Ep. 54: Military Trained. Mission: Protect Your Child.

Summary

🎙️ Interesting Humans Podcast – Episode 54: "Military Trained. Mission: Protect Your Child."

Host: Jeff Hopeck
Guest: John Nelson
Release Date: May 2, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 54 of the Interesting Humans Podcast, host Jeff Hopeck engages in a profound conversation with John Nelson, a decorated military veteran and the founder of Sun Tours, an educational tour company specializing in high school trips. Drawing from his extensive military background and entrepreneurial journey, John shares invaluable insights into leadership, safety, and the importance of trust within his business operations.

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John Nelson's Early Life and Military Career

Early Life and Motivation for Joining the Military

John Nelson hails from a close-knit Irish Catholic family in Clinton, Iowa. As the eldest of six siblings, John's upbringing instilled in him a sense of responsibility and discipline. His father's service in the Korean War significantly influenced his decision to join the military. Reflecting on his early motivations, John recounts:

"I had two brothers, three sisters. I'm the oldest... I talked to my father about his time in the military. He was in the army as well." [02:46]

Military Training and Service

Determined to serve, John enlisted in the Army alongside his brother Jim and best friend Denny Lemke in late 1982. They underwent rigorous training at Fort Benning, including jump school, eventually becoming part of the elite 82nd Airborne Division. John describes the camaraderie and trust developed during this period:

"We built this trust that we had each other's backs, we had each other's sixes. We knew that we were safer together than alone." [11:52]

He highlights the challenges of airborne training, emphasizing the importance of mental and physical preparedness:

"The hardest thing for me was the first and second jumps. The parachute opening and the landing was exhilarating once the fear subsided." [08:20]

John's service spanned from 1982 to 1987, during the Reagan era, with deployments in various countries including Italy, Germany, and Turkey for NATO exercises. This international exposure laid the groundwork for his future endeavors in international relations and business.

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Transition from Military to Civilian Life

Challenges and Support Systems

Upon his honorable discharge in September 1987, John faced the daunting task of transitioning to civilian life. The abrupt shift from military discipline to everyday freedom was challenging, but strong support from family, particularly his wife Dana, facilitated a smoother adjustment.

Education and Career Moves

John pursued higher education at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he majored in International Relations with a focus on Russian and Eastern European studies. His academic journey was influenced by his wife's career with the CIA in Geneva, Switzerland. John furthered his education by obtaining an MBA from a business school in Lausanne, Switzerland, graduating in 1992. His time in Europe enriched his understanding of international dynamics, particularly during the post-Cold War era.

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Founding Sun Tours

Early Days and First Clients

In 1993, shortly after the birth of his daughter Sarah, John founded Sun Tours. Starting from his home, he meticulously built the company's database and secured its first client, Vianne Schmidt of Knightstown Middle School in Indiana. John reminisces:

"I was holding my baby girl in one hand and answering calls in the other, hoping she wouldn't cry. It all worked out." [35:17]

Business Philosophy: Quality over Quantity

John was deeply influenced by Michael Porter's principles from his graduate studies, particularly the quality-quantity curve, which advocates for focusing on either quality or quantity to avoid mediocrity. He opted for quality, ensuring each tour was meticulously planned and executed without compromising safety or personalized attention.

"I decided right away I wanted to do quality, so I wanted to run a lean and mean company." [42:27]

Building a Trustworthy Team

Leveraging his military background, John assembled a team of former government and military personnel who shared his commitment to safety and trust. He emphasizes the importance of hiring based on attitude and aptitude, avoiding micromanagement, and fostering a culture of mutual support:

"I have a security foundation from the 82nd Airborne. Veterans understand safety and security like no one else." [39:35]

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Stories Highlighting Sun Tours' Approach

Snowstorm in Newark

In March, during a winter storm that stranded groups in Newark, New Jersey, Sun Tours exemplified their dedication to safety and care. John narrates how the company ensured the well-being of stranded students by covering hotel expenses and arranging alternative transportation:

"We paid for everything out of our pocket—hotel rooms, three meals a day, dry cleaning. The safety and security of those people were paramount." [47:10]

Boston Marathon Bombing

During the Boston Marathon bombing, a group on tour experienced the chaos firsthand. Dana, serving as the lead, swiftly implemented safety protocols, communicated with parents and schools, and adjusted itineraries to ensure the group's safety. John reflects on the company's commitment:

"Make it happen no matter what. Don't worry about anything else but the safety and security of those people." [46:53]

These incidents underscore Sun Tours' unwavering focus on prioritizing student safety over logistical or financial concerns.

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Personal Insights and Lifestyle

Favorite Historical Periods

John has a profound appreciation for the Italian Renaissance and the Dutch Renaissance, particularly admiring artists like Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Vermeer for their mastery of chiaroscuro. He also delves into ancient history, expressing fascination with the Punic Wars and the dynamics between Carthage and Rome.

Health and Fitness Routine

Maintaining peak physical condition is a cornerstone of John's lifestyle, a habit ingrained from his military days. At 61, he emphasizes a disciplined routine comprising:

• Diet: Predominantly natural foods with a focus on high protein intake. He subscribes to Gary Brecka's amino acid protocols, consuming pure aminos and avoiding processed foods.

  "80% of it is what you eat. I went back to the naturals." [75:37]

• Exercise: Daily workouts five to six days a week, starting early in the morning with a consistent sleep schedule.

  "I usually get up between 3 and 3:30 in the morning and read, then go to the gym by five." [77:04]

• Balance: While he strictly adheres to a healthy regimen, John allows occasional indulgences, such as enjoying a slice of Tombstone pizza once a week.

"I do give myself a break. I always give myself at least one meal a week that I can go nuts." [76:55]

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Unique Aspects of Sun Tours

Safety and Trust

Sun Tours distinguishes itself through an unwavering commitment to safety, a value deeply rooted in John's military background. Every team member is trained to handle emergencies, ensuring that student groups are always in capable hands. The company's structure allows for seamless operations even if a team member is unavailable:

"If someone's out of the office, another person can take over. We have operations, sales, administration—all covered." [45:22]

Customer Focus

Rejecting a mass-market approach, Sun Tours opts for personalized and high-quality experiences. They cater to groups ranging from 25 to 800 without compromising on the individualized attention each group deserves. This adherence to quality over quantity has fostered trust and long-term relationships with clients.

"I'd rather go for high quality and have less quantity than run it like a cattle truck company." [52:57]

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Conclusion and Takeaways

In this enlightening episode, John Nelson exemplifies how military discipline and values can translate into successful civilian enterprises. His dedication to safety, quality, and trust not only drives Sun Tours' success but also ensures enriching and secure experiences for countless students. John's personal anecdotes and strategic insights offer listeners a compelling blueprint for leadership and entrepreneurship grounded in integrity and excellence.

"Make it happen no matter what. Don't worry about anything else but the safety and security of those people." [46:53]

Listeners are left inspired by John's journey from the 82nd Airborne to building a trusted educational tour company, highlighting the profound impact of leadership, teamwork, and unwavering commitment to core values.

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Notable Quotes:

• Jeff Hopeck:
  "You've stood on a wall. You've done things for this country that are just incredible." [00:00]

• John Nelson:
  "We built this trust that we had each other's backs, we had each other's sixes. We knew that we were safer together than alone." [11:52]
  "Make it happen no matter what. Don't worry about anything else but the safety and security of those people." [46:53]

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Host]

All right, folks, welcome. Welcome back to another episode here of interesting humans. I certainly have one here with me today. His name's John Nelson. You won't know him by name, but I like to say this. When I get to the great privilege of interviewing heroes like yourself, they don't know your name, but they know your work. And you go, how do they know your work? What is that? This is what I've come to the conclusion of. I'm able to get in my car and drive to the grocery store and come home and be safe. And I take these freedoms for granted. I do. I admit I'm the first one. I just take for granted that I've got this freedom. You've stood on a wall. You've done things for this country that are just incredible that I think most wouldn't be able to even, even comprehend or fathom. So I'm going to start this episode by thanking you first off. So I want to say thank you for all you've done for our country. Everybody out there's soon to hear the list of those things. But the interesting themes that we're going to cover today is, so you have this funny story, why you got into the military, and I love it. Man, I laughed for a long time after you shared it with me. But why you got into the military? Once you got in the military, where did you go? You went into an elite, elite division. We're going to tell some stories from what happened in there, your transformation then into government work, what things look like. You lived in a bunch of different countries. Fascinating. And where you're at now, it makes sense to me knowing, but it might not make perfect sense to everybody. Where you're at right now is operating this tour company for high schools that want to do these educational tours. And now that I know it and I understand makes perfect sense and matches your background because of the safety component of it. And, man, when I get the great blessing to help my kids book their tours, I now know how much safety means. They're younger, but we'll be there soon enough. I know now from, from getting to know you and your story how important safety is on these trips. And you have some incredible stories that we're going to talk about today of, of how your business, that the partners in your business that are all former government folks, how you've stepped up to the plate when there were safety concerns and what the benefit is to the, the parents and the administrators out there putting these tours together. So enough about me talking. I cannot wait to open this up. And have you share, John? Why, why, why? What got you into the army to start off with? Tell us this story?

[John Nelson]

Well, I got to tell you that my father served in Korea after the Korean War conflict. So that was a big deal for me in the beginning. We were a close knit family, six of us. I had two brothers, three sisters. I'm the oldest.

[Host]

Big family.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. Irish Catholic family. Grew up, you know, middle class, working class, we would call it, and went to Catholic school.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

Went to Catholic high school for the first year and was unfortunately kicked out. I was kind of a bad boy in the beginning.

