Investing in Wellbeing Part 1: Movement

I want to normalize kind of what we are feeling because you know, we always have when we talk about well being, there's always a bit of judgment, whether it is self judgment involved or judgment of others. Right? There's always a tinge of that. There's always a fundamental tinge of I want to be better because I don't like what I am. And I think that's a really bad place to start.

Hey there friends. Welcome to Happiness Squad. This is the podcast dedicated to helping you unlock your full potential by mastering the art and science of happiness. We bring on the best leading experts on these topics to help you unlock your true potential and live with more joy, health, love and meaning in your life. Your host is no other than the star combo of Ashish Kothari and Anil Ramjiani who are both on a mission to provide you with an unfair advantage to be the masters of your experience and leaders in your industry. Get ready to be moved, challenged and enlightened on this podcast. It may change your life. Thanks for being here and joining the Squad.

Hey Happiness Squad. I'm excited to be with all of you today and honored to be with Ashish as we explore his book Hardwired for Happiness chapter by chapter. You know, I connected with Ashish during the COVID lockdowns and our passion for helping individuals unlock their own potential and find true meaning in their happiness, health, love and life immediately became clear. I'm on this journey with you and Ashish to explore how each of the nine practices that form the sunflower that Ashish has laid out so simply and beautifully. What I find incredibly unique is how Ashish takes what he has learned and he shares several exercises that can change our lives in just a few minutes a day to help us lead a more purposeful life. Today we continue with practice 7 investing in your wellbeing. You know, this is a space that is incredibly important for me. From going from being a couch potato to becoming a triathlete, I'm always on the hunt to learn more. This is actually going to be a three part series. We have so much we want to share. We want to address the body, the mind and the spirit. In this episode we're going to start on the physical and especially focusing on movement. That's right, movement at home, at work, and even at your desk. As we shared personal stories, Ashish revealed a mind blowing fact later in this episode that was even an awakening for me. So stay through till the end as Ashish provides several tips that you can easily integrate into your personal and professional life from today. Join us as we talk through how we can rewire for happiness together. Enjoy. Hey Ashish, how you doing?

I am amazing. It's. It's a wonderful Saturday day. Talking to you always brings sun into my life and I need it because it is quite great. Feels like a January morning today. Even though it is, it is April. Almost towards the second half of April. We have about 2 inches of snow on the ground.

Geez, man. Only in Colorado. Beautiful Colorado.

Right. But it's all going to melt away during the week. But we did wake up to kind of like again a snowy morning, right. Which was kind of really interesting. And it's beautiful actually because it's like the trees are blooming with snow. I wish they were blooming with flowers and green, but I think they are blooming with snow. So we'll take what is, we'll take what is given as a gift, brother.

You know I love it. No, I love it. And it's actually kind of on point with what we want to chat about today, which is about investing in your well being. And I think when we think about one of the first things people probably open up with when they speak is about the weather and the weather and how it plays in our well being, how it plays in our mind, how it plays maybe how it energizes us to go out and play or to go out for a run. So weather has an interesting effect on our well being. And so I'm excited to be chatting with you about practice number seven on that one, Ashish, today.

Yeah, absolutely right. The, you know, weather is beautiful. People like to go out and do a bunch of stuff. It's not like we feel down, we don't want to move. Right. This whole power of well being and energy. Now I'm really excited, I'm really excited about this series. Also Anil, as we were kind of planning this, right. I think this is, this is a really, really element out of the nine practices around happiness. You know, by the way, the technical definition of happiness is subjective well being and how else can it be, you know, when we are not feeling at our best physically, mentally, spiritually. Life just doesn't have right. Life, life feels hard, right? That's what keeps our attention. And so really investing in our well being is so important. And so you know, you and I decided earlier actually just this morning to say instead of just doing one episode, why don't we actually do three? Why don't we talk about well being broadly because it is so important. But then really delve in, you know, in this episode we talk a bit about the physical aspects of well being. We'll talk a bit about the mental aspects of well being, you know, in the next one. And then we'll talk about the spiritual aspects of well being right around in the third episode. So I'm really excited and I really hope for you listeners, I think you're able to walk away with some real actionable tips. You know, Anil and I come at this from a very different place. You know, Anil is a triathlete. He works for Nike. He is, I mean, he is, you know, he is fundamentally, he's lived, anybody can be an athlete. And he's got, you know, an amazing set of things that he does around physical well being. You know, I come at it, I've always struggled with well being. And what I would say is I have, you know, for 25 years, frankly, dear friends, I'm 49 and for 25 years of working life, I actually abused my body. I have to use that word, abused. I didn't. You know, I think if I reflect back to what I learned in the last five years as I started delving deep into the space, I was like, oh my God, how did I do that? And there's so many consultants and bankers, I would say all office workers. I think we all actually pay that price without actually recognizing we're paying that price till it becomes too late. So I'm really excited to kind of share my journey and share a little bit about, you know, things that I learned that I hadn't, I had no idea about. So we'll talk a lot about the physical well being piece. But I can tell you these are not the only three episodes we're going to talk about it. We're going to keep coming back to this, dear friends, because if we don't take care of our well being, look, we can't be happy, we can't flourish, we can't do all the things that we want to do right in the world. We can't live into our purpose. We can't really be grateful when we are in pain. So, yeah, excited about delving into this with you all.

