SLCSAW #9 Life, Health, Success all wrapped up in one VERY powerful 1/2 hour with Garrett Gunderson

Welcome back. This is Dr. Altman and today I have a very special guest with you.  His name is Garrett Gunderson. He is a financial guru that has a fabulous book out called ‘Killing Sacred Cows.’ 

He’s done numerous TV shows. and they run a very successful financial program here in Salt Lake City.  Today, I want to bring you a little bit more with him because he does something that a lot of very successful people don’t do very well, that is take good care of their health, and I want to let him kind of give you a little information on his health journey, maybe some success tips, and in general, make your life a lot better. So I’ve just got to turn it over to Garrett, if he has anything new to say, but also I kind of want to know how your journey into better health started.

Garrett: Well for me, I think it was 2005, I want to…What I told my wife, I said… It was a spa, but it was actually a week long health retreat that we went to.

Dr. A: Is this the one at Sanoviv? 

Garrett: It was, yes. Sanoviv that we went to.  What happened was, I was speaking in Colorado, and at that time, I usually kept my hair short. It’s kind of long now, but I started growing it long and someone said, “Why are you growing your hair?” And so I just told the group, when I was speaking, I was like “I want to grow it and not get it cut, until I get in the type of health that I want to get into.” And this guy came up and told me about Sanoviv and so I booked the trip. 

That all kick started it. “I’m just gonna immersed myself in it,” And I learned that there was so much more that I didn’t know, that I got a full kind of assessment of all sorts of different things about myself.  So, that’s where the journey began.  

I’d started to read on health. I started to meet health professionals. I… I then met Dr. Patrick Gentempo went to a 3-day course that was really meant for doctors, that I got to sit through.  Then I became a speaker at it on the financial side.  So that was a big part, but it really kind of turned a  corner when my son was having some issues.  We were seeing what we could do to help his health.  Then when my wife got involved that way, it’s been a journey of navigating through all that stuff.

Dr. A: I actually have two questions to piggy back on that. When you went to Sanoviv, what was the one thing that just stood out to you, that you just didn’t realized about health? 

Garrett: It seems almost naïve now, because it seems so basic, but I wasn’t mindful about what I ate at all. I just ate whatever I wanted to eat, whenever I wanted to eat it. All of a sudden, you know I was like “Oh, so look at this. This is impacting all sorts of stuff that’s going on with me,” You know because I was in my 20’s at that time, it’s like, metabolism and being young can compensate for really bad choices.  It was just starting to catch up. I mean I had high triglycerides. I had higher cholesterol. I had stuff that was surprising for someone my age. And I was definitely heavier than  I should be, but I still carried my weight well. So it wasn’t like anyone would look at me and call me fat, but I definitely had much higher percentage body fat.  I hadn’t really thought about what eating healthy meant because people eating healthy is something different, unless they’re maybe reading your stuff, listening to you. I mean a lot of people think, you know “Oh, well, I had my heart healthy cheerios,” but that’s all grains. And we know that a lot of grains cause a whole lot of gut issues.

...Or you know I’ve had my yogurt. “Oh yeah, that yogurt has high fructose corn syrup in it” because I mean when I was... when I was going to Sanoviv, they send you a list of things like, “Hey, stop eating any dairies. Stop--especially don’t have yogurt” because I was thinking like the… The normal kind of sugary stuff that I was “Oh, yogurt’s got that good healthy bacteria in it, right”

Dr. A: Right.

Garrett: Underneath all the sugar apparently.  I started reading, “Don’t use… Don’t be… Don’t bring colognes.” Like you start realizing all the toxic things that were exposing our body to every single day. And I was just an awakening for me.

Dr. A: I know you’ve done some chiropractic stuff as well, how has that affected your family?

Garrett: Well, I started under, my first chiropractic visit, was probably 12-13 years ago. I went just because my feet were going numb when I was running.  The chiropractor made a big difference in a short period of time, and he really sold me on “Hey, you know, your body is this machine, do you want to keep it fine-tuned? You want to do well with it or do you just want to come in and fix a problem,  and wait for the next problem to happen.” So I’ve been in chiropractic care for… for a very long time. 

When I went to Sanoviv, they actually have chiropractors, plus MDs, and they had dentist's there, it was a comprehensive place.  It wasn’t like “Oh, I’m an MD and this is a chiropractor”, so we just disagree with everything. They subscribe to a philosophy which helped me out quite a bit. Chiropractic made the biggest difference for my son, because he was really struggling having auditory processing issues. Chiropractors brought in the right nutritionist. Chiropractors brought in the right chiropractors that did specific types of adjustments.  They really bonded together. They coordinated and referred us to the right people, they were really were the catalyst to help us get him in a much, much better place.

Dr. A: That’s cool. I wish more people would use that for their kids because we see some pretty amazing things with kids. People don’t realize that it is even something that can be beneficial to kids.