[Host]

Wow.

[John Nelson]

And I had seven detentions and only had six classes.

[Host]

What state were you in?

[John Nelson]

Iowa.

[Host]

Okay. Iowa.

[John Nelson]

Clinton, Iowa.

[Host]

Clinton, Iowa. Got it. Okay.

[John Nelson]

So.

[Host]

Wow.

[John Nelson]

So after my freshman year, I went to. I was asked by the priest to go to a public school next year for my sophomore year. And I. And I looked at him and said, gladly, thank you. So anyway, we had a parting of ways, but still a great school. St. Mary's went through there for the four years, graduated, then went to two years of community college, which is like high school with ashtrays. And we. I realized my grades were okay. We're good, you know, be average in that. But I decided this is not for me. And then I talked to my father about his time in the military. He was in the army as well.

[Host]

Okay. Army, yeah.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. So we talked to my brother who's just graduated. He's two years behind me. Jim. And Jim came up with the idea as far as, hey, man, I want to join the army. I don't want to go to high school with ashtrays. And. And I love that. Community college. It was a good community college. However, we. And my best friend, Denny Lemke, at the time the three of us joined, went to the recruiter, talked to him in this. Must have been 82, late 82, talking about recruiting. And all of us wanted to go into combat arms. And that's just. We. We love to shoot. We love to hike. We were very, very athletic, the three of us. And recruiter said, hey, this would be the job for you. You get to get to foreign countries, you get to see new people and shoot them. If. Now, granted, I was in my teen, I was twenty at the time. My dad was, you know, talking about his time in the military, and I. And. And so we all decided to go in. And that also, I just want to say that I was very young back then. My whole psyche has changed and that I don't feel that way now about. Yeah, People, but. So we went in, did basic training at Fort Benning, then did jump school.

[Host]

Benning. Yep. Now, is that when. So you go into Fort Benning? You. You're enlisting in the Army.

[John Nelson]

Right.

[Host]

Okay. But there has to be a time period before you can go into exactly 82nd. Right.

[John Nelson]

Okay.

[Host]

So I don't want to get too far ahead. All right. Benning.

[John Nelson]

So what happened is when we all joined, they told us we were going to be part of a cohort unit. So I knew from basic training that we're all going into the 82nd Airborne right away.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

So we signed up for the 82nd. We. You know, they called it 11x Ray. I became an 11 Charlie. My brother Jim and. And Denny became 11 Bravos.

[Host]

What is that?

[John Nelson]

Basic infantry? Infantry.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

I became an 11 Charlie through selection, which is a mortar man, 81 millimeter mortars, and that's how we got our start. So we. We went through basic training, got out of basic training from September to December. That's the time frame. And then took a month off. They gave us for Christmas break, went back to our Benning station for airborne jump school. And then we actually were the first company to jump in to our new duty station at Fort Bragg. So the whole company jumped in, all 160 of us. There was 240, 230 at basic training. By the time we jumped into our first duty station. After that would be considered my sixth. Sixth jump. Because you have five in. In jump school.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

So we all got our sixth jump jumping into Fort Bragg.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And the court unit basically meant that you stuck together for the three or four years, depending on your enlistment. And it was because of that, that really the. The trust that we received from each other, spending all that time. Because most of the military, you go in and out, you go in, people are etsing, They're. They're leaving permanently or they're coming in, just coming in. Our whole unit stayed together for all that time as an experiment to see if esprit de corps morale would increase with that. As a result, they found out it did. And we're in the third of the 325.

[Host]

And what does that mean?

[John Nelson]

That's the third battalion.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

325Th infantry regiment. So we're called 30 to 3, 2 5.

[Host]

Okay. Of 3, 2, 5. Cool. So let's pause here. This is. This is awesome. And you've said a lot of cool terms up until now that I want to unpack. But what was it like the very first time you jumped? Take me through that.

[John Nelson]

Oh, the very first time I jumped.

[Host]

Very first time.

[John Nelson]

It was. It wasn't the first time. That was the scary part. And every. Everybody that's gone through this will tell you it's the second time. The first time you don't know what to expect. Everybody's scared. I'm scared. I'm looking out, you know, are you.

[Host]

Afraid of your parachute not opening or what's the main fear?

[John Nelson]

Yeah, the parachute not opening.

[Host]

I mean, is that the fear? I've never jumped, so I have no idea.

[John Nelson]

Breaking a leg if you land wrong. So for three weeks, the basic training for airborne school is not to break your legs. So learn how to. It's called a parachute landing fall or plf.

[Host]

Okay. Wow.

[John Nelson]

Okay. Also, you have to have the physical training, you have to have the mental training to go through this.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

This is where a lot of people, not in our particular company, when we went straight from basic training into airborne school. But there were a lot of, I'll say, officers and other people that didn't even make it the first day. They just really. Yeah, they, you know, it's very simple stuff, but we were all well trained. Some of these people weren't. Yeah, you had to do push ups. You had to stand in a plank position for several minutes, and a lot of them failed that.

[Host]

What was the hardest thing of all that stuff for you? Just for you?

[John Nelson]

For me, again, I would say just the first jump and then the second jump.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

So the second jump, I already knew what to expect. It was scary going out the door, looking at all the other parachutes opening up and saying, thank God. And then mine, mine opened up and it was, you know, we did all the PLFs, everybody from my company, we didn't break a leg. And it was fantastic. It was exhilarating. Once the parachute opened, usually about 12 to 1500ft for training purposes. Landing on Watt, landing on. For. For airborne school. We landed in kind of grass.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

Sod things like that. Yeah, we have. Before we've. I've landed in lakes before. As I continued on, I landed on a Runway. Thank goodness. I didn't, you know, break anything. That was one of my last jumps on a Runway on a. Yeah, it was at Fort. I believe Fort Stewart. For Stewart or Fort Gordon. Yeah, my leg. I actually broke one of the Runway lights as I landed. And I was. Thank God that I didn't break anything, but. But it was fantastic. The whole four years that I was in, I was also in with my. My brother Jim and Denny. So we had this special bond and then all the other gentlemen, we built this trust that we had each other's backs, we had each other's sixes. We knew that if we were ever going into a combat situation in the future, that we built such. This trust that we understood that we were. We were safer together than alone. That's for sure.

[Host]

Wow. So together than alone.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

I love that. So already we're a couple minutes in, and we're nowhere near Sun Tours, the company that you own, and already the theme of trust pops up.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

And I sit here as a father of4 again. 8, 6, 4 and 2 right now.

[John Nelson]

Future fantastic.

[Host]

I'm going to be on a committee hiring a vendor to do the trips for our kids. And I already hear why. It's just so neat. Like, your offering is so powerful that you've lived a life of focusing on safety and trust and. What did you say? Having each other. Sixes and.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

All that stuff. So it's just. Just so cool. Safer together than alone is the way you said it.

[John Nelson]

Yes. Yeah.

[Host]

Alone. I love that. All right. So cool. So you go in, you do this. I'm guessing you got deployed during those years or.

[John Nelson]

We. It was 80 through 80, 83 through 87, which was the Reagan glory years, I call it. All right, so we just got. When I was in basic training, our unit was deployed to Grenada. We didn't make that. It was done before we even got out of basic training. Got 20 days and. But my unit, the one that we're going to, was there at the time, and we basically. We went through a lot of training. We went to Vicenza, Italy, Aviano, Germany, places like that. Turkey, for NATO exercise, which was awesome because a lot of the other paratroopers from the NATO countries, like Turkey itself, which was the host country, Belgium, France, Germany, they were all there. We got to talk to them, train with them. It was fantastic.

[Host]

Literally jump out of planes.

[John Nelson]

Yeah, we jumped out there in Turkey as well.

[Host]

Did you learn stuff from each other or what did you get from it ultimately?

[John Nelson]

Well, we learned camaraderie is number one. You always feel like you have these brother in arms, no matter what, from. From different countries.

[Host]

Wow.

[John Nelson]

And, you know, they have different weapons, and, you know, we would, you know, talk to each other as best we could. And a lot of the other countries, of course, spoke English, which is good. So the Germans, especially the French, the bells.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

The Turks, not so much, but the officers did.

[Host]

The officers, yeah. Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And they were conscripted, so most of them were, if not all were conscripted. Except for America.

[Host]

Did you learn language during that time at all?

[John Nelson]

Learned Italian.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

Learned Italian back then.

[Host]

That's cool.

[John Nelson]

And then went to school there while we had a little bit of time off. And we lived in Vicenza, Italy. So there was North Court in the Veneto area.

[Host]

Yeah. After military.

[John Nelson]

That. During. During.

[Host]

Okay, during.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. This would be 85.

[Host]

Okay, 85. You get out. 87.

[John Nelson]

87.

[Host]

Okay. Out of the military. Total.

[John Nelson]

Complete totality. Yeah. ETS honorable discharge. September 20th, 1987.

[Host]

1987. Okay. December. And then what was the next day like after being. You're in the military doing all this incredible stuff, and now you're not in the military?

[John Nelson]

It was a. It was a hard transition for. For a while. You know, you're so used to being disciplined, waking up, doing this, doing that. You know, always checking your weapons, always training. Yeah, we would train for weeks, especially when we were in Vicenza. We would go out into the field five and six weeks at a time. Three. Sometimes three, but at the most, usually six. Come back for a couple weeks, and then go back out and, you know, you ETS the last day, and all of a sudden you can wake up when you want and do whatever you want. And I had a great support network where I had the safety of my family, so. And my wife Dana. Fantastic support group that I had. So what we did was, you know, they. They helped me transition. It was. It was peacetime, so it wasn't. It wasn't hard.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

But it was. It was different. So I went to school in September.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

After that. And enrolled at University of Maryland in College Park.