No, I agree. In fact, we had Anestina Hinsa on our podcast a few episodes ago. So for those of you that haven't checked it out, I highly recommend it. It was about how well being is critical for athletes leadership for everyone to unlock your real performance. And Ashish, you know what you're saying? You know, in your book you have a quote from BKS Iinger, which is health, is the complete state of harmony of the mind, body and spirit. And I think sometimes I always used to think I want to have a balance, right? I want my mind, my body, my spirit to all be in bal. But I think harmony is a better word because it may never be a perfect balance. There are times where I've had a week where I've probably meditated more minutes than I've actually been physically active or spiritually active. I've had weeks where I haven't meditated and I've run more thinking that that's sufficient. And it's so it's. I think what we're also going to help the listeners kind of understand is, you know, well being is so important, but how you approach it may be different. You may currently, as Ashish mentioned, be really focused on your mind and your spirit, but maybe it's not much on your body. And you may have others like myself who focus more of my light, let's say nine years, 10 years, focusing more on my physical well being than on my mental and spiritual well being. So there it's all about harmony. I mean, you know, you say the word abuse. I growing up did no physical activity and I was overweight, I was over nearly 200 pounds. I mean I sort of crappy, I ate crappy. And you know, it was only in 2013 when a friend of mine said hey, let's sign up for an event. I said all right, let's give it a go. And my life has changed. But even how I approach well being personally, there have been times when even my well being has been abusive. And so I'll talk more about that too as we go through this. So again as you've mentioned, let's maybe segue and start talking about these three facets that you discuss in and hardwired for happiness around well being anil before.

