Name: Whole Foods’ 46-year-old CEO works out twice a day and ‘fully uses up’ his PTO. His key to work-life balance
Uploaded: 2024-07-29
Duration: 5 min 40 s
Description: Whole Foods’ 46-year-old CEO doesn’t believe in skimping on PTO. Instead, Jason Buechel emphasizes taking time off, and even changed the PTO policy to ensure staff are taking vacations away from work.

Whole Foods’ 46-year-old CEO doesn’t believe in skimping on PTO. Instead, Jason Buechel emphasizes taking time off, and even changed the PTO policy to ensure staff are taking vacations away from work.

Whole Foods’ 46-year-old CEO works out twice a day and ‘fully uses up’ his PTO. His key to work-life balance

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Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel emphasizes taking time off, and even changed the PTO policy to ensure staff are taking vacations away from work.

Whole Foods’ CEO ‘fully uses up’ his PTO. His key to work-life balance

Whole Foods’ 46-year-old CEO emphasizes taking time off, and even changed the PTO policy to ensure staff are taking vacations away from work.

Whole Foods’ CEO's key to work-life balance

I'm probably very abnormal here. I pretty much am in the grocery store at least twice a day, every single day. So it's about 14 times a week, I guess, which is probably atypical and in some weeks it might, might even be a bit more. Hi, I'm Jason Beagle Ceo of Whole Foods Market. I'm 46 years old and this is my daily routine for me when I wake up. Ultimately depends where I'm waking up. I travel a lot. So I am typically up no later than six o'clock, central time. Uh, if I'm traveling on the west coast, sometimes I'm waking up a little bit earlier. The first thing I do is I do look at my phone ultimately checking to see what emails might have come in. Sort of any key updates that might be taking place. I like to run in the morning. So I also like to run when there's at least a little bit of light. I try to run somewhere between five and six days a week. It sort of depends upon my schedule how my body is feeling and I typically like to do it in the morning, however, sometimes during the summer in Austin, it's so humid in the morning. So I'll do my run much later at night. I run anywhere between four and 10 miles during the week. I usually do one long run, which somewhere would be 1011, 12 miles. I have a great protocol hack that I started doing several years ago. It involves doing 30 minutes of infrared sauna and doing hot and cold plunges in it sort of contrast basis. And so start with the 30 minutes of infrared sauna. Go to the hot and cold tubs. I do three minutes in cold, three minutes in hot, three minutes in cold, three minutes in hot and finish the three minutes in cold. And while the cold is definitely painful, while you're doing it, your body feels amazing afterwards. And I have some of the best nights of sleep after finishing this and it feels great for my body, especially after doing some of my long runs during the week. I've done six marathons so far, but I haven't done one in a long time. May decide to pick it up again. But right now, it's not where I prioritize my time. So what I eat in the morning and even sometimes how often I eat in the morning. Depends upon what my workout routine is. If I'm throwing in a longer run on a particular day, I might have something to eat just before the run and then I'll have something to eat afterwards before going on a run. Sometimes it's as quick as having some peanut butter. It could be some oatmeal. It could even be a smoothie. I usually love to finish my workout though with having a smoothie after I get back lately, I've been really loving blending together some mushroom vegan vanilla protein mix with oatmeal with bananas and peanut butter and then some chia seeds. It is absolutely delicious. Most of my meetings will typically start between eight and 830 every morning on a typical day where I'm not traveling and visiting stores. I probably have about 10 meetings. So anytime I'm in Austin, I'm always in our office. So I happen to be in Austin all five days of the week, which is really rare. I come into the office every single day, but I do a lot of travel. So for me, it's making sure I can get out and visit our stores, our suppliers, many of our different partners wherever I'm at. I'm typically trying to figure out how I still juggle the day to day meetings and the business rhythm that we have. And so depending upon where I'm at and what the schedule looks like I could taking meetings from the hotel or from a store or even on the go. One of the things I love to do is actually pick out my own lunch and I happen to work above one of the best places to eat in Austin which is our flagship store on Lamar. And so I love to go down myself to be able to go pick out whatever I'm eating. I typically am having our salad bar is one of the things I have just about every single day for lunch. So I typically eat vegan for breakfast and lunch at night is typically when I'll add in more animal proteins. I lean heavily towards fish sushi is one of my favorite foods. And so I'm overall, I'd say a very healthy eater. I really care about what I'm putting in my body. And I ultimately see the impacts of, you know, how it impacts my performance, my happiness, my well being and even my sleep. And I'd say most of the time, uh my, my schedule for meetings usually wraps up around 6 p.m. or by six pm. Again, sometimes on the time zone of where I'm at, but I would say I'm usually done by six. I like to sort of unwind after work and it could be a walk. It's one of the times where I actually work out at the gym. So I'm more of a runner in the morning. So if I'm going to go to the gym and get some weights in or do something else, I usually love to do something active. If I'm traveling, it's typically just uh walking around my hotel or wherever I'm staying, uh just to stay active and it's a great way to actually see some of the cities that I'm visiting. I'm sort of someone who's a little, sort of a night owl, but I've really come to appreciate making sure that I, I'm well rested, um, every single day, so I'm sort of working backwards. Um, from when I wake up, if I can get a solid six hours of sleep, I'm really replenished and ready to take on the next day. I think when I'm, uh, you know, doing more strenuous activities and, and, uh, you know, maybe a long run, that's where I'm looking for a few extra hours of sleep. I do think I have a great work life balance. I look at it as having an enriched life and for me it's making sure I've always had time to unplug and make sure that I'm taking care of myself and especially when I'm traveling a lot and making sure I'm taking vacations, time off giving my body an opportunity, you know, after, you know, long weeks of travel and things like that to get the right rest in place. One of the things I was mentioning earlier is during the week, getting six hours of sleep, I typically get a little bit longer on the weekends, which is great for helping catch up and supporting my body.