[Host]

Oh, very cool. So back home from Italy, then.

[John Nelson]

Then went to Fort Bragg for about a year.

[Host]

And Bragg is where?

[John Nelson]

Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

[Host]

North Carolina. Okay. Yeah, got it.

[John Nelson]

And then after that, we ETS from Fort Bragg and then went right into my last two years of university. I had two years before that at the community college, like I said. And then I finished my undergrad at. At University of Maryland.

[Host]

University. What. What'd you pick Maryland for? Terps. Right?

[John Nelson]

The Terps. Yeah.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

I lived right by that.

[John Nelson]

Well, the crazy thing was I was going. Had no idea of University of Maryland. I mean, my. My wife at the time, she took a job at the CIA.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And so she was working in Langley.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And what happened is University of Maryland was close.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

They took all my credits, and I finished my two years there, so.

[Host]

So that led. So it was almost like following her, because I guess she was.

[John Nelson]

Yeah, I was. I was. I.

[Host]

Like, how matter of fact, you said that my wife took a job with the CIA.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

So.

[Host]

Aw.

[John Nelson]

My wife took a job at the CIA and I thought we. That was mind blowing at the time. It was fantastic. And also when I got to Maryland, seeing that the Terps were our mascot, I had no idea.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And you know, a turtle is our mascot. And couldn't we have like a dragon.

[Host]

Or something a little faster?

[John Nelson]

A flamingo, you know, something. You know, it was a Terp. So. But it was good. It was, yeah.

[Host]

What'd you study?

[John Nelson]

I studied international relations, but in specific, Russian and Eastern Europe and that. So this was still the Soviet era times.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And that helped propel me to a job later on in my career.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And that. So my undergrad was in. In that from. I graduated in 89.

[Host]

In 89. Okay.

[John Nelson]

Dana was living in Switzerland at the time, so 88. There was a transition where I stayed at Maryland to finish my senior year while she went in 88. June. And I went with her initially. Couldn't find a good school to finish my senior year. So I went back to University of Maryland and finished my senior year there. They had an excellent Russian program. They had some of the best professors. They had. As a matter of fact, several of my professors wrote the books that a lot of other universities use for Russian language.

[Host]

Really?

[John Nelson]

Yes. And Dan Davidson's one of them.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

Fantastic gentleman. Had an opportunity to speak with him several times. Actually got University of Maryland to raise the credits from three to four in order to get that. To get more credits for the language. They weren't giving them enough credit. And so it's a harder language. Therefore I appealed to them for know higher credit and 3, 4 instead of 3 and took about six months, but we got it done and I did it with Dr. Dan Davidson.

[Host]

Wow. And still there.

[John Nelson]

And Tom Garza.

[Host]

And Tom Garza. Are those folks still at University of Maryland?

[John Nelson]

No, Tom Garza is in the Slavic area studies at University of Texas, Austin. Oh, my favorite professor of all time.

[Host]

Really? Tom Garza.

[John Nelson]

Tom Garza. Dan Davidson. He might have passed away. I don't know. He's. But he was. He was a fantastic gentleman. I lost contact. Yeah, I only know him. I knew him very briefly.

[Host]

But we're going to try to find Tom Garza out there and tag him or tag his department at. You said University of Texas, Austin, Austin.

[John Nelson]

He's in the Slavic department.

[Host]

That'd be so cool if we can find him. All right. So you're how old at that time?

[John Nelson]

Gosh, it's about 24. Yeah.

[Host]

Do you know what you want to do in your life? Were you still just doing things around what you think you want to do, or did you know what you wanted to be?

[John Nelson]

I wanted to do something that would involve international relations. I wanted to do something. I'd love to travel. I love to travel since I was a kid.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

I remember when I was six years old, I got this Hershey container. Chocolate, had a bunny on it, a rabbit. And what it had on the back was, hey, send in two box tops, and we'll give you this map of the world with coins that were on it, the real legitimate coins. And so I did it. I asked my mom and dad. They said, yeah, sure. I was maybe. Probably seven, sure. Anyway, so I received the package back. It came in a little brown bag, and I opened the map, and it had all these cool little coins from Turkey, from Greece, from France. This is before the EU, of course. This is in the 70s.

[Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Nelson]

And early 70s. And I just looked at that Batman said. And I looked at these coins and said, I'd love to go there. I would love to do that. So that's when it really. The. The. The progenitor of all that came from that. Those two box tops in the map with the coins.

[Host]

So that's a huge pivotal point. I mean, wow. But nobody would know that at the time. Like, you would not know that. That was just cool. But as you look back at your life now, it's fun to. To look at that exact puzzle piece and go, wow, that fit in there perfectly. And because that fit in there, I was able to fill the rest of the puzzle in.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

Because it's just so cool. All right, cool. So Hershey and the bunnies and the map of the world and the coins was your. Did your family travel like you said? Your dad was in the military. Were you guys doing any kind of travel?

[John Nelson]

No, no, we. Other than local. I mean, we lived in Clinton, Iowa, which is right on the river.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

We would go to Wisconsin or Minnesota, but that was it. I didn't. I never been on a plane until I joined the military.

[Host]

Oh, wow.

[John Nelson]

Until I joined the army. The first plane trip I ever had was flying in from Moline, Illinois, to Chicago, here to Atlanta, Georgia.

[Host]

Right. For training.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. And they picked us up on a bus and took us to Benning.

[Host]

What airline did you fly? Just curious.

[John Nelson]

Oh, I think. You know what? I think it was like, twa. Yeah, it was back then. Yeah.

[Host]

So that was your. And that's cool. So that was your first time on a plane?

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

All right, cool. So you're in University of Maryland, you're graduating, your wife is overseas? She's.

[John Nelson]

Yes, she's employed with the CIA in Geneva, Switzerland.

[Host]

Then what, what, what is, what does the world look like for you? What do you think?

[John Nelson]

Well, I finished my last year. I had five or six, I had five other guys that I lived with during that time. And the only thing I did was between studying. I did martial arts back then, Muay Thai boxing. I would go. There was this famous Muay Thai boxer, he's 128time world champion between Vietnam and Thailand, Master Kwok. And I would go to my classes, I would go to the, the gym, the dojo, and then I would go home and I would walk. And it was three miles from the university to where I lived in, in Hyattsville, Maryland. And I was in the best shape of my life then, so it was fantastic. So I did that, finished my year up, went back to Switzerland. I did go back and forth to see Dana about five times. And then including Christmas break and that. So I would take, if we had a long weekend, I would fly there to Geneva, fly back for a four day weekend and. And then I graduated and went back to Switzerland and went to school right away.

[Host]

Oh, you did?

[John Nelson]

I went to grad school in October. I found a. Wow. For my MBA in Lausanne, Switzerland.

[Host]

Lausanne, Switzerland?

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

That's so cool. What's, what's school like? What's the difference? University abroad versus university here?

[John Nelson]

Oh, I gotta tell you, it was fantastic. There was over 70 different nationalities at the business school Lausanne, you had people from all walks of life. The Swiss, let's just say they had a, they were wealthy, let's just say that. And they had people, you had people showing up, you know, at University of Maryland. They had great people. You know, I love University of Maryland. You had a lot of diverse cultures at University of Maryland. But when you get to Switzerland, especially in the Geneva, Lausanne area, that's a lot of international. The IOCC is there, the International Olympic Committee is in Lausanne.

[Host]

Wow.

[John Nelson]

My school is in Lausanne.

[Host]

Like still, like that's where.

[John Nelson]

Oh yeah. The IOCC's headquarters, the Olympic international headquarters is Lausanne, Switzerland.

[Host]

Yeah. Very cool. All right.

[John Nelson]

And we were right on the. Close to the river, close to. In Ushi, which is a suburb of, of Lausanne, but absolutely beautiful. You had, as I was saying, 70 different nationalities. I got to learn from a lot of different cultures that I were fascinating. Got to have a lot of friends. In particular the Pakistani Community was well represented there. Love talking to them. They taught me, you know, I studied them in school as well. Russians, Ukrainians, Europeans. Overall, Swiss and French because they're right on the French border. Very close.

[Host]

Sure.

[John Nelson]

So very cool.

[Host]

Couple years there, did you say. Was it two, three?

[John Nelson]

Yeah. I entered in 80. What was 89?

[Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Nelson]

And graduated 92.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

And that I took an extra year.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And after me, because I actually started working for a Swiss company even before I graduated.

[Host]

Got it. So you worked or you worked during school?

[John Nelson]

Yeah, I worked during school.

[Host]

Do you live at home?

[John Nelson]

I lived. Oh, yeah, I lived. I mean, we. Dane and I had a place in Geneva.

[Host]

Oh. So real close.

[John Nelson]

So we take a 40 minute train ride.

[Host]

Beautiful.

[John Nelson]

To Lausanne, Switzerland.

[Host]

Wow.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. And we did it on Saturdays. It was a course where you could actually get. So for everybody that was working. Yeah, you would have that. And we had a fantastic class because they're all professionals. All our professors were professional. They just weren't talking about widgets.

[Host]

Right.

[John Nelson]

I had one guy that was a vice president who actually got me the job for the. The Swiss firm that I work for, which was also part of a private Swiss bank in Geneva, to be working in Czechoslovakia. So all that was done through the school. Business school. Lausanne.

