Live, Work, Play: Bringing a Healthy Way of Life In to All of Your Spaces

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Transcript: Live, Work, Play: Bringing a Healthy Way of Life In to All of Your Spaces

Season 6, Episode 22  | May 30, 2023

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Hey, everyone. Welcome to Life Time Talks. I’m Jamie Martin.

And I’m David Freeman.

And in this episode, we are talking about the concept of live, work, play. And this ties back to Life Time, which is the parent organization that publishes the podcast and runs 160 plus athletic country clubs all over the country and in Canada.

But we’re talking a little bit about how Life Time has expanded beyond its athletic country clubs to include more elements that really encompass our full healthy way of life, including where we work and where we live. And with that, I’m going to hand it over to you, David, to introduce our first guest.

Yeah, it’s our first guest. Eric Paget is a senior director of real estate for Life Time Living. And he’s been with Life Time for over three years developing a healthy way of life of multifamily residential and working disrupting the way people think about apartment.

So with four buildings opening after this year and many more in the pipeline all over the United States, he’s excited to welcome people visit Life Time Living and find the next and best home for you. Our other guests, Mr. James O’Reilly. I’m going to pass on over to you, Jamie.

All right. And James, welcome back. You guys may recognize him from a past long ago episode of the podcast. James is the president of Life Time Work, a premium co-working concept by Life Time that champions a healthy lifestyle at work.

Life Time Work integrates our established health clubs with elevated workspaces to deliver a fulfilling, engaging, and productive work life. Previously James co-founded NeueHause, a membership-driven shared workspace for creative entrepreneurs and their teams fueled by gracious hospitality and dynamic cultural programming. Eric and James, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you.

Thanks for Having us.

Let’s jump right into it. So we got to understand what started the trend of bringing health into more aspects of our lives and why do you think this is happening now?

I’m happy to take the first run at that, David. So look, I think particularly since the pandemic we’re acutely aware of the value of being healthy. I think even before that we saw that health similar to technology was becoming a layer on top of many aspects of our lives. Whether it’s athleisure or health, tourism, it’s just becoming a much more meaningful part of just our daily experience.

And certainly from a perspective of how we work, we’re spending what? A third of our adult lives in the office at work. Bringing health and wellness tactics into that space just means a lot for people and can have a really meaningful impact on their life beyond work.

Eric, anything you want to add?

Yeah. No, that’s exactly right. And on the flip side for living where the other third of your life and to create that environment that really embodies the whole rest and recovery, having a place to have a home, having a place to entertain and all encompass healthy way of life is good for not only our physical fitness, but our mental, and social well-being, and that’s really the goal of Life Time Living.

Absolutely. So having that grounding about this rising trend of health layering over so many as all the aspects of our lives really, let’s talk a little bit and ground with each of you in a quick 30 seconds, let’s say, about what each Life Time Work and Life Time Living are. And James, let’s start with you.

Sure. So Life Time Work is the only co-working space, I think you mentioned this at the start, that integrates co-working with world class health clubs. Our spaces are designed to deliver a real sense of health and well-being.

And we do that through things like using biophilic design, so having plant life throughout the space, thinking through activity-based working. So offering our members a variety of workspaces to move through throughout their day to battle that sedentary lifestyle and just designing the spaces with the intent of creating a healthy environment for our members and their guests.

Awesome. All right. Eric, your turn.

Yeah. No, and the same really in Life Time Living, we’ve been focused on every detail in the design of your apartment home. So healthy food prep areas, filtered water, the highest mechanical systems for fresh air, everything is really to create this perfect environment so that you can rest and recover in your bedroom, you can create spacious bathrooms, it makes you feel like you’re at a spa.

It’s really a place to really refresh and revive. And we paid attention in our designs and Life Time Living to make it feel like your home is a wellness resort, it’s not just your home.