We do that, however, my friend, you just, you just said something that just gave a thought for me. You and I have known each other now for a year and we've actually never talked about well being. And I think what you just started with, I would not have known that. So tell me a little bit. I think it's worth, you know, we have. Look, I think the reality is and I want to really, I'm going to give you some stats, dear friends. I want to normalize kind of what we are feeling because you know, we always have when we talk about well being there's always a bit of judgment whether it is self judgment involved or judgment of Others, right? There's always a tinge of that. There's always a fundamental tinge of I want to be better because I don't like what I am. And I think that's a really bad place to start. And also there is a loneliness in that because I am worse than others. And I'm going to share these stats because we collectively as humanity are actually going through this crisis together. And so we are united and it's tiny steps out of this that'll make a difference. So you know, as I did my research, it was quite stark. Right? What is this well being kind of, if you will, crisis that we are all swimming in? It doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter if you're the CEO or if you are a frontline employee. It doesn't matter if you're a for profit or, or if you're a non for profit. It doesn't matter what profession you're in. It doesn't matter how much money you have. It really doesn't matter. These are the stats. So let me start with why are we actually talking about this? Okay. And if you resonate with these, I want you first and foremost to recognize, be self compassionate. It's not just you. We are swimming through this as the collective humanity. Okay? So don't take. Because sometimes these well being things, I've heard so many of them can come across as people preaching and what you're going to hear. And that's why I'm going to get into the stories of Anil and I together. We are one of you, right? We are one of you. We're coming at this from that place and collectively it's about moving forward. So here's some stats for you dear friends. Over the last hundred years we have doubled the life expectancy on the planet. There are many parts of the world where people are expected now to live to 80, 85 on average. But overall, globally, the life expectancy according to the UN is close to about 70 years. Okay, that's the global average. In the US and some of the richer countries, it might be 80 to 85. Central Africa, 63. A sharp contrast from 30, 35 years of life expectancy all the way through, all the way till almost like, you know, 1800s, 1900s. But with that life expectancy has also come as we have eliminated external sources of disease, has also come, you know, a heavy cost, which is we're living longer, but we are not living healthier. And hence our longer years that we have clawed back from the jaws of death are Filled with suffering. They're really filled with suffering. So here's a stat for you. 40 to 60% of individuals today are burnt out, exhausted and stressed. There was a report recently from this. And by the way, this is not just adults, even teenagers, this crisis is much worse. So a study by CDC on teenage girls in 2021, it was reporting data from 2021. The study came out about six weeks ago, shocked me to my core and frankly gave me fuel to kind of even do more of this work and take it, you know, scale it. Six out of ten girls reported high degree of anxiety, depression and loneliness. Think about that, dear friends, our children. This is no longer just affecting adults and older people. This is affecting our children. Six out of ten reported anxiety, stress, loneliness, depression. One in three considered suicide. That's the state of mental well being. Let me talk a little bit about physical well being. When we think about physical well being in the U.S. 70% of adults, 70% of adults are overweight and 30% of those are actually obese. As we get older, we are creating our own chronic ailments. So 85% of seniors have one chronic ailment, 60% have at least two. So think about the quality of life, right? It was for this reason that, you know, McKinsey, where I was for 17 years, we actually started the McKinsey Health Institute, an institute where we significant amount of investment is going around improving the quality of life, not just the length of life. And I would highly recommend you to check out all the great research and investment that As a firm, McKinsey is making in this space to really bring to light policy changes and systemic changes that allow us collectively as humanity to be able to live better, healthier lives with higher quality. But these numbers should remind you that you're not alone, right? So if you've struggled with weight, if you've struggled with stress or anxiety, you are not alone. And in this podcast and the series that comes, what we want to do is give you real simple things, tiny steps that you can start to take to take care of well being. But do it, dear friends, from a place of compassion for yourself and for all of those others. We are really up against some structural factors that make it so much easy to fall into this prey, right? The slippery slopes that we've created.

You know, I agree with you, Ashish. You know, over the week I met a personal trainer, his name is Bradley Simmons. And you know, I follow him now. And the next day he had a story on his Instagram and it basically said, hey, for Older individuals, you know, you know, let's say older men or women in their, let's say 30s, 40s, 50s, you know, get out, exercise more, run more, you know, lift weights, you know, he suggested just general things to do. And he then said at the end he's like, you know, but drink less. And I what I find fascinating about that is our go to whenever we're stressed, we're burned out, we're feeling lonely, we're feeling empty, something's missing. Our unconscious response is actually to go deeper in and actually find things that almost numb that. So going for drinks or going for, you know, more food or reaching for that ice cream, which again, those delicacies, those, those delights are not bad in, you know, one or two. But as soon as you start to completely to those stats that you read, which again, I'm just still trying to process them, it just shows that people knowing that there's still this issue or becoming aware having you shared that, hey, what is it you do when you're looking after yourself? So as you hear that, what is your go to? If something affects you at work, something affects you at home, you feel like you're having that midlife crisis, what do you do? How do you approach it? And that's where Ashish and I want to share, as he mentioned, some of our thoughts on how we can actually few minutes a day change that and find an alternative.

Go ahead as no amazing Anil and I want to. I have a question. Right. So we go back to this question that I wanted to ask you, which is tell us a little bit right over the next three to five minutes. And it's, you know, we're digressing a bit from what we thought we'll talk about, but I think it's important. Tell us a little bit about your story and your journey and your relationship with wellbeing. Right. Like how that has evolved. How is your relationship with, well, being evolved and what are some things you're doing now?

Yeah, so I'm going to try to compact nearly, let's say 25 years into those few minutes and I'm happy to delve further as we go. So, you know, growing up, I didn't do any activity. I was a couch potato. I binge watched television most of the days. I ate without any regard. My order at Taco Bell for those that are in the US used to be nearly six items off the menu because it came for under $5 and I didn't do much sport. And you know, for me at the time, it didn't occur to me that sport was important. You know, I tried doing some things outdoors, but it didn't really resonate. Didn't. Wasn't natural for me. And so as I went into college, I decided one day to start playing racquetball, stop eating fast food, stop drinking, you know, soft drinks. And I lost nearly 25 pounds. And yeah, it was an incredible. And I got outside, I started playing racquetball more. I started, you know, hanging out with friends. I lost by losing weight. I was able to wear nicer clothes. I just, it felt great.