[Host]

That's our heritage is Czechoslovakia. Polish and Slovak.

[John Nelson]

Polish and Slovak. Yes. Yeah. I gotta tell you, nicest people, greatest people, especially back then, the Americans that just opened up, they were more than happy to see us and that. So loved it. I mean, I've traveled to over 40 different companies, corporations in. In the. It's Czechoslovakia back then.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

So that kind of. I dated that way historically because that's pre 93. So I was in there 91. 92. 90. 91, 92. So before they split to the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

[Host]

What's your favorite food from that region?

[John Nelson]

It's called. It's. It's a trout. And they, they. I love it because they do it with the head and everything. So just eating that and that. And. Oh, they had so much pierogies. Pierogies. They. I can't remember pierogies. They have that in Poland a lot. I remember.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

The pierogi.

[Host]

So that's more of a Pole. Okay.

[John Nelson]

I think it's more of a Polish dish.

[Host]

Yeah. See, we're getting both of them.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

Family traditions are getting both.

[John Nelson]

Yeah, they're both beautiful. Then we. Oh, I love Slovakia. I mean, number one, they hardly had any cars. So you could. I. I rented a bicycle, a mountain bike, and I would go on the Weekends after work, and I would just travel through the mountains of Slovakia, especially in the area of Rahul, Rohache, Habofka, in the whole oblast of Donny Kubin, which is in the northeastern section, and it borders Poland. On the weekends, we'd go to the Polish town of Zakopane, which is very famous for skiing. And it's. It's beautiful. Yeah.

[Host]

All right, cool. So you graduate, and then what do things look like? You're working at a bank, you're finishing your mba, and then what?

[John Nelson]

And then. Well, that worked there for a couple years. And then Dana had to. We either had to decide whether we were going to stay there in. In Czechoslovakia, there, Geneva, or go back home. And we decided for the bet it would be best for us at the time. This is 90. 92. 93 again, I think. 93.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

So we moved back to the D.C. area.

[Host]

Oh, you did?

[John Nelson]

And that. So she. She went back to Langley. And I was looking for a job. I worked at Nordic Track for a while, which was fun. At the Pentagon City Mall there in Arlington. Right across the street from the Pentagon.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And then I got a call from an old buddy of mine that was in the military with me, actually. Great guy. And he offered me a job in Atlanta. And so I took the. I thought about it, and then this was about January, February. And then we negotiated and then finally moved in July. July, yeah. Wow.

[Host]

So D.C. i did the same thing. D.C. to Atlanta.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[Host]

D.C. to Atlanta. Did you come visit first or did you just.

[John Nelson]

No, I knew this gentleman before.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And he lived in Atlanta, so I would come sometimes with him to go home. He would drive. We'd drive from Fort Bragg to the Atlanta area. It was.

[Host]

Oh, so you've been visiting.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. So I knew a little bit about Atlanta beforehand, so. And we were very good friends. And then I worked for him for a couple years.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

93 to 96 things. We parted ways in 96, and I formed my own company.

[Host]

Olympics were 96.

[John Nelson]

The Olympics. And also my daughter was born in 96.

[Host]

What a year for you.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. Started my own company, and that was.

[Host]

Okay, so nine. So 96 is the flag in the sand for sun. Was it called Sun Tours from day one.

[John Nelson]

From day one.

[Host]

Okay. Sun Tours. And that's s O N to a Christian tour company. Yeah. Which is so just so cool. All right, so Sun Tours starts. What. What is life like for you? Minus business, what's going on everywhere else. Is Dana with you kids? What does everything look like?

[John Nelson]

Finally, our first House. We, we were moved there in. Chris, can you grab a. September, October of 92. Yeah, we moved to our first house. Sarah was born in 93. June.

[Host]

Okay, 93.

[John Nelson]

June, June. So I started my own company 3-1-93 and Sarah was born in June. And it was wild. It was wild. I've Sun Tours was started on a gateway computer by myself. I had, I found out now this is 96. This is well before, you know, Internet was that popular and you know, as far as connection value. So I purchased for a nominal price seven different states, middle school and high school listings. So it gave you the, the school, the address, the phone number and I, I spent my time from March through August placing that data in the computer to generate a mailing list.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And that's how my company started.

[Host]

Who was your very, very first client ever?

[John Nelson]

Very first client ever was in Knightstown, Indiana. Knightstown, Indiana. And her name? She just passed away recently, but we're very close. She loved us, she trusted us. Her name was Vianne Schmidt.

[Host]

Vianne Schmidt, Yes. Cool. A school.

[John Nelson]

A school nights. Nice town middle, I think. Nice town Middle.

[Host]

That's so cool. I want to find them too.

[John Nelson]

And fantastic thing about them is Vianne, one of my first customers, landed her in 96, stayed with us the entire time. She actually came to work for us as a person that would, we call it escorting where they would be the escort for the group to help them get from point A to point B to make sure the guides come on time, to make sure they. We get to the hotel on a proper time and hand out the keys, so forth and so on. So kind of like a. Your own personal valet or butler.

[Host]

Yeah. That's cool.

[John Nelson]

So.

[Host]

So she was a client forever.

[John Nelson]

She was a client forever. And then when she retired, she worked for us.

[Host]

That's so cool. Is the, is the school, is Knightstown Middle School, are they still a client even though she's not there?

[John Nelson]

No. After Covid something, things changed in that. So.

[Host]

Wow. All right, so being Smith, that's cool. Sun Tours is now off. We're now off to the races. We're going. Is it. Do we have any competitors at the time?

[John Nelson]

Oh, there's always good. It's. It's other people doing. It's a dog eat dog world. In the, in the educational tour business, you have several large competitors. A couple.

[Host]

Even back then.

[John Nelson]

Even back then, yeah. Yeah. So. And then you have what they call factional groups. What is, you know, small, small companies, you know, one person, two people. I mean I was that Way in the beginning.

[Host]

Yeah. So you holding a child?

[John Nelson]

Yes, yes. So my very first Sarah was born in June. June 16th. And I remember doing the database. And then in August, you know, she's, you know, three, four months old. And I'm getting phone calls. Thank goodness. Thank God. Right. And I'm hoping that she doesn't cry. So I'm holding her in one hand, I'm phone in the other, hey, how's it going? And then talking at the same time. Please don't cry. And so it all worked. It worked out.

[Host]

Wow.

[John Nelson]

And I did that for a year. And the bonding that we had was fantastic. I, you know, I was working out of the house on the computer, had a phone, mini, little phone system, you know, two lines and a fax.

[Host]

And a fax. Yep.

[John Nelson]

And a fax machine back then. And that's how I started the company. Dana came to work with me a year later in 97.

[Host]

You're awesome. Cool. And. And today with you both are still.

[John Nelson]

Yeah, we're both. Yeah, we're incredible.

[Host]

Sarah still work. Sarah.

[John Nelson]

Sarah. Actually, Sarah. Sarah's the best thing that's ever happened to us next to Dana. And Sarah had an amazing career as a. I mean, she's 28 now, but she'd be, you know, she graduated from Fordham in three years instead of four. She graduated year early. I made a contract with her. I said, I'll pay for four years of your school. So she completed Fordham in three years and then she went to King's College London and completed her master's in a year. So I'm like, Sarah, you got me. So I paid for. For four years?

[Host]

Come on. She did all that in four years?

[John Nelson]

She did all that in four years. She moved back to New York as Fordham's in Manhattan.

[Host]

She.

[John Nelson]

There's two locations of Fordham. One's in. The first one's in. Well, where she went was Lincoln Center.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

And I think the other one's Rose Hill, something like that. Yeah. And anyway, so she completed that. Then she started working for. She was a humanitarian by heart. She loves. She loves people. So she took a job with a company that dealt specifically with the homeless in Ward island, which is part of the psych hospital for the Kremlin Insane. So she worked in one part in the hospital for the Kremlin insane was right next door. And a lot of the clientele would obviously in her mesh. So. So she had. She had quite a start to her career. And yeah, I would it. She did that for a couple years. Then she went to another NGO that called Fortune Society, and that was in, I believe, Long Island. She worked there for a couple years, and she. She did fantastic there. She became the youngest director there for ever at like 23. At 23. And then things changed as far as New York were concerned with her. And let's just say that there came a time and a place where she felt it'd be better if she came back and. And had her came back and kind of grew her roots with her family. So we offered her a job, we let her think about it, and a month later she started.

[Host]

And this was what year she came back?

[John Nelson]

I'd say 20. 23.

[Host]

Okay. So fair. So recent.

[John Nelson]

Yeah, pretty, pretty recent.

[Host]

She's. How. How old is 28?

[John Nelson]

About to be 29.

[Host]

Okay, that's so cool. So a fam. So another reason is a family business.

[John Nelson]

It's a family business. Yeah.

[Host]

You've brought some talented folks together, right?

[John Nelson]

Some, yes, I believe so.

[Host]

Former. You have some. Some other former government, I mean.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. So, like Dano's, you know, with the CIA. Chuck, who I've known for over 40 years, was in the same company with me.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And he was living in Italy, speaks fluent Italian.

[Host]

Was he one of the first guys that you said you jumped out of the plane with?

[John Nelson]

One of them? Yes, yes, he was in the company. So we did everything together, and then we became even closer at Ford Bragg and Vicenza, Italy and so forth. And he became my weightlifting buddy in. At the last year. So, yeah, we. Yeah.

[Host]

Here you are all together again doing this.