I like how you teed that up because we usually say the home away from home is like work. As much as we use that as a reference point, I remember it was another podcast that I listened in on it was talking about pride, and talking about personal responsibility in daily excellence, and talking about how we break up our days and thirds, eight hours or so ideally sleeping eight hours at work and then eight hours living, or playing, or doing anything outside of work.

So when you look at the actual homes that we live in right and we understand we just reference work away from home as our second home, why does that healthy workplace matter? And how does LT Work prioritize that?

Yeah, that’s a good question. So when we think about creating these environments where people are spending their working hours, there are a few things that are just table stakes, whether it’s sitting on desks, ergonomic furniture, whether it’s lots of access to fresh drinking water, encouraging people to move throughout the day.

I think one of the more fundamental aspects of what we offer that creates this healthy environment is the sense of community, so that sense of being part of something bigger than just yourself. And so Life Time Work, we’re obviously catering to lots of different types of workers, whether it’s employees at larger companies or individuals.

What they all really love about being part of our community is that sense that you belong to the place. And I think that’s what you touched on, that you’re grounded in being there that you have that sense of pride of place. And we do that primarily through, obviously, we’ve got a great team and a very welcoming spirit in our spaces, but we also do that through events.

So we host events regularly for our members every other week and those events are on topics of interest. And the commonality of Life Time Work is people care about their health. So we’ll often be bringing some of the knowledge base from within our clubs into our workspaces.

Whether that’s a private trainer talking about how to work on your posture while you’re seated or whether it’s mid-day massages to try and help loosen up in the middle of your workday, it’s really infusing people’s workday with the best practices and an environment that gives them that sense of belonging and sense of community.

We talk a lot about the loneliness epidemic even before the pandemic. Well, that’s only been compounded since the pandemic when we were forced to isolate. I think these shared communal spaces are really important and more relevant than ever for this post-pandemic world we find ourselves in.

I love that. And I think that community is such a common thread across our athletic country clubs, across work, but also in the living spaces. When I think about home where I live, it’s a place where I can really be myself and settle in. And I think that’s one of the things where with Life Time Living we have this resort like experience where you can do that and you can also be connected in a different way. So Eric, can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah. One of the cool things that we do in the Life Time Living is what we call concierge wellness. And concierge wellness really is focused on making those connections, it’s connecting within the Life Time Living community itself, but it’s also the connections to Life Time Work, it’s the connections to the club.

And if you think about the multifamily world, the last couple of years has all been amenity worse. Who has the best pool? Who has the best gym? All that stuff. But if you walk into a lot of apartments, and I’m not discounting other products out there, but they’re never activated, they’re never programmed, they’re never creating really that connection.

And that’s what I think Life Time does really well, is it creates that connection. You can walk into the gym where it’s not just and one other person working out, but there’s hundreds of people working out. You can go do classes together, you can go on bike rides together.

And our concierge wellness program is really about creating that connection and really taking out the hurdles to be able to make those connections with people. We do private events to for our residents and make it really fun. It can be health and wellness focused or it can be wine and paint, but it’s all about creating that sense of community, knowing your neighbors, and that’s the other half of your being, is really that social connections with your community.

Actually we love the whole community aspect is so big. And I think we use that word so much, but then when you actually can see the efforts of how we bring it to life and you have real time examples, that’s where you really start to see that traction and start to see people believe in, oh, it’s just not a word, this is actually happening in this space. So I love that. You hit on that, Eric.

When we jump back into the work, we know that the co-working space has grown over the recent years. So James, with your experience, how have you seen it change since the pandemic? I know you mentioned the pandemic earlier, as far as a more broad adoption, individuals who obviously found a way to work remotely, and now you see a little bit more of the hybrid. So let me know your thoughts there as far as what you’ve seen in that space. And then what amenities are we currently offering within LT Work apart from the others in this space?

That’s a great question. And I’d say our observations are the impact that the pandemic has made so far. I think how this ultimately plays out is still very much happening in real time. So what we hear is most larger companies who have returned their employee group to the office, they’re doing at least three days a week in the office, and that includes Disney, Amazon, some of the really big employers, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and a lot of the tech companies.