And my shift, what made the shift?

Yeah, so my sister looked at me one day, I'm being honest, she just said, dude, you're looking a bit pudgy there. Like you might want to start thinking about what your health. And I was like, what are you talking about? Okay, what the heck, I'll give it a try. And you know, it's weird. It was a bit of a. It was a conscious choice to give up eating those foods and a conscious choice to pick up racquetball. But I didn't actually do it expecting this shift, this physical shift, this weight loss, if you will. But I noticed I felt better. I didn't need these extra soft drinks or this extra junk food or fast food. And I just love playing racquetball. It was actually also helping me deal with stress at school, in university. And so I just was like, wow, this is great. I then started weight training and that was like the next level, being around friends who, you know, drank protein and, and weight trained and, and that's where I kind of shifted. But I'm gonna fast forward a little bit now. I did retain some degree of well being, but I didn't have a real balance to it, a real harmony to it. Ashish. And so in 2013, I moved to London and I decided again to kind of stop drinking beer for a year. I started doing high interval intensity training and I ended up starting to train for an ironman. It was a joke. It was a bit of a bet amongst some close friends of mine. But you know, it gave me structure, it gave me something to shoot for. It gave me a goal. And so I started to again, community. I started to train with them, I used to start running with them, cycling with them. I started to learn to swim, uh, I started to eat better. And I just noticed that having this variety, having this community, having this ability to again, a different way of addressing stress and addressing and using my time better, I had a little bit more free time this was just a great way for me to have something to look forward to, have something to do. And so, you know, I never expected. Ashish, I mean, I. You would. You would speak to me maybe in my early 20s, and I would say to you, I am not a runner. I am physically not a runner. I am a weight trainer. I can play racquetball. But that's it. From going to that to just going, what if I. And having the right people around me, the right encouragement, the right support, the right partnership, it started to fall into place and I started to unlock new pathways. I mean, again, learning to swim at the age of, what was I, 33 at the time, you know, learning to ride a bike out on the road, it was just. It opened up new horizons. And it was just. It just. Yeah, I mean, let me go ahead, Ashish.

I love that. You know, Anil, there's so much in there, I think, in terms of tips for listeners, that I want to unpack because, you know, look, when I met you, right, like, you know, obviously a different person than the person you've described. But friends, just think about the from to. But the journey, which is where the nuggets are. So one of the one thing that consistently you highlighted was the power of community. You know, we act and become who the company we keep, it has a huge role. Right. You know, so this notion of you started being with friends and you started actually engaging in an activity that you started to love. So it wasn't exercise as something to put up with, but exercise to look forward to. Right? So racquetball. And then, you know, as you mentioned, with this community of friends, you took on a challenge and you were kind of practicing, but again, triathlon, having a goal to look up to. Look up to. Even if it is, you know, I'm going to actually do a 5k and I'm just going to walk a 5k, right. For many people out there, that might be. That's. That's fine. Start with whatever goal you think you're going to get to. You know, Juni, who we had, and she's always a big fan, you know, she started working with somebody and she said, you know what? Just start by putting on your shoes in the morning. Start small, you know, really small, but have something to look forward to. You highlighted the importance of that. You highlight the importance of community, and, oh, my God, you highlighted the importance of these stories that we tell ourselves. I'm not a runner. I don't like playing racquetball. I am not a swimmer. This Notion that Carol Dweck talks about a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. We can be anybody who we want to be. And I'll tell you the story, which is kind of a really funny story, right? This happened last weekend. So we've lived in Boulder for the last nine years. We often walk. And when you came over, right, we walk and we do this hike at Chautauqua. It's like this beautiful natural spot. Dear friends, Google Chautauqua trailhead so you get a chance to see how beautiful it is. And we always do this walk. And about halfway through, we turn around, right? And we come down. And for eight and a half, nine years, we had a story that there is no way Lizzie and I could climb and get to the top of Chautauqua. We had the story and we firmly believed in it. We so firmly believed in it that we didn't ever try. Didn't ever try. Well, we were with a friend last Saturday and we started going and going up Chautauqua and Lizzie was going to again, take us down this trail which she was looking for. There's a loop that, you know, so it's not like you turn around, but it's literally a loop, right? And you come around and she lost her way. She took a wrong turn and she was still convinced that she was on the right turn. And so she kept saying, oh, yeah, just a little bit more. And this flattens out just a little bit more. And I was like, lizzie, we've never come here. And she's like, no, no, no, we walked here. You don't remember. You have a bad memory. It'll just flatten out. And we were having a conversation and we were having so much fun. Well, let me tell you this, dear friends, 45 minutes later, time seemed to have just gone by. I hadn't seen, seen this friend in a while. We found ourselves at the top of Peak 2 of Chautauqua, and we were like, oh, my God. Something that we never thought possible. So this notion of, you know, limitations, our mind's limitation on our body that we put often keep us, keep us right? And it was one tiny step along the way. And by the way, you know, the best, the crazy thing, it wasn't even that strenuous. We didn't huff and puff our way up. We had it in us all along. And for nine years, we had limited ourselves to playing small because we had a story that, no, we're not people who hike up to the top of peaks, right?