[John Nelson]

Yes.

[Host]

What a story.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

Oh, my goodness.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. You heard about my company when he moved back to America and he asked for a job and I said, yeah, would you.

[Host]

What was his first position when he came to work with you?

[John Nelson]

Operations. Operations. He's still there. He's the vice president of operations now.

[Host]

Wow.

[John Nelson]

So he grew that position as well. I mean, so we have a. You look at it, a security foundation between the 82nd Airborne. Two of us from the 82nd Airborne, one is from the CIA. And I wanted people that had the right attitude.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And that's. I. I can always find that with a. With a veteran. And so veterans, because they know all about safety, they know all about security, especially in combat arms, which we're in. Dana knew all about safety and security, what she did with the CIA. And there's other great people, too, that. Or family members that were military. Wonderful person named Karen that works with us now. And what did she do? She's in sales. Yeah, sales and travel. All of us Travel.

[Host]

Sure.

[John Nelson]

Everybody has to. When I hire them, I always hire on attitude and aptitude. But attitude's always got to be number one. And I only have three rules in my company as, as far I make it simple as possible.

[Host]

Yeah, for sure.

[John Nelson]

And it's, you know, you don't, you know, like military, you know, no insubordination. I won't. Incompetence. And I, I. That's to say that you got to start learning your job somewhere. But to become competent. That and they all are for sure. So those two and then you don't steal. So other than that, I pretty much give them free reign. So I taught every single one of them what I like, what I want and what we need to do. As far as a company, they follow that they have their own particular. Once they get to the groove of the company.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

I let them do what they need to do. That's so in that I don't, I'm not a micromanager. And all I want to do is drive the bus. I'll steer the bus. Everybody else is with me. But that's, that's what we do. They do their jobs. I'm not, I don't check up on them. We do have meetings every day. We do pray every morning at our conference, you know, to kind of give a. Consecrate the day.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And. But excellent. Top notch. People with great attitudes.

[Host]

That's awesome.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

Special. All right, now let's focus in. So that gets us up to Sun Tours, which we've spoken a little bit about, but we're going to now go in now I want to go into depth. So I want to talk to you about. I want, I want you to explain to me quantity versus quality. You have interesting insights there.

[John Nelson]

Okay, so.

[Host]

So you've told me that Sun Tours from the date from day one, you didn't want to focus on being a quant. A quantity.

[John Nelson]

Right.

[Host]

Tell me, tell me a little bit about that.

[John Nelson]

Well, when I, in 96, I started my company but in 93, I. I was actually doing this with, with the other company. And then. And the thing I learned right away is our competition had. They were mixing groups together from different schools and which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

But it can create a lot of angst especially between the schools and that.

[Host]

Well, if you don't know personalities too, but.

[John Nelson]

Right.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. But they do it because of the cost.

[Host]

It's.

[John Nelson]

The more people you have, the cheaper it is. Got one of the things I. So I learned several things just from Experience. But I also learned several things from grad school. And one of the things back in the 80s and 90s was a gentleman by the name of Michael Porter.

[Host]

Porter.

[John Nelson]

And Porter was required reading. And in Porter's books, one of them in particular, he had a. What you call the quality quantity curve. So you had quality on one side, quantity on the other.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

And what you don't want to do. And it was a downward curve. So like a smiley face between quality and quantity.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

Okay.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

So you don't want to be in the middle because you're going to lose both. So I learned right away that either I'm going to have to go for quantity or quality and focus as much as possible on that. I decided right away I wanted to do quality, so I wanted to run a lean and mean company. I formed that as a kind of like a special Forces team where everybody in the SF and they were just right down the road from us, and we would talk to them. And you had A and B teams. You had 5th Special Forces Group, 7th, 4th PSYOPS. And it was great to talk to those guys. And the thing they always had was everybody had to have a primary and a secondary, and some even had a tertiary assignment. So you could be like weapons and then a medic or heavy weapons and then Como. But you always had. In case somebody. They were lean and mean.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

If. If some person fell, he had somebody else to take it over.

[Host]

Makes sense.

[John Nelson]

So all of us have a primary and a secondary in our company. So if someone's out of the office, another person can take over. We got, like, me, for example. Like, I can do them all. And I taught them all.

[Host]

Right.

[John Nelson]

But the first one I wanted to get away from was accounting. Dana was an ace in accounting. She was the top of her class. She actually got an award in Switzerland for the best student. And I said right away, dana, this is my weakest point. Can you take accounting? Absolutely. She did it. And she's stellar. Stellar, yeah.

[Host]

Great.

[John Nelson]

She's the one that holds the company together. But she can also do operations. She can also do administrators. She can also do sales. She can do everything I can do, only better, which is fantastic.

[Host]

That's so cool.

[John Nelson]

And the greatest thing about this is, so that's what I do. I have Chuck. He can do operations. He can do sales. He can do administration. Sarah can do it all. Sarah, wow. I hope that someday that I can just hand the business over to Sarah, but I'm not. I don't want to force that on her. But she Is she's the best human being I've ever known.

[Host]

Oh, my goodness.

[John Nelson]

And it's not just because I'm her father, but it is because I'm her father. There is a bias there. But she's genius level, brilliant human being. And my people, when she came on board, couldn't believe it because it's like, for example, Chuck told her, hey, I need you to do something. Check back with me by noon. This is her first day. She's back in 10 minutes. I got it all done. We're looking at her like, what?

[Host]

Right?

[John Nelson]

So she's great with people. She goes on tour. She just got off a New York tour a couple days ago. We've all been traveling. This is the big season now. But it's because of that Special Forces trust that communication. I can fill your position at any moment. I've got your six. Like I said, in the military.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

I've got your back. You've got my back. Safety is, is the other issue. Trust in safety. We know how to safely take these students from point A to point B back to point A again.

[Host]

Let's unpack that. Let's stay right there now for a little bit. Do you have any stories of, like, when. When something hit the fan, so to speak, or something went awry or something went. Went bad and your background came, came forward?

[John Nelson]

Well, yes, yes. And I had a couple of them, but we've all had that. I've had one where three of us, we had groups. We had three groups in California and in March, this is several years ago, when there was a winter storm and they were flying, I believe, United. And we're all snowed in for four days.

[Host]

What city?

[John Nelson]

Newark, New Jersey. Newark, New Jersey. So I had two groups from all. They're all from the LA area, I'll just say that. And three groups there, all at the hotel the same time. We get snowed in. And they're there for five days. For five days. And what we decided is we had our. One of our main people stay there. An escort.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

Others had to get back to the office, but we had our lead person, Sarah was there. So we made sure that they were clothed and fed. We didn't care about the insurance, but they were insured, we knew that. But we paid everything out of our pocket, all the hotel rooms, three meals a day, dry cleaning, if you can believe that. We couldn't go anywhere. We were on the phones, you know, rearranging their flights back to LA from Newark. So we were able to do this one of the Groups actually had to fly out of Logan Airport, but we paid for the motorcoach to take them from Newark to Logan to fly out back to la. We got everybody back five days later, safe and sound. And we worried about the insurance afterwards because that's. It's about money. That. That can wait. It was the people, safety and security. They need to be clothed. They need to be fed. They don't want to be there. They want to be back home. But, hey, it's snow.

[Host]

Out of our control.

[John Nelson]

It's out of our control. So it's one day at a time. It's do what we should do for the other person and make it happen. And that's been my motto. It's just, you make it happen. Make it happen no matter what. Don't worry about anything else but the safety and security of those people. Yeah, students and adults were on that.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

The other one, the one that I highlight for our company is during the Boston bombing, we had a group in Boston.

[Host]

Oh, wow.

[John Nelson]

Dana was on that tour.

[Host]

What year was this? This was about 22ish. 2020.

[John Nelson]

That's a good question. Yeah.

[Host]

Okay, let's just. Yeah. Okay.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

So, yeah, there's not multiple Boston bombings. No, no, I'm talking about we're running the marathon and.

[John Nelson]

Right.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

Yeah, running the marathon. The. The pressure cooker went off. Yeah, that was the bomb.

[Host]

You had a group there?

[John Nelson]

Yes, we had a group in Boston at the time. And what happened is they weren't next. So first off, they were safely far enough away where they weren't by them. They were, like, at Bunker Hill, I believe.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

In Boston. But far enough away from the marathon. Right away, when we heard about it, we got a text. Dana was there, so she was the lead. Dana was a text. Dana. Right away, we went through our protocols. Get to, you know, call the parents. Right away. We had every student called their parents. We had the parents that. Their parents on the tour calling the school. The teacher was calling school. So we wanted to make sure, number one, that everybody was safe and sound. So we got that communicated in our network. Okay. Next thing we did is we changed the itinerary around so that we could see everything safely that was far enough away because Boston's kind of a big city. So in one section, it was total mayhem. In the other section, there were certain problems with traffic in that. But, yeah, once we were safe, once we were secure and everybody was calm, we continued on. So we made that happen. But that was only through Dana's training. And as far as being Safe, secure, checking, communicating, making sure that we could get to the places on time. If we not, she would make a change. So. And she had to do that. But we got through that safe and sound, secure. Everybody made it back. Everybody was very happy with our company.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And that. So. And that. But that's. That's the main thing right there, is the safety and security of the.

[Host]

The student. So without me saying, why is Sun Tours different? I don't even need to ask that question. There's no reason to ask that question now. For the last 30 minutes, we talked about it. Wow. All right, so you guys have our. I know we're five years premature, but you have our trips. I could tell you right now, because I will be on the committee making the decision, and it will not be made over dollars and cents only.