Some tech companies like Airbnb have gone fully remote, so they’ve actually shut down offices and that in the interest of their business right there. Extended stay is becoming a bigger driver for them. But we do see to your point that flexibility is probably the horse has left the stable. It’s going to be very hard to get people back into the office five days a week on a full-time basis.

And so the impact on co-working is essentially with so much uncertainty still in the world around work, how much office space do I need? What’s a team going to look like in a year from now? With all of that uncertainty on the horizon, we see more demand from larger groups and individuals who are saying, you know what? Co-working wasn’t for me before, but because I’ve got so much uncertainty on the horizon in my future around how we’re going to office, I’d really like to take a co-working space to see how things play out for other people.

So imagine a agile corporate team member, they are in the office now three days a week. Working from home seemed like fun at the start, but after two years of this and they’re chasing dust bunnies around the house or are they getting distracted by the fridge, or the kids, or you name the distraction at home, or you just want a barrier between your work and your home life, you need another place to go.

And so what we’re seeing increasingly are people looking to come and work at a Life Time Work just two days a week. And for that they get somewhere to get a community connection and of course, the club membership included is this unparalleled amenity that we have as a co-working space.

So they’re just some of what we’re seeing as a result of the pandemic, we think there’s probably going to be a lot more to come. I mean, where people are living, and I’m sure Eric can speak to this. People have gone from living in dense urban downtown centers to being much more dispersed around the country whether it’s secondary, tertiary cities, or more suburban. We’ve seen massive growth in suburbs and we certainly see that uptick in our suburban co-working spaces as a result of that.

Yeah, I know. I mean, I heard one many of these as far as access membership and some other offerings if you can. I just want to bullet point some so our listeners can hear, so they are many of these offerings that set LT apart.

Yeah, absolutely. So we’ve designed the spaces from the start to support activity-based working, which essentially means designing a space to encourage movement throughout the day. So we have collaboration nooks, which are semi-public semi-private spaces to meet with another person with a shared screen that are acoustically insulated. You don’t reserve them, you just use them as you need them.

We obviously have phone booths, which resemble your British red phone booth, but contemporary design doesn’t look like that anymore thankfully. But we also have quiet rooms and that’s our nudge in the direction of mindfulness without hitting you over the head with the meditation stick.

And obviously, we’ve got beautiful world class teleconferencing facilities in all of our conference rooms and then we have three types of memberships. So we have office residence, all with sit on desk, lockable spaces, et cetera, open resident memberships, which is a dedicated desk and an open plan arrangement.

And then we have lounge memberships, which is a more flexible fluid type of space, which looks and feels very much like your favorite hotel lobby mixed with a public library. So it’s got an energy and a vibe that people, particularly if you’re working from home really like the energy about it, but it’s professional and you can be very productive there. And a lot of our members use that regardless of the type of membership you have.

Eric, what I was going to jump in there is I wanted to see if you wanted to chime in on what James was saying about where people are living and just have it then having access. I know one thing we’ve talked about a lot with our athletic country clubs and work and living all being together is how it creates a more convenient way to live your life and less of a need to drive a lot of places.

So what are you seeing with that in terms of people wanting to in some ways centralize their lives and one area around a feature-like health or a value-like health I should say?

I actually have a really funny story to kick off that conversation. I was out in our Henderson, Nevada Life Time Living project that opened last August about a month ago. And one of our residents there came up to me and he said, I apologize. And I said, for what?

And he says, I feel really bad. And I’m like, why? What’s going on? He goes, I had to leave Life Time today to go get a haircut because I haven’t left in eight weeks. He’s like, I love it so much here and I can do everything I want here, and I feel like I cheated.

Oh, that’s so funny. Does he know it, or he or she no we have a LifeSpa there? Typically they can get a hair cut.