Well, I mean, like, you Said it was your assessment, it was based on, we've never done it, so why could we do it? And it's funny, like how again, you didn't realize you were doing it, but the fact that you did it now, that may unlock new possibilities for you. You might.

It has already. I am excited about trying the first 14er, because everybody does 14ers. I've never even thought about it. But now all of a sudden, hey, you know what? Let's try. I think I did that. Let's try. You know, we'll see how far we get, but it'll be worth it.

You know, I'm reading right now, as you know, Ashish, I'm doing my coaching coursework at the Newfield Network. And you know they have, they're having us read and learn about Enemies of Learning. Right. You know, so I'm reading right now is Language and the Pursuit of Leadership Excellence. And you know, it's funny, I just asked the listeners to pause for a moment and ask yourself, when you think of the Enemy of Learning, do you feel you may be someone who thinks, you know what, I can't do that. No, I've never done it. No, I don't. I don't think I can do that. And do you almost second guess yourself and cast doubt before? You've done it before, you've just given it a try. And I invite you just back to Ashish's point as a tip is, you know, if you've never walked a kilometer, why not give it a try? No one's asking you to run 5k or 10k. And I think that's something we mentally psych ourselves out with. You'll hear my story and go, Anil ran 21k. I didn't run 21k on day one. On day one, I ran a kilometer just to get a feel for it. And it's these tiny but mighty steps, Ashish, that we spoke to Juni about that you had just did by climbing the top of the Flatiron. And I think it's so inspiring to hear that story because it's just in a way you're like slapping for like, what was I thinking? But at the same time it's such an amazing achievement that you can build on. And that's, I think, where we need to take our well being is these small steps to unlock and understand your well being in ways that you may never have thought possible. Just being open to that possibility.

Are you enjoying the show so far? Let me ask you a few questions before going back. Have you ever wondered why so many of us struggle with stress, anxiety and burnout and feel stuck in life? Heck, maybe you're going through this right now. Well, the reason for this lies in the evolutionary biology of our brains, which are hardwired for fear. It's part of the reason why our team named this podcast Happiness Squad. It serves as a reminder that happiness is what really matters and that we are in this together. And that is why we are so excited to share with you a resource to help you on your journey. One of our hosts, Ashish Katari, launched a book, Hardwired for Happiness and it is a number one Amazon bestseller. When you get access to this book, you will discover nine secular practices that can change your life and are backed by scientific evidence from psychology and neuroscience. Learn how you can integrate Hardwired for Happiness practices in every part of your life to unlock your best self, regardless of how busy you are. Shift from knowing to doing to being with a range of journaling, meditation and group coaching exercises and so much more. Go to www.happinesssquad.combook to get access. Right now we also have bonuses on the page that you don't want to miss. Once again, www.happinesssquad.com book. And now back to the show.

Amazing. So let's talk a bit, let's cover, let's get into a little bit on, you know, mind, body, spirit. First of all, they're implicitly connected, right to your point. It is about harmony. If you just focus on one versus the other, you, you are not, you know, you're actually over invested and hence collectively you're not optimizing, you're not getting to the full potential of what's possible for us, right? So Anil, let's, and we think about physical well being. What are some things that you do that truly allow you to be able to be at your best physically?