[John Nelson]

Well, fantastic.

[Host]

This is different. I mean, I could sense the difference. Like, I want my kids going with people like this and not that. Not that it's a bad thing, but not coming. Not going with somebody who's in sales.

[John Nelson]

Right, exactly. Yeah.

[Host]

Right.

[John Nelson]

And that's. Yeah. And that's the thing, too. I told you about quality over quantity. The big thing that we won't do do. We won't. Like other companies will. We will not unless they ask. And we've had a couple of groups throughout the years that have said, yeah, we want to combine, because otherwise they couldn't go. But it was their decision.

[Host]

Their decision.

[John Nelson]

Not yours, not mine. We would never combine. Just to say so we asked them, okay, you want to do that, that's fine. But we'll take groups as small as 25. But we have groups as large as 800.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

So that's cool. So we will not combine a group. Yeah, well, that's. It's that important. And that has a lot of trust and safety issues as well.

[Host]

Sure.

[John Nelson]

I mean, you can overcome them. You can do them, but I just in general don't want to do that. Yeah, I'd rather go for the high quality and have less quantity than. Than run it like a cattle car truck company, like some of the. Of our competitors do.

[Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because these are people's kids.

[John Nelson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Host]

Right. All right. You have some cool stuff. Moving on. You have some really cool stuff out on the Internet, picture wise. And. And I know their stories behind each of them. So I want to ask you about two of them. One is Chernobyl and the other is your. The picture that you have out there. I think it's on the website with a couple of you guys up at the. The old. The Berlin Wall.

[John Nelson]

The Bur. The Brandenburg Tour. The. The Brandenburg Gate. Yes, yes.

[Host]

So let's start with Chernobyl. So what happened there and what. What is the importance?

[John Nelson]

Chernobyl was something that my daughter and I love to travel. And she got the travel bug through me. The first time I took her to New York was with her grandparents. Both sets were there. It was fantastic. She was four years old, went and saw the Lion King. She loved New York ever since. And so. And we love to travel together. We're great travel companions. And when she was going through, we. We always knew that she had a certain amount of time to have a Christmas break, spring, winter break, and that. So she loved her Jewish heritage through her mother. She studied Ukraine. I studied Ukraine from the international perspective, from the political perspective, and at. And I actually lived in Italy at the time that Chernobyl, on April 26, 1986, had a meltdown.

[Host]

Huh. Okay.

[John Nelson]

And in Italy, it was. It was actually found out by a university or a. Yeah. An area in Sweden. The. They found out that there was actual debris, that there was a. Something happened in Chernobyl. So anyway, back when we lived in Italy, they told us, hey, you had to wash all your food. Some of the food you couldn't even eat. It was at your discretion. So even back then, from. From that point, went to school, I studied again, Russian, Eastern Europe, so forth and so on. Studied Ukraine as well. Fantastic people. So I had that desire to go there. You couldn't go at the time. It took like 20, I think the first groups, don't quote me on this, but it was around 2014. Sarah and I, because of her age, couldn't really go till 2017. So you have to be 18 to actually go to Chernobyl. There's a 30 kilometer zone, there's a 10 kilometer zone. And you have to go through radioactive detectors to go through that. You have to be cleared through the government, you have to have your Social Security number, so forth. So it all has to be done. And I give a shout out to the company. I went through Solo East. Solo east and Kyiv. Solo East, Jeev and Ukraine.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

So I went through them, had a great guide. We went into chernobyl. This is January 8th of 2017, day after their Christmas, because they go by the Gregorian calendar. And we spent. It was funny. We spent Christmas in America and then we spent Christmas in Kiev. So it was nice. And we, you know, I studied a lot about it. There's a famous author who actually won the Nobel Peace Prize. For the Chernobyl Diaries called Svetlana Aleksevich. Svetlana wrote the Chernobyl Diaries and won the Nobel Peace Prize that year. It was a must read book about it. And another gentleman by the name of Adam Higginbotham. So I read their books, I read several others when I studied it. I was always fascinated with, with, I hate to say this, but the human condition and, and how far people can fall and what happened and what, what happened as far as how did Chernobyl happen And, and it's, it's detailed in the books, but a lot of it had to do with just so much human error. And also the, the whole idea that, and it was a very, very basic reactor that used graphite rods. And how it, how it happened was they decided to run a test on the reactor and it has basically 200, I forgot 200 or 311 graphite rods around it. And they let all but eight fall or descend. And one thing led to another. The, the water that was supposed to cool it down immediately dissipated, evaporated. The special water that came in, the heavy water that was supposed to, for emergencies, cavitated pipes and the pipes exploded. And next thing you have a complete meltdown. Yeah. So it is just fascinating how 50,000 people had to go through all this. They had a town called Pripyat that was about a kilometer and a third from Chernobyl. You had literally, like I said, 50,000 people that were immediately affected. And the Soviet Union at the time was not reacting. It took several days. It took like 29 May 1st for them to react. And then they started busting everybody out in this huge mass of lines. What they didn't want to admit, they didn't want to admit it happened. That was a big. It wasn't until Sweden told them that this was going on. And also the, at the University of Minsk in Belarus, they, the mints called the Chernobyl people. And anyway, wow. They, they found out, they got him out of there. They never came back. It basically you couldn't live there. You couldn't even travel there until I said like 2014, 2015. You can only stay there for a day. There are some people now they allow back that are like 70 years old and above that can come back and live. But outside the 30 kilometer exclusion zone. Yeah, but it's amazing. You can travel through Pripyat, which is a, which is the town. It's like a little city.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And they had to leave everything there. They had to. And the most memorable room that I saw was. And it really goes to tell you what they thought of us and we thought of them. I mean, they were just as scared of the Americans as we were scared of the, the Ukrainians and the Russians. The Soviet Union back then.

[Host]

Yeah, right.

[John Nelson]

And I went through a kindergarten classroom with our guy Boris and Sarah and we saw this on the ground. Hundreds of gas masks, Kindergarten gas masks for five year olds. They would practice every morning, putting on their gas masks just in case America decided to nuke us, hit us with bioweapons, everything. So it was just amazing. It just, it just struck home. I have a picture of it that I can show you, but it's literally. And there's a little dial in the middle of it. None of it's been moved, none of it. And you're not, you can't touch anything, you can't take anything out. So everything has been left there now. Some people have gone in and pilfered here and there, but, but you can't get in there without a licensed guide now. So it's very closely watched. They have just abandoned hotel hotels and restaurants and, and houses. And you go through the residence, the jail cells, everything. Everything still till this day. Yeah. There's books laying on the ground that you know, language books that'll say like, for example, you know, German, they call it New Metsky, you know, Italian. They're learning different languages. Bruschami is a cool. The, the Russian books and that because they're Ukrainian, they had to learn Russian as well. Very similar languages, but different.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And all of them laying there, all of them haven't been touched for decades. And seeing these people that suddenly had to be uprooted and to be in Chernobyl at the time, a lot of people don't know this. The Communist Party thought this was a, this was the place to go. This was for scientists and engineers, especially the Communist Party, this was the place to go. They had the best food, they had the best education. If you were a Communist Party member, you got first rights to go in there if you wanted to go there. And a lot of people loved it because it was a beautiful area right until 1986. And that luckily the, the, the winds were traveling north and only 3% of the Ukraine was affected by the direct radiation. 26% of Belarus up into Minsk was affected, which is basically uninhabitable now. So, so it was spectacular for us. And then we got to see what happened during World War II. There's a place called Baby is one of the biggest travesties of. Of the. Of the World War II era against the Jews. Like I said, my daughter's Jewish heritage. She studied this as well. And without going into it, I mean, it was. It was a very tragic event with a lot of, you know, 20,000 civilians within four days were exterminated.

[Host]

Okay. Exterminated.

[John Nelson]

Exterminated.

[Host]

Bombed. They.

[John Nelson]

No, they. They. They. They dug trenches, executed them and then buried them. And then there's a park there now and that commemorates this. Yeah, About Bob and Yard.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And so we went there. We also went to go see where. Golden. Golden. My year, one of the prime ministers of Israel, she lived there when she was six years old. So we visited that site. So, yeah, it was. It was educational, to say the least.

[Host]

To say the least.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. So we love doing that.

[Host]

Yeah. Then tell me about the picture. So there's a great one. There's four in uniform for you guys, I think it was.

[John Nelson]

Yes.

[Host]

And what's in the background? And the.

[John Nelson]

The Brandenburg Gate, but from the east side. So we took a picture. This is back again. This is 1987. Our unit went there for urban combat training.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. We stayed at, I believe, the. I think it was called the Roosevelt Barracks, but it was. There was this large town within Berlin that they made that was exclusively for urban combat training. So you learned door to door, wall to wall, house to house, top level, down level, how to scale, things like that, shooting around corners, you know, all the fun stuff.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

That we learned in the military. So it was a blast. I love Berlin. Literally, it was. It was fun. But we got a day. We received a day where we could go out and visit East Germany. That was East Germany. Went through Checkpoint Charlie, January 86. January of 86. And we decided, hey, we got a picture from the west side. Let's go to the east side.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And. And get a picture of the Brandenburg Gate from the east side. So we. We did that. We got to see the famous needle. It's a long, big tower. I don't know what it's called. Prompt, but it's a large tower. Kind of reminds you of the Seattle Needle. And we spent half a day there. But we went to one of my most memorable moments, and I have a picture of this. We went to Spandau Prison, which I think it was Hess, last name, I believe, is Alger Hess, who was a spy. And it stayed open for him. He died a couple of years later. But this is 1987, I believe, 89. And then they closed the prison down. But it's a very famous Prison back then for World War II during the Nuremberg trials. Some of them were. Were placed there.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

So. So it was fascinating to see East Germany and just how different it was from. Because back then the western German capital was Bonnie. The eastern German, anyway, Berlin. But when they reunified, they made it Berlin again.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

So. But at that time it was absolutely dark and dismal and the people were not happy. You could just. The dynamic between the east and the West Germans.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And where you see the. The capitalist side, the Western European side.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

Versus the total socialism that happened in. In Eastern Europe. They are just dark, dismal. Their. Their products were 30 years behind the times. Their communication, their. It was sad. It was very sad to see. But very memorable.