That’s why he felt bad that he was cheating on us by going outside of LifeSpa, but just a great story. I mean, what we’re really finding in our first two that are open and then we’ve got a couple more opening this year is we’re finding people that haven’t wanted to either own a home or haven’t felt like they could live in an apartment before, but are offering something completely different.

It’s a high quality, almost condo-like, it’s like living at the Four Seasons. You have all the amenities right there and we do higher touches and higher finishes than anybody else does in the market. So those people, a lot of our renters are coming out of large homes and are making that transition because they want the community, coming out of COVID they miss that community, and that’s coupled with a beautiful home along with the community, it’s a much easier transition into that lifestyle.

Yeah, that makes sense. One thing just taking on to that too, I mean, James you touched on how things have changed with work since the pandemic. Eric, I’m wondering if maybe, are people asking for different things or wanting different things in their homes after spending so much time at home for two years?

Are there healthy living amenities that they just want now because they learned during that period of time that it fulfilled them in a way that other things couldn’t during that time and now they just want it as a regular thing?

Yeah. No, I mean, a lot of the things that we focused on in our designs and it comes from our members. They’ve told us that to live in an apartment, they still have to have all the amenities that they’ve had at their home before, whether they like large food prep areas, so we built all larger countertops and kitchen islands, and also those become entertaining spaces.

So they still want to have friends over into their apartment. So we’ve created areas that can make that connection really easily. And then we also do things that are in our Life Time Living project platinum buildings like chef kitchens where we can have chefs come in from the LifeCafe and do food preparation and share with the community.

And the cool thing that we do with our nutritionist from the clubs is we offer a service through our concierge wellness program where they’ll come into your home, they’ll raid your refrigerator and your cabinets, steal the stuff that you shouldn’t be eating, and then help you really create that healthy food plan.

And we’ve had nutritionists take residents over to whole foods and help them shop to know how to do their own food prep. So people want those connections and even in an apartment, they can get that through Life Time Living.

We talked a lot about the community. And when you think of live, work, play the theme of what we’re talking on today when you bring them all together, it brings that element of sustainability, which is something that our CEO founder, Rob McCarty, has talked about.

So when you think of bringing these elements together, the spaces where we collectively spend majority of our time and it creates less of the need to go somewhere else, you just alluded to that with the amazing story, Eric. They felt like they cheated on us when they went outside to get their haircut.

But I mean, it’s stories like that goes back to what resonates to not just saying the word community, but they feel like they’re part of something bigger. And to be able to bring that to life is something that we all should be proud of and it’s something that amazing that you both are doing in this space.

So let’s go a little bit more into the word sustainability. What do you think is meant by it? Because we all have our probably own interpretation when we talk about sustainability, but why when you look at live, work, play, that word sustainability, what exactly does that mean?

Look, I think when you bring together three separate piece parts like this, you’re combining resources and there’s just a basic efficiency too as an end user, as a member not needing to whether it’s commute or whether it’s thinking about packing a bag for the day. There’s just a general efficiency that you get and I think that creates this more sustainable way of living integrating these piece parts, but having true separation within that.

And I think that’s what adds the real value, it’s a trifecta combination that saves people time, but also saves us like globally energy moving between spaces. And time is also energy in lots of ways too. So you’re saving that time, whether it’s to spend it with your loved ones, to spend a little bit more time with your team member who needs support, or just spending time on your own, whether it’s in yoga, whether it’s sauna, or the cold plunge.

What I find when I talk to people who live in these resorts and Coral Gables is a great example, people describe their days with wonder. They talk about starting the day in the sauna, sweating, co-plunging, going back up to the room, having a shake on their way, getting ready for work, leaving their home, getting to the office, and then doing a workout in the middle of the day.

And they describe this journey truly with wonder that they can get as much in as they can because frankly before that it was an aspiration. There was always something that got in the way, there is friction in life. And I think by combining these three very unique assets, you’ve got something completely out of the ordinary.

And I think the members who live that every day really feel the sustainability of it and it’s a more sustainable lifestyle, I think they can sustain that level of engagement in what they’re doing longer as a result of their decreased friction in their day-to-day from this combination.