No. I'm glad you asked. So I have a pt, a physical trainer and I have a triathlon coach. And you know, I, I've set an intention and this is just something that I truly believe in. One of the things I value most is my health. And for me it's a matter of, of, of training at least 30 to 60 minutes a day, at least five days a week. And so the first thing I do is I actually plan that in my diary. I say, right, this is what I want to do each day, Monday through Sunday, when am I going to rest, how am I going to train and how do I set myself up for success in order to do that if I know it's going to be a beautiful day outside, I want to make sure that I go for that outdoor run. If it's not going to be great, I hit the treadmill. So I really try to actually find, you know, a simple way. And then speaking to my pt, speaking to my triathlon coach, helping them educate me and understand, like, what is it that I can do to achieve that goal, to achieve that intention, to really bring it to life. And that, to me, has been a massive unlock. But I will say it's really important that I put it in my diary because it's.

I really like that. Right, yeah. Schedule it. Schedule it so it's prioritized. And I also like the idea what you just shared. Right. Oftentimes we don't take help, right. Especially when we're starting out, we'll just say, let me just do it myself, and then we'll have aches and pains and then we stop. But actually taking the help of experts and whether we do it individually, whether we do it in a group class, I think is really, really important. And I think for many people who have insurance programs, there are always times that we can use. We can use the benefits we already have. Many companies have those through their company. So really taking some expert help that can help us optimize on the technical side of how our body's moving. Right. I remember when I first started running, I used to get really bad. Oh, my God, it was so terrible. And like, I. I used to get really bad shin splints. Right. And that. I mean, it was so painful. If you touched it, I was like, crying pain. And that just kept me. And then, you know, when I consulted with the PT and they did a gait analysis, they were like, look, here's the way you're running. If you run a different shoe, it'll make a big difference. Right? So I love that. But I think the scheduling time is a really important one. Schedule time for yourself. Schedule time. And I don't do that. And I'm actually going to start doing that. I just do it in the morning, but I don't actually schedule it. So if something else comes up, I'm happy to give it up. Right.

And that's the thing. It's giving it priority. But, Ashish, let's go back to that, because I think what you've mentioned there might be relevant to our listeners. So you ran and you had shin splints. You had, like, pain in your shin, right? What did that do to you? Like, did that encourage you? To run more or that discourage you from running.

You know, I have to tell you, like it, definitely, you know, it. And I had actually made amazing progress. I'd lost a lot of weight while I was doing that to, I mean, I went from never running. I never thought I could run. I was, I think probably, I think you and I could have it at a sedentary contest growing up. Now in my younger ages, who can sit the longest? I definitely had you beat. My dear friend from my 20s to 40s, I can tell you that in not moving and I want to talk a little bit on that for a minute, but yeah, I mean, but you know, and then I started running and I managed to go up to 8k, but yeah, the shin splints, you know, stopped me to a track and I actually did give it up because I just couldn't get past that. But I have to tell you, I wouldn't have even got there between 5k to 8k unless I had that expert who just helped me, guided me a bit differently. Right. I just discovered something else that replaced that for me, which was I fell in love with the peloton.

Ah, there it is.

And that became three days a week for me. I truly, you know, I was never much for running. Anil, I know you love running. For me, running was never like my love. But peloton, I love it, right? I get on it three, four days a week. The music is amazing, the instructors are amazing. So I think, for me, I think that was, that was it. But no, the expert played a really, really important role.

See, and that's. And the reason why I mentioned that is, you know, we fall into fear. I'm hurting myself. This isn't good for me. I don't want to do this. But by asking for help and support immediately, you can unlock one or two tips that can make a difference between a 1K and like you said, an eventual 8K. And I, you know, one quote that has stuck with me Ashish on that is, you'll never regret a workout, but you'll regret not working out.

Yes, I love it.

Unlocking that is key.

