, I'm going to make my hotel more wellness-centric, I mean, you could be putting a massage table in there. You could be doing anything, a Peloton in there. But if you said, hey, what I wanna focus on is this idea of health span, right? And how do I influence it? Well, now you have five very concrete pillars to start lining up actions against, right? You can start to measure it and you can actually have a more well-articulated set of inputs and outputs. And I find that to be super attractive. So I will be pursuing bringing healthspan commercial models into the travel industry for those that are currently interested in kind of health and wellness as a, as an area of their business and seeing how we can transform some of that more concretely to a healthspan pursuit. And I'll be building another business of my own as well in healthspan.

Josiah: Well, we might have to have you back on the show to talk about that when you're ready to talk about it. But I wonder if we could quickly run through each of these elements. And let's think about in blue sky, blank canvas sort of state, what would you like to see in each of these dimensions? Because I think hotels, resorts, hospitality businesses have this really unique advantage. I think you've spoken to this before, where people step outside their day-to-day and they try new things. You're almost reaching people at a point where you can introduce a new, better way of life. And so let's talk in each of these dimensions. What could that better way of life look like for the hospitality provider that wants to introduce people to this?

Lou: Yeah, you're right. Look, although people like to think that the best time to make a change is when everything is stable and you feel ready. Research shows that the best time to make a change is when there are things actually out of whack, right? And where you've been patterned interrupted already. So you can get a new pattern started, a new habit started when that pattern interruption happens, because it's just easier. Your mind is opt for switching. And so travel is one of those things, right? You're out of your normal routine, you're out of your normal location, and you do have the opportunity to start something new, right? At least to experience something new. And so I think the simplest way to think through healthspan and the thing that would put maybe my other business out of commission if people just did it, which I'd be happy if they did, is that you can do all of these things for free, right? So that means that you can even facilitate them at a low cost as a hotel, especially if you think of your hotel as a base camp for this traveler, right? So get away from the commoditization that we're a bad and start thinking about it. Well, I am the base camp for this traveler when they're in this area and I need to understand what they're trying to achieve and help them to achieve it. So, I mean, look. simply in healthspan fitness, the benefits of walking, right? A long walk, a 60-minute walk a day, is pretty sufficient for a healthspan. It's just introductory, but that's an area to get into fitness that's completely free and accessible to anybody. And you can facilitate that with nice walking maps of the neighborhood with maybe suggestions for playlists that they can listen to while they're walking or podcasts like this one that they can listen to while they're walking, right? Then of course you have nutrition. Nutrition could also be done pretty easily. Just eat some more fruits and vegetables rather than meats, right? Everything in balance is perfectly fine, but less processed foods. So think about what you're going to feed your guests. Again, not entirely too hard to do from an implementation standpoint and from a consumer standpoint, it's just different choices to make. It didn't really cost you any money because you were going to feed yourself.

Josiah: And maybe there's an opportunity even is something so small as the minibar or things that are in the room. Sometimes I see places with a pretty decent food offering in the restaurant. And then you get to the room, and it feels like it's all like M&Ms.

Lou: It's the bane of my existence. So I think the minibar and, yeah, the terrible choices that are in it is one. And if you think about it, in some cases, the people that are going to go for the minibar price. are also willing to be premium consumers. So if you find the right things in there that are healthy and at a premium consumer, you might see minibar sales go up especially. But it even goes down to like amenities, right? So I mentioned before, I'm a competitive runner. I travel to places and everything that you would know about me as your guest, if you were data mining accurately for my profile, would be that I am gonna go running while I'm at your hotel, right? So the thing that you do not wanna give me as a VIP who's staying one or two nights is like a bottle of red wine. Completely useless as a sentiment to me, completely useless as an item to me. Two bottles of Poland Spring would have saved you a lot of money, and I would have been a very happy man. I would have realized you knew what I was like wanting to do and we'd all be healthier and better for it. And so would your bottom line because you weren't giving me a $12 bottle of wine. So it's, it's a little bit of everything, but yeah, going back to it, I mean, it's the sleep, right? The hotel is places where you sleep. So helping people to get into a good sleep routine, not just having the comfortable mattress, but really what the routine is around how you go to sleep, how you get those right hours of sleep. Similarly, what you can do on stress management, right? There's a lot of opportunity. If people just meditate for 15, 20 minutes a day, when they get there, they can start at one or two minutes. It's not that important. That's another free area of health span that you could achieve. And then social connection and purpose. The hotel has plenty of space in it and has a lot of different people in it. So if you think about how you use your space to facilitate some social connection, whether that's with the outside community or whether that's within your walls, again, you can have an impact on how people experience their time in your hotel and thus contribute to their healthspan.

Josiah: I love it. Where can people go to follow you? You had some interesting things cooking. Where can they go to follow you as you're building and on this journey?

Lou: So, so far, mostly it's on LinkedIn, right? I'm actually really enjoying LinkedIn because I have this. dual, you know, I love relationships and I love things that are productive and thought-provoking. So I spend most of my time on LinkedIn, but so far I've noticed that there's not a significant amount of dialogue from the health wellness industry. So I'm going to try and start to facilitate some of that too. So if you want to share at all what you're doing in health and wellness on LinkedIn, feel free to tag me or interact with me. I think that's the best place right now.