Yeah, and I’ll just chime in too. I mean, that’s a lot of the original concept, but behind the healthy village of combining this lifestyle brand with live, work, play. And the whole goal is to reduce the amount of vehicle trips. If you spend an hour or two in your car, you’ve wasted that hour or two.

If you can spend that on yourself or with your friends playing pickleball, or tennis, or doing the class, that’s just much more. It’s better for your health and your sustainability. And that’s what’s really interesting to us, is that we’re finding our residents. They come into our club two to three times a day.

So they are doing exactly what James said. Id they’re coming in the morning for a class and a smoothie, they’re coming back in the afternoon to sit-in the sauna or meet their friends to play pickleball, or lift, or do all those things together, and that’s just amazing. We’re creating this really cool place where you want to be and you want to be multiple times of day.

Well, and you’re talking about a couple of right now, we only have a handful of our locations, have all three of these things right now. So one, I want to talk a little bit like what are you hearing a little bit. People are saying this is how I’m spending my time, what’s the overall feedback there? And what’s the plan for more of that in the future? Can you speak a little bit to the future looking ahead?

I think that what we’re finding from a living perspective, we had Coral Gables has been open about a little over 18 months. And what we’re finding is that people want to stay and that’s the key thing. Typically in the multifamily world, you sign a one year lease and typically, 50% of those people turn over every year so that they don’t stay.

And what we’re finding specifically in our renewals is that we’re getting almost 80% of the people want to stay longer. So they’re enjoying the environment that we’ve created. To talk a little bit about the future, it’s something very exciting that James and I are working on and it is an opportunity for us to get into locations that we couldn’t before, denser locations.

But we’re also hearing feedback from the market both our development partners that are really excited about what we’re doing, and see the vision, and see the results. And so we’re the phones ringing off the hook for future opportunities. We’ve got two Life Time Living and projects opening this year, one in Stamford, Connecticut.

We’ll have 290 homes in a vertically integrated Life Time club or athletic resort, and that’s opening this summer. And then we’re opening a Life Time Living apartment building outside of our Burlington, Massachusetts club and in July of this year and we’re really excited about that.

Again, it’s we’re learning as each one goes and what people really resonate with how they want to live, work, and play and it only helps us better for the future. We’ve got many projects on the horizon, I can’t announce yet, but it’s a really exciting time for the brand and for what we’re trying to accomplish.

Yeah. And similarly for Life Time Work, I think, any time we have an opportunity to combine either living and the club, Life Time Work in the club, or all three together we just reduce the level of friction that help our members achieve their health and wellness goals. By combining two steps in one or three steps in one, you just get much better results.

And so what we hear from our members is that they’re much more engaged in their health and wellness regime at the club, it’s just much more easier for them to commit to that. And the Life Time Work community has a great accountability both in the workspace, but also within the club.

So we do 60-day challenges for the Life Time Work community and we just get this osmosis that happens, an energy that happens between Life Time Work and the club. And so as we look to the future, we have six locations on the horizon opening over the next six to 12 months.

Beaverton, Oregon is opening in about a month or so. Shortly after that we have Sienna opening in Texas where we have what we call an enclosed lounge there. And then we have Arlington, Virginia, Clarendon is opening in about two months, and then we’ve got DeKalb in Brooklyn here where I’m based.

Middleton, New Jersey, that’s opening alongside a brand new ground up development. And then I mentioned Sienna in Texas already. So it’s a very vibrant pipeline with lots to do. And any time we get an opportunity to combine all three, I think we’ll definitely do that.

So before I hand it over to David for his mic trout moment, which you will, we call it your final word, if you want to say. I want to talk a little bit about that play part of it. And we are all hardworking, we’ve got a lot going on. When you think of the word play, how do you play at Life Time? How do each of you play a Life Time?