Yeah. And look, I think we promised, you know, our listeners that we want to give some real simple tips. Like I know for many people that, you know, 5K, 1K, all of these also might be too loft to you for goals. And so let me share a little bit, friends, from my research that I did around physical, well being. Three things, three areas that I think we gotta actually think about holistically. Okay? So the first one for Me for you to consider is movement. How frequently do you move? You know, I know a lot of people who exercise regularly, but they don't move at all during the day. And what I found literally shocked me five years ago, you know, when I said I abused my body, this was it. This was it. So movement. I'm sure some of you have heard the phrase, and for others who hear it now, you will never forget it. Which is sitting is the new smoking. Sitting is the new smoking. Research done by the journal and published in the Journal of American Medical association not that long ago, actually found that, on average, 26% of Americans sit for eight or more hours. And let me tell you how bad of a toll that is that it takes on our body. And I'm going to point you to a study done at University of Leicester in 2012. This is going to shock you. It shocked me. The study said that those who are sedentary experience two times higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, and death, irrespective. This is the important part, dear friends. 2x higher increase in diabetes, heart disease, and death, irrespective of how much moderate to vigorous exercise they do. There's so many, right, who work out 45 minutes to an hour every day, but then they sit behind their desks all day, and then they come home, and then we sit down, have dinners, and then we watch tv. We are offsetting any gains from that workout by sitting and not moving. When I say I abused my body for 20 years, I was in three to four cities a week. I not only sat, but I sat in airplane seats 15 hours a week, 20 hours a week, sitting, Literally sitting with no movement. Our bodies are made to move. And then I had this story in it, right, which is, oh, I'm so inflexible. My body is inflexible. I'm like, no, your body's not inflexible. I mean, if I put anybody in a straitjacket for 15 to 20 hours a week consistently for 20 years, they would be the same. Okay? So once I realized how bad that was for me, you know, I started moving. You know, we hear all the time, walk 10,000 steps. Walk 10,000 steps. I would say, you know what? Go walk 10,000 steps. It's a really big deal. But if you can't do that, make this one shift, which I did, Anil, and it made a huge difference in my life, just go invest in a standing desk. There's a $250 piece of stand that you can buy from Amazon that literally allows you to Raise your computer so you can stand up. And if you stand for two and a half, three hours in a day, you know, think about a conference call you're doing or even just something that you're thinking about and you're going to take some notes. Even if that one simple thing you just consciously choose to stand up will make a big difference, you will start to notice that you have more agility in your body, you will have more energy in your body. By the way, when we sit for 60 to 90 minutes at a time, our body's fat burning ability goes down by about close to 80 to 90%. Right? So even just standing up will increase your ability of the body to burn fat. So if you're looking to lose weight, yes, it's amazing if you can go for a walk, it's even better if you can go for a run. But even if you just walk, or I would say as simple as just stand, right, move your body every 60 minutes and stand for two to three hours, you will notice a dramatic difference in your physical well being.

I love that. I think, you know, and let's take a step back, let's imagine we've got two different cultures, right? Like I look at Europe, Ashish, as you're walking to the train, you're walking.

To the bus, you're cycling, you're cycling Amsterdam. Oh my God, how amazing, right?

But then you think of places where you are like Boulder or bigger cities in the States where you're driving, right? You're sitting at the desk. But let's even take nowadays post Covid the zoom culture. What are you doing? You're staring at your screen for eight hours a day, nine hours a day, maybe getting up to go to the kitchen, to grab some water, to grab some food, to go to the bathroom. I think what really this shows is Ashish, I love that you said this because believe it or not, I'm actually planning to buy myself and Anika standing desks in the next couple of weeks. So this just accelerated that decision. But I think, you know, folks finding ways to, to walk and one thing I'll mention to you is I have an accountability partner and he and I will message in the morning going hey, what are you doing today to train? And, and I, and Ash, this is eye opening for me too because you're right, I will train for an hour and then I'll go sit at my desk. So in short, I just learned something new myself. So I think this is an opportunity to move, opportunity to find ways to move, to stand and In a way to see that there is a benefit to doing it. And I'm so glad, Ashish, you unlocked that for us because that even was a new one for me.

And let's stick to this one, this theme and I want to give, you know, give a couple of things to more to our listeners around how we can incorporate movement. Because I think if we do this, this is like the simplest thing for us to do and can have so much impact. There are two other elements. Fine, dear friends. That you can learn more about in the book Hardwired for Happiness. We also have specific micro practices that we cover in the community and the foundations course there. The two other practices that are around exercise and diet. Really, really big deal. We will cover diet in another episode too because trust me, if you are above 40 and you're listening to this, even more than movement and exercise, what you eat, how you eat, when you eat, will make a difference in the quality of life you have later, right? Our bodies are amazingly resilient. For the first 20 years, our ability to continuously heal from within starts to go down and hence what we put into our bodies becomes even more important. So we'll cover those things in following episodes. But let me talk a little bit about movement and in the spirit of giving you simple hacks that you can start to do tomorrow, dear friends. Heck, if you're doing it during the week, let's start to do it today. So one was the simple one. Standing up, right? Try and stand up and work two to three hours. If you could, invest in a whole standing desk up and down, great. If your organization provides it, amazing. If not, invest in a $250 piece of equipment that allows you to raise your computer and you know, actually just do it standing up. A couple of other things, super simple. You go to a grocery store, look for the parking farthest away. By the way, you'll spend less time looking for parking because farthest away things are always empty. Exactly. If you take a train to work and you take your car from your home to the train station, if you live in the suburbs, get a bike or just walk, go a little early so you can actually walk to the train station or even take public transport. Just standing up in a bus instead of driving will save you fuel, will allow you again to include movement that's on the way to work, okay? But there are simple things that we can do that can also introduce and include movement into our day to day. Look, we live in a meeting culture. Think about which meetings of yours you can actually convert into Walking meetings, Think about which meetings you can convert into standing meetings. One of my clients did just that. They used to have these 45 minute meetings. They converted it to about 15 minute huddles. And you know what, instead of sitting around, and this was a plant floor, instead of sitting around, they decided to do it standing up. Looking at the charts from the last year's last day's production, you know what they noticed? The creativity of the ideas went up, the attention span went up and they all actually looked forward to standing and having these conversations with each other, right? So really, really huge impact not just in their own physical well being, but on the ideas. Mind and body are related. If you have meetings that you have regular team meetings collectively, when you think about what else to do and it's not very data driven where you need to look at data but have a broader conversation about the situation and what you are navigating. Take it outside, go for a walk, walk in nature, right? You will notice again that you come back refreshed, the idea quality will be higher. Tons of research done that. When we have discussions out, when we are walking outside rather than sitting, truly, when we are out of the box, out of our office, boxes out of box, thinking becomes easier, right? So include moving at least, you know, once a day, have a walking meeting. I'm a big believer in the more we can integrate these well being practices into how we work, it increases our ability to take care of ourselves versus one additional thing to do at the beginning or the end of the day. And movement is one of those dear friends that we can, we can move as part of our day. We used to spend all our time as hunter gatherers moving. What happened? Let's go back. There's a lot of positives from that time to now that we want to keep. But I think loss of movement is one that we have to fight back. We've got to get moving again. And if there is one thing you take away from this episode, it is move, move. Because by sitting you are doing more harm to your body than smoking.

So Ashish, I just want to reiterate something that you mentioned earlier, what you've just said. Sometimes people say I don't have time, I don't have time to work out, I don't have a time to do exercise, I don't have time to go for a walk. Everything you just listed are things we can incorporate and integrate into our day. They're proven habits and they're proven that they can work by simply standing up, going for a walk, standing Meeting, walking, meeting. These ideas are absolutely brilliant and they're things that don't take up extra time. Rather they're integrated into what you do.

That's right.

And that's the power and beauty of its simplicity.

Yes, exactly. You know, I think we are so busy. We'll talk a little bit about busyness in some of the later episodes and how we can hack that. But given how busy we are, my friends, this is something you can start today. No matter how you are. You don't need permission from anybody. You don't need to create space. Just include movement. Just think about what do you do and what can you do standing up? What can you do instead of standing up? Walking. And as Anil highlighted earlier, how can you walk together with friends? How can you create competitions around movement and walking? Have fun with it and see how as you are having fun, you start getting healthier and all of a sudden things that you didn't think were possible become possible. Maybe you too like nil within the next year by just walking a bit more. Become a triathlete. You'll be surprised at what you become once you start taking those tiny steps, one step every day.

Thank you so much, Ashish. I encourage our listeners to share this these ideas with friends. Share this podcast with friends. I think some of these ideas that Ashish have mentioned should be thought starters and talking starter points for everyone out there. Please share this. We want to ensure that we're helping people with their well being. These are simple practices that you can take. I'm excited, Ashish, to talk more about mind and spirit in the next two series as part of this podcast. Thank you so much because again, I think sometimes you hear me being a triathlete, I'm still learning. I've got this appetite to learn more and what you've just shared with me today is going to change how even I operate my day today. So thank you, Ashish for that and I look forward to delving into more on wellbeing in the near future.

Same here, dear friend. Take care. And to all our listeners, have an amazing rest of the week. Make somebody smile today, make somebody laugh today. And most importantly, don't forget to be just kind to yourself. Because when we focus on being more, we can achieve so much more. There is a different way. Yes, we can achieve more. Not by doing more, but by being more. And so we're delighted to be on this journey with you. Till next time, bye.

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Sa.