Garrett: Yeah, I mean when our second son was born for the first couple of days, he was very fussy and so I took him in the chiropractor. My wife was very reluctant. She hadn’t been exposed to it quite like I had, and our chiropractor at that time was 245 pounds of muscle, like a big giant Norwegian looking Viking.  She was worried. But he’s super gentle and it made immediate difference. Think about going through the birth canal and all the tugging and pulling and, everything that’s happening to the spine. Now, my wife’s really an advocate for it. She’s telling a whole bunch of people about it. She’s gotten her father into it, who really is skeptical about a lot of stuff, but he’s started seeing results and my whole family is in to it now.

Dr. A: Now, sitting here looking at you, you still have long hair.

Garrett: Yeah.

Dr. A: Are you still on to health journey?

Garrett: Yeah, I guess we’re always on a health journey but… I just have long hair because in my world you have two types of haircuts. You shaved your head because then you just go and do it in your garage at any time or you grow it long because that way if you don’t get it cut, it doesn’t really look that different from week to week.  I just don’t really enjoy going to get my haircut. Plus, my wife likes it long.

Dr. A: Okay. I was just checking because to me health really is a never ending journey.

Garrett: Exactly.

Dr. A:  You don’t get to the finish line and ring the bell and go “woohoo, I’m healthy,”  I was just curious.

Garrett: It is a journey. I mean, because the body is a complex mechanism. It has got so much going on and we have so many things we’re exposed to from an emotional standpoint, from a chemical standpoint, from a physical standpoint. I look at it like, you don’t just go exercise once and call it good for life. You don’t get to eat once and call it good for life. So health is a daily journey from the emotions that we have in how we think to,  just who we spent our time with impacts our health. I’m going be on an airplane tomorrow. I think that’s gonna impact my health. I wanna get adjusted after that.

There’s just certain things that you know and what I boiled it down to is this, and I’m not saying this is right, and it will probably evolve. But one, I feel like sleep is one of the most important things that we could do for our health. Second, having enough water, because I think a lot of people are just chronically dehydrated. Third thing is, I think meditation is big for health because so many people are constantly stressed and they’re not in the present and because of that it really tends to take away from how they feel overall and how they operate. I think getting adjusted regularly, that just makes a lot of sense because when we have stresses, things are going to shut down and the body can protect us, so that it won't get overworked. 

But, If you don’t release that or open that back up, then you’re going to have blockage or interference and a less than an ideal situation. I think in addition to that is getting some testing. Like that when I went in with you, you got me a blood test to kind of figure out what my omega 3 levels to omega 6 levels and ratios were. And that was a big insight because even though I was eating relatively healthy, I was eating a lot of nuts. You know I’m eating a lot of cashews. Those have a lot of omega 6’s and anti-nutrients you know, a lot of almonds. Those were what I was snacking on then. Look I’m a big guy. Those things go pretty quick and I’m like “Oh, that was actually a whole bunch of stuff that had problems”. Even though it may not have been a grain, it still had some issues. I found out that I had more information than I would like, by getting that test. And I was able to counter that by limiting the amount of intake I had with the nuts, but at the same time increasing my intake of omega3’s, and then when we retested, I was actually in the proper range.

Dr. A: That’s kind of what I want to sit down with you today is just so people understand that there are things available out there that you just don’t necessarily know. Today we’re going talk about cod liver oil and later on in the blog post and so, this would be a dovetail into that very issue.  Those of you listening to this, make sure you check out the podcast and the blog post because we’ll have more info on that test, and the omega 3 testing and the benefits of omega 3 fatty acids.

Garrett: Just to finish out the list, I think exercise. I think movement. There’s just a lot of people that they think they’re too busy for it, but at the same time, they have so much less energy because they don’t do it.

I think exercise is a big part of that. I think what’s not a big part of that is... I just don’t take any pharmaceutical pills. There was one time where my blood pressure was higher and they were trying to get me on pharmaceutical pills and I was like “Well, I think that the body actually is responding to something else going on.” And by taking that, now I’m actually potentially exacerbating that problem. And what I need to do is say “What else is happening that might be increasing that blood pressure?” and for me, meditation helped out with that. For me, eating right helped with that, exercise, doing things that I enjoy, spending less time with negative people. I mean there were several factors, but part of it is I have genetic things with my family, with my kidneys, but I’ve really adopted this philosophy of epigenetics of saying “Look, okay. I’ve got my genes and that’s not my destiny. It may limit what my overall potential is but through my choices, I can impact what my health is. It’s not a predestined event.”

Dr. A: I think you’re the perfect guy for this next question because I’ve heard you talk about the relationship between success and health / wellness.  How do you see those correlating together? The more successful you get, a lot of times, people focus more on health, eventually.  I’m wondering how those correlate because sometimes people sacrifice one for the other.

If you are reading ahead, this is the kind of interview, that is best listened to.  But, if you'd like to read more, just jump over to our blog. 

Some of the questions I ask

1. I’ve heard you talk about 5 tracks of wealth before... So what would you say? Would you give up your health for all the money in the world?

2.  You talked about something called easy hard and hard easy.

3. A lot of people look up to you for advice, all over the world.  Who do you look up to?

4. If you’d go back in time, what would you say to a 30 year old? Or what have you learned about success and wellness? What advice would you give yourself maybe if you were 30?

5. How would define wellness?

6. How would define success?

More amazing links in the show notes on our blog.  SLCSAW.com