Before I started working a Life Time, I would work out and I would do mountain biking, et cetera. And it was actually nervous to join Life Time and since then playing for me means I do edge cycle on Tuesdays, I do edge on Fridays, I sit in the sauna after lifting weights on Mondays, I play pickleball on Wednesdays.

And it’s not a regimented schedule, but it’s just so fun to have that community where I can pick up the phone or shoot a text to a friend and say, hey, I’ve got an hour to spare, you want to go over and play pickleball? And then on the flip side too from the people that I met in the club and through work, we have a mountain bike club.

And Thursday evenings we go out when it’s sunny in Minnesota and hit the trails up here. And the exercise is really, fun but it’s that community that makes it more fun.

Yeah. And I’d say my play Life Time has changed a little bit since I had my daughter. Before Sienna was born, which is about 15 months ago, Alpha was my drug of choice at Life Time. And I would say since my daughter was born, it’s funny my experience a Life Time has totally changed.

I still do Alpha when I can, but bringing Sienna into the club is just such a fun experience. And it’s this whole family swim is a great example. You’re there with a bunch of other younger moms and dads trying to figure out how to not screw this parenting thing up. But you’re just hanging out with your kids together and it’s a beautiful side of Life Time that I’ve really only got to know and appreciate in the last couple of months.

And there’s something about our team members who work with the kids a Life Time that they just bring a different energy, which I’ve been absolutely loving. And I’d say one other part that’s play outside of the four walls of our clubs before this call, Paget and I were bantering back and forth. And that is part of our corporate culture, which is it’s fun to be working at Life Time.

And trading blows with Paget about how we are going to rib each other in this conversation, but that’s also what I would consider the culture of Life Time that transports between corporate into the club, and into work, and into living as well it’s just part of our DNA.

Thank you. I’m always curious about what people are doing there and it’s always– everyone’s so different, it’s great. That’s the beauty of the variety.

Yeah, totally.

I think it’s time for the mic drop moment. And we’ll keep it simple. I’m just going to end up saying three words that we probably been talking about the whole time. And the first thing that comes to mind when I say it, and we’ll go back and forth. I’ll go ABC order. So Eric will go first, then James, and then we’ll keep going back and forth. You ready for it? First word that comes to mind. Eric, you’re up, live.

Recovery.

James?

Energy.

OK. Now, I’m going to reverse it, work James, you go first.

Community.

He saw my list. I didn’t know there was a list. Culture.

Culture, OK. All right. We’re back to you now, Eric, play.

Fun.

James?

Competition.

I love it.

That’s awesome, awesome. So once again I know James is going to take us out, but it’s awesome to see all the different elements of what you both are bringing to this space. And you’ve now given us all that are listening a great foundation on live, work, play, understanding LT Work, also Life Time Living, and if anything teased us a little bit obviously we don’t have it in our backyard yet to want and go and experience it and very similar to the experience that you recently had, James, with seeing the little one in the poll and seeing the interactions.

There’s nothing like going through an experience to truly understand all the different things that we went over today to have a true understanding. So I’m very thankful for you both to have planted the seed to all of our listeners. Now, we definitely want to encourage all of them to at some point in time go experience all the things that we touched on today.

Yeah, and especially knowing that with your traveling or wherever you can always seek it out and see if there’s a location that you can pop in and see these amenities. Again, there are a few right now and they’re growing. So James, Eric, anything else you want to add before I take us away?

No, I would welcome you guys to come visit our spaces, both– I’ve gone through a lot of the Life Time Work spaces, obviously, I’m very entrenched into the Life Time Living spaces, there’s nothing like it. Just nobody can do what we do at Life Time and it will knock your socks off. So we welcome you to come to any of our spaces and I think you’ll really find them first class.

Awesome. Well, thank you both so much. I want our listeners and viewers to know they can learn more about Life Time Work and Life Time Living, and Life Time as a whole at lifetime.life. James, Eric, thank you so much for spending time on a Friday afternoon with us.

Thank you, guys.

I appreciate you all.

Thank you, guys. Good to see you.

Bye.

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