Hey, guys, and welcome back to another episode of your Brain's Coach podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your Brain's Coach, and it is my job here to bring to you all the best recent, cutting-edge, most useful, effective, mind-blowing and, very often surprising brain-body tools so you could take better control of your thoughts, of your emotions, of your brain, basically, so you could then take better actions towards building the life you truly love living Today. Guys, I'm super excited to be doing this podcast episode about creating a leader's future, thinking, future moving kind of brain and helping your people whether that's your family, whether that's your kids, your spouses, your partners, your team, your company cultures and maybe even countries, creating that brain that makes people move forward. You know we're living in the era of change, of innovation, of things being shaked up, and we all need to get better at changing, learning, growing, adapting instead of resisting change, embracing it and creating more of it, and it's a stress for the brain to do so to change, to create more uncertainty and then to actually use that to lean into the future and create something better and become more comfortable with things changing. Change is a stressor for our brain. Learning is done better when our brain is flooded with, believe it or not, stress hormones. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist professor from Stanford, told this story in one of his recent podcasts about how, in ancient times, they had this tradition to make people learn better, to throw them into a body of cold water after learning.
Speaker 1Episode right To bring up this adrenaline that actually makes people remember things better. Anyhow, today is about leading yourself through change more effectively, using the science and science-based lifestyle change simple lifestyle change and then helping people you lead again, whether that's family, your partners or your team and the country. Helping your people to move into change, through the change and into the future faster, better, with less resistance. Today we are talking about exercise. Guys, just before doing this episode, hydrating, as always. Don't forget to hydrate. By the way, guys, dehydrated brain does not learn or function all that well, so do hydrate enough. Brain does not learn or function all that well, so do hydrate enough.
Speaker 1Anyhow, before today's recording, I wrapped up my yoga session and it always blows my mind how, during yoga session, I have to keep some notepad by my side. It's like I start doing yoga and, all of a sudden, this idea is flowing solutions to the problems I couldn't figure out. I'm like that is amazing. Yoga is my personal biohack into problem solving. I just create this perfect mind-body state that somehow allows the ideas to flow freely through me. So I wrapped up my yoga session and I thought about my recent experience speaking at the stage for Digital Divas Summit in Cape Town.
Speaker 1And before my talk we had another speaker, faith, and she does some corporate training around emotions and play, and we had a session with her where she brought up some music and dancing and so I got to dance a little bit, shake things up a little bit, and then it was my turn to get on stage and speak and I was so grateful and happy and thankful for and happy and thankful for a face being on stage right before me making me move and groove Otherwise I'd be stiff as a board on stage and my brain would be drowning in a lot more sound out, which you can imagine is not really great for when you're on stage and you got to be in the flow and you got to get speaking and kind of flow and play and be in the moment. So I was so grateful for that movement and that also made me remember about Tony Robbins and his practice of jumping on a trampoline before his events, whether that's for a live audience or his events online. He jumps on the trampoline, gets this blood flowing rapidly to induce the state flow state for his brain to be as impactful speaker as he possibly can be and to also be more present, like moving brain. The point, guys moving brain is different from a brain that sits on your bottom and does nothing. Your brain is the highest point in your body and for your heart, it's above your heart. It's quite hard to pump blood there with simple nutrients and hydration and oxygen, so your brain can even have a chance to do its best work. For neurons to adapt, to change, to learn, to grow, you need abundant blood flow and nutrition and oxygen, and exercise delivers all of that. It makes your heart pumping and deliver all of that like to a plant all this nutrition, creating fertile soil for adapting, learning, growing, but also decision-making and everything that your brain does best your human brain, decision-making and more complex and in-depth thinking. So exercise movement does all of that.
Speaker 1There is no coincidence that most forward-thinking, forward-moving leaders are movers. They invest into things like exercise, invest their time that, yes, could be invested elsewhere, but they understand that in order for them to do their best. They need to keep their brain in its best shape, and movement is necessary for that to happen. Your best brain is the brain that sits on top of a moving body. You're not separate your body, your brain. They're not separate, they are the same thing, the part of one machinery. When you move, your brain grooves, so movement Also, if you are in any capacity into science, into neuroscience, you might read an encounter and find so many studies Like I.
Speaker 1Just this morning stumbled upon this post from Andrew Huberman, