Today’s Guest – Steve Sarns
1. Your name, title, and age? What do you do (or did you do) for a living?
Steve Sarns, 57, vice president of Sales and Marketing for NuStep, Inc. based in Ann Arbor, MI. At NuStep, we are passionate about creating life-transforming, universally designed total body recumbent cross trainers that provide safe and effective exercise for all ages and virtually all function levels. I view my job not as a place to work, but as a platform to motivate and inspire our clients to live their lives to the fullest and to help them achieve this through transformational movement.
2. Who was the person that inspired you as a child to eat healthy and stay fit? What was their relationship to you?
Relentless entrepreneur, inspirational inventor and my father, Dick Sarns.
3. What did they do to inspire you?
My dad developed the heart-lung machine in our basement when I was four years old, and it became a revolutionary medical breakthrough that help heart surgeons save countless lives.
His commitment to health not only inspired me to be healthier, but to also help others achieve a better quality of life. In fact, my father’s commitment to fixing hearts helped to inspire the original NuStep machine for cardiac rehabilitation. We developed NuStep to be an inclusive cross trainer, meaning it offers fitness for virtually everyone no matter their age group, fitness ability level or patient type.
4. How did their lesson change your life?
As a kid, I was always active and loved sports, especially baseball. Yet, after college, I became more sedentary and found myself feeling depressed. My Dad suggested I consider running, so I picked up a book, Running, by Jim Fix. For 6 weeks, I ran every day. At the beginning, I could barely run from one mailbox to the next, but I finally found myself running almost effortlessly.
This was a major breakthrough in my life and it inspired me to learn more about the benefits of exercise and how it could help individuals maintain vitality for a lifetime. From there, I went on to earn my Master’s Degree in Exercise Physiology from the University of Michigan and to be inspired to create the NuStep.
5. Do you convey their message to kids in your life presently?
I absolutely do! My son is 15 and my daughter is 13. Fortunately both my mom and dad are present in my kids’ lives, so they are able to see that my dad is extremely active and vital, and that my Mom exercises every day on the NuStep, even at age 81 with progressive MS. I also do my best to exercise every day to set an example for my children. They are both studious kids, yet my wife and I are insistent that they move every day.
I also convey this message to the people I work with. We encourage employees to incorporate fitness into their daily work routine – this includes everything from using standing desks to help promote movement to offering bootcamp classes incorporating NuSteps.
This is all thanks to the inspiration my dad provides us. He and I still work together – he’s the CEO of NuStep. In fact, he’s 85, but he still comes into work every day. We’re in the business of aging healthfully, and he’s our role model.
6. What would be your main message to children today to lead healthy lifestyles?
I’ve come to the realization that achieving and maintaining health and wellness is a life-long pursuit, and it should start now – no matter your age!
Getting regular exercise can offer everything from keeping weight under control to enhancing the immune system to even reducing the risk of developing cancer or heart disease. In addition to its physical advantages, exercise also provides several mental health benefits including improved mental acuity, memory and self-image. Perhaps most compelling is that regular exercise can enable young people to live a long healthy life; in fact, for each hour of exercise you get, your life expectancy increases by two hours!
7. Do you have a web site you would like to promote….web address only?