[Host]

Yeah, very.

[John Nelson]

And like I say, educational. And so it's.

[Host]

Can you travel. Can anybody travel to that? It was so, so, so it was socialist, Communist.

[John Nelson]

Yeah, it was Communist. Yeah.

[Host]

Was. Can anybody go in there or is.

[John Nelson]

It like you had to have special permission?

[Host]

Okay, so it's like Cuba is now.

[John Nelson]

Yeah. You can't just walk in. And it was. Yeah, it was even tighter back then. But because we were military, because we had certain people that we. We could go over there, but we always had to be in uniform. We had to wear a class B uniform. So we had to be immediately recognizable as. As military.

[Host]

Right, right.

[John Nelson]

And we were given a special permission to pass through Checkpoint Charlie and we went through there and saw the Bundestag and several other places.

[Host]

Take that picture.

[John Nelson]

Oh, yeah, you could take pictures.

[Host]

They weren't looking at you funny or.

[John Nelson]

Oh, we always were followed. They always had somebody there.

[Host]

Really?

[John Nelson]

Oh, yeah.

[Host]

They always kind of like military.

[John Nelson]

Military. Yeah, yeah. You had military following you around, Walking around.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And what.

[Host]

Okay, so we understand it was like black and white, basically, one side of the wall versus the other.

[John Nelson]

Yes.

[Host]

A lot of people out here aren't going to remember the wall myself include, like I was still very young. What. Tell me through your eyes. So what happened? Where were you at? Were you in that area for that time?

[John Nelson]

I was in Switzerland at the time. So we witnessed all that.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

As a matter of fact, I, I can get into this far. We. There was never so many people defecting from the former Soviet Union trying to get into Geneva as back then. So. I mean, former KGB agents, former, you know, people that work for the. The East Germany.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And that were coming to Geneva seeking political asylum, that were at the top ranks of their political people. So.

[Host]

All right, I have a couple more questions for you here. They'll be A little bit more personal in nature. Not about sun tours or about military. But do you have, like a favorite time in history that you just love studying and latching on to? And more than anything else, I love.

[John Nelson]

I love the comparative history where things are happening in different parts of the world. I love art. So I'll just say right away, I love the. I would say the Italian Renaissance. And then a lot of the Dutch painters used a lot of the Italian Renaissance and brought it to the Netherlands. And they had the Dutch renaissance in the 1500s, like Rembrandt, Vermeer, De Witt, artists like that that would use especially. My favorite term is chiaroscuro, which means light, dark in it. In English from Italian, which. Caravaggio was a very, very illuminated artist where he actually brought light into a 3D format. I would say when you see any painting by Caravaggio, you'll see like a dark outside, but then you'll see this luminescence from the middle.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And it's. And it's a light and it could be a candle, it could be a flame, but it's beautiful. And the Dutch actually loved that so much that Rembrandt took a lot of the. The ideas of Kiaroscuro and brought it into the the Netherlands in the 16th century as well as others.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

You know, as I mentioned before. So that I love that part of history. 15th, 16th century, historically. I love the Punic Wars. I just. I was reading a book by Victor David Watson. Victor David Hansen. Sorry, Victor David Hansen. And he talks about revolution and the decimation of. Of certain cultures simply because one wanted to fully dominate the other. That they wanted nothing left of them. And that's hard for me to understand until I actually read it. Of another culture. And so it was. The Punic wars were in the 200s in B.C. and down to the one. So there were three Punic wars, and it had to do with Carthage versus Rome. And there's some main characters in there that I absolutely love. Hannibal, his father, Hamil Carr and Hamilcar Bark. Hannibal Bark Scipio from Rome. And talking about the trials and tribulations of what from the First Punic War to the Second Punic War, of. In the 200. The Second Punic War. And then leading into basically the Third Punic War. And basically Carthage lost each time, but the Romans were getting more upset with them each time. So finally, the third Punic War is where Rome basically surrounds the main cities of Carthage.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And raises them to the ground.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And they don't Want them to succeed again. But the, just the dynamic of, you know, two different systems, two different cultures that had. They both had comparative marine trade at the time. They're both, you know, in the Mediterranean area.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

But they were always scared of one another vying for dominance of the Mediterranean. And again, this is, you know, 300 years before Christ. So.

[Host]

Wow.

[John Nelson]

So to the absolute annihilation of them in the, in the like 140, 149.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

Something. I'm in that area.

[Host]

In that area.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

Yeah. That's cool. So favorite time. That's. That's me favorite time in history. All right. I'm sure you've been around a ton of weapons way even an avid.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

An avid marksman. What do you have any favorites?

[John Nelson]

I have a couple favorites I'd say. The one that if I were to absolutely love to have and because number one, it's, it's well made, it can. You can actually bury it for a week, a month, pick it up and shoot it. Is the AK47.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

Which we were trained on in, in Europe. But also my, my favorite is American made cold M4 without the scope. I love to use iron sights. That's what we used when I was in. There was no such thing as using a scope like they do now. But the ironsight M4 and it's not like the M1 or the M2 where all the carbon built up and all the former military guys back in the 80s know what I'm talking about as far as having to clean your weapon and you still have to clean it, but it's not like it was before. And it's very accurate and the barrel is beautiful. I have a bull barrel, stainless steel and it. I love shooting it. I mean, that's mine.

[Host]

What's your fate? Do you have a sweet spot of a distance you like?

[John Nelson]

I like to take my AR10 out, which is a 308. And I love shooting long distances. 2 4, 600 yards. But the M4 you can easily. There's a great range in the Buford area. Buford, Lawrenceville, where they have 100 yard. It's the longest range in, in the Southeast. It was true back then. I did. But it's still 100 yard range where you can take your rifle, M4 and, and shoot it.

[Host]

You ever hear of a place, you ever hear of a place called Peacemaker National?

[John Nelson]

That sounds familiar.

[Host]

Peacemaker National. We may have to go up.

[John Nelson]

Okay.

[Host]

It's outside of D.C. well, two hours outside of D.C. but they.

[John Nelson]

Oh sure.

[Host]

12001200 yard range.

[John Nelson]

Oh, that. Yeah. I would love to take my 308 out there. They are 10.

[Host]

Yeah, but. All right, cool. And then I want to end on. I want to end on this part. So you're how old?

[John Nelson]

61, man. 62 in August.

[Host]

So I want to know, for me, selfishly, how do I look like you when I'm 61?

[John Nelson]

Quit it. You're a fit man.

[Host]

You are fit.

[John Nelson]

Well, thank you.

[Host]

But. But more the, the actual nuts and bolts of your routine. What are your. What are your theories on food? Do you eat more carb, less carb, all that stuff and exercise. So. And just your routine, like in general.

[John Nelson]

So walk me through for you in general. I'll tell you. 80% of it is what you eat. 20% is working out. That's. That's the first as Americans. And I've learned this the hard way, but I also learned how to research. I researched back in my undergrad. I worked at library. I mean, I love research. One of the things I found out is that unfortunately, America eats too many high processed foods. So I went back to the naturals. And also there's a. I'm not a. I'm endorsing. This guy is Gary Breca. Gary Brecke is excellent for amino acid intake.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

He actually breaks it down so that when you're eating proteins, a lot of that is just flushed out of your system. Gary Brecker has this thing called pure aminos that allows you to ingest like 30 grams of protein, 2 calories. It takes 50 calories to break a fast.

[Host]

Okay, Body health here.

[John Nelson]

So 30 grams of protein, you can get through the amino acid and take that with only. With only 2 calories. So you can ingest all that with a 98 metabolism rate. So I've been taking it for a year and a half now, and I, I have to make sure that if it gets down to a third of a container, I get the next container on Amazon.

[Host]

Now you can scoop a day type of thing or what?

[John Nelson]

A couple scoops a day? I do, Yeah. I try to make sure I have a gram of protein per. Per pound of weight.

[Host]

Okay. And that's this focus. Is, is. Is this protein focused protein focus?

[John Nelson]

Well, yes, a lot of focus. But I use that from Gary. I also make sure I eat natural foods. I also make sure that I've eliminated everything in my diet as far as high processed foods with the exception of, and I hate to say tombstone pizza. See, I can't help it.

[Host]

I get it more real. I don't want to sit across from somebody says they eat perfectly.

[John Nelson]

No, I do not eat perfectly. I, I Tombstone pizza. Tombstone pizza, baby.

[Host]

I love it.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

Now how many of them you're not eating? Ten of them.

[John Nelson]

No, I'll eat like one. One. I always give myself a break. And you. Oh, I, I, everybody knows this, that's into athletics and, and a proper diet. Always give yourself at least one meal a week that you can go nuts.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

All right, so I'll take like a Wednesday or even a Sunday and you know, I'll throw in a tombstone pizza on a regular basis once a week.

[Host]

Yeah. And you're eating the whole thing.

[John Nelson]

I mean, you're not sharing. No, no.

[Host]

You don't strike me as one.

[John Nelson]

Yeah, okay, I do.

[Host]

This is awesome.

[John Nelson]

But then I also have a routine where like today for example, I usually get up between 3 and 3:30 in the morning and I read, I read. I'll either read a book and read a couple pages of book, not a whole book. Yeah, but read, read a book and then I read the scripture. And so today I was reading about Mark 8:30.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

Where Jesus is talking about the, the loaves of bread and the fishes and then getting on the boat after he fed, you know, the 5,000 and then the 4,000 and having all the loaves left over, all these baskets. Like the first one was 12 baskets with the 5,000, a couple of fish. The second one was 4,000 and they had seven baskets left over. And then he gets on the boat with his disciples and states, hey Jesus, this is the disciples saying we only have a loaf of bread between all of us here. And he was going to another, they get in the boat and they're, they're going to another town, village. He's going, you know, I'm paraphrasing but you know, you've seen this happen in the last week. You've seen what you know has happened, what God can do, Right. And you're worried about a loaf between the 12 year.

[Host]

Right.

[John Nelson]

I can make this happen. So anyway, but it was, yeah, so I was studying that this morning and then, you know, that's around 4:00, I'm drinking coffee, I'm putting in my pure aminos in my coffee. And that's what I do. I do it that way. So coffee, zero calories, pure aminos, two calories. You know, I do that and then I go to the gym. It opens at five, I'm there at five. We have a mutual friend named Jack, a buddy that he's always there he's highly disciplined and talked to him at 5:30 this morning and. And then I had another meeting at seven and now I'm here.

[Host]

So you're, you're up two hours before your gym even opens. That's awesome. So three to 3:30. Did that start in the military or when did you start that habit?

[John Nelson]

A lot of it had to do with military training, so I could draw from that. I'm not saying we Woke up at 3, 3:30 some, you know, sometimes we didn't go to bed. But. But what I'd say is, I gotta tell you that to give people credit, several years ago I was watching a podcast and talk about Mark Wahlberg and he had a similar, Similar athletics. Yeah. So he was at 2 or 3, but he went to bed at 7, 8. So I usually, I go to bed about 8, sometimes 9, depending on the weekend. But I'll get up a workout. But it's generally five days for sure. Six days. I'll wake up between 3, 3:30 and then I'll. I'll hit the bed about 8:00.

[Host]

About 8:00.

[John Nelson]

About 8:30. Between 7:30. Eight.

[Host]

Okay. And so you're so working out. Consistent. Three to 3:30, five. At least five days a week. Got it. Let's just say that we were doing this podcast at a breakfast meeting or if we had breakfast.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

What, what would that look like for you? What are you ordering?

[John Nelson]

7Am breakfast, six eggs over heart.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

That's what I eat. So that's every breakfast. That's what I have. Because the egg, I think, is the perfect food. God made. You always hear about cholesterol. That's not true. You read the recent studies. Actually, the eggs are the best thing for you.

[Host]

Wow.

[John Nelson]

They've got all the protein. They actually break down cholesterol. What they say gives you cholesterol. It does. It breaks down cholesterol. So eating. Eating the egg. And I do it. I don't do it every day.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

I usually, like I said, I do the protein and the coffee. But yeah, when I'm meeting with buddies and that, we're at breakfast, I order six eggs over hard. That's it.

[Host]

No toast?

[John Nelson]

Oh, absolutely no toast. I try and stay away from bread as much as possible.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

And just because of the carbs. And if I do it, it's got to be organic, it's got to be, you know, whole grain, it's got to be sprouted. You know, things like that.

[Host]

Yeah. So what, what I don't hear you saying is You're. You're eating six eggs with cheese and lots of butter. Yeah, because that's because people could take this and go, oh, I'm fine with my six eggs from Waffle House every morning that's cooked in so much.

[John Nelson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Host]

And stuff like that. So you're. You're cooking with Watt or trying to have what in them? Nothing, just plain eggs.

[John Nelson]

Plain eggs. If you've got to use something, olive oil, you know, just. Oh, yeah. But that's it. So I'm a big fan of olive oil. Balsamic vinaigrette. It's got to be pure. It's got to be extra virgin. It's got to be first press. So things like that. I just make sure. I like to go to Whole Foods. I go to the Publix. Not to endorse them, but they're. They're great places to go here in Atlanta.

[Host]

Yeah, sure.

[John Nelson]

Especially where we're at.

[Host]

Okay, so then walk me through. Are you into fasting at all?

[John Nelson]

Do you do any 16, 8 or intermittent fasting? I do all the time. So I do like I said, the pure aminos. Only two calories. Okay, Put it in the coffee. Zero calories. I don't black. That's how I drink my coffee. Black, pure aminos. And I don't eat from other than that. And I might have two of those.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

It takes 50 calories to break a fast. So with that being said, I don't eat beyond that until noon. So from the time I wake up till noon, I'm drinking the pure aminos, I'm drinking the coffee. Unless I'm having, you know, if it's a breakfast like we were talking about with friends.

[Host]

But that's rare.

[John Nelson]

But that's not every day. Yeah, no, that's not every day. Okay. Yeah, so I make exceptions for that, you know, so I'm not bringing my Puromitos with me and going, you know, do you mind if I scoop so.

[Host]

News your first meal and usually what does it look like is. Are you a salad guy? Are you. You're avoiding carbs mainly.

[John Nelson]

I love. Well, I love salads. Carbs are okay. It just want to be careful with what kind of carbs.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

You want more complex sugars that that this is me talking. But you know, if it's. I'm a carnivore. I like chicken. You know, eating chicken, just regular chicken, you can season a little bit. But beef, my favorite slam. Okay, so I'll eat lamb and that. But just stuff pasture raised. I like that. I Think, you know, organic. Whole Foods has got a great place for that. You can also go to Publix and get that. So you're getting it.

[Host]

You're getting it on a. Let's say again, use the analogy. We're going to lunch. We have a lunch meeting. You're getting that on a plate. It's not that. With four sides of rice.

[John Nelson]

Oh, no, no, no, no. If I'm having a side, it's broccoli or asparagus or spinach. Baby. That's it.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

That's it. There's no. There's no potatoes. Nothing like that.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

And I know, you know, I'm Irish Catholic, but I gave up potatoes a while ago, so. Yeah, we had them plenty when I was a kid.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

So.

[Host]

Right.

[John Nelson]

Yeah.

[Host]

Okay. That's clean. So that's. That's clean. And I'm guessing dinner looks similar, right?

[John Nelson]

Dinner looks similar. I like to add fish. I love fish.

[Host]

Got it.

[John Nelson]

So, you know, fish, chicken, lamb. And I've said beef, of course I'll do that. But I have a lot of lamb at home.

[Host]

And your. Your fulfillment is throwing that tombstone pizza in.

[John Nelson]

Yeah, A week.

[Host]

Not nightly. Not every.

[John Nelson]

No, no, Just one meal a week. One meal a week. I'll take out and say, okay, I can eat whatever I want.

[Host]

What do you get for sweets? Or do you not have a sweet tooth?

[John Nelson]

Sweet. Dark chocolate. Dark chocolate is organic dark chocolate. It's very good.

[Host]

Because of the health benefits?

[John Nelson]

Yes, the health benefits. And it's a little sweet. You know, I tried at least to keep it up at 70 or more dark chocolate once a week or like on the weekend.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

On the weekend, I'll. I'll take a bar and I'll, you know, eat it throughout the two days.

[Host]

Yeah. Okay, cool. Are you measuring using, like, the heart rate monitor or any of that stuff to measure calories you burn during your workouts or.

[John Nelson]

No, I do it. I kind of free form it. I. I look every morning in the mirror, seeing where I'm at, and I'm very. I just check out, and if I see a trend, I'll. I'll change it up. Oh, yeah, exactly. I do weigh myself, and I'm about 191 right now, and I maintain that for the last year.

[Host]

So that's the right weight for you?

[John Nelson]

Yeah, for me. Yeah. At 510. 190 is good for me.

[Host]

Yeah.

[John Nelson]

I've been working out since I was 13 years old and had some good times, had some bad times. But I tell you, I became wiser in my late 50s, my mid and late 50s. And I've been sticking with this.

[Host]

What's wiser for you? What does that mean?

[John Nelson]

Safer or wiser? Meaning that the first thing, getting rid of ultra processed foods out of your diet.

[Host]

Okay.

[John Nelson]

That'll kill a person. It will. It just. It's. It's horrible. And, you know, Cheetos and, you know, snacks. Good. But when you're eating all this processed food, I used to eat Healthy choice. Now, no, if you're gonna eat one or two, Healthy choice, but it's all processed. It's got so much chemicals in it, and so you really have to be careful. Even with. If you're gonna eat bread, you have to be careful with your bread. You know, so you eat so many phosphates, so many chemicals and that. So.

[Host]

Yeah. Awesome.

[John Nelson]

So, yeah.

[Host]

This has been. This has been incredible. What, What a blessing to. I mean, to me selfishly, but to everybody that you've shared your entire story, like, wide open. Well, wide open, yeah.

[John Nelson]

Well, yeah. I appreciate it and I thank you. It's. It's. It's a privilege to be with you and I thank you for that.

[Host]

Yeah. So thanks for your time. I want to shake your hand.

[John Nelson]

Thank you, thank you. All the best.

[Host]

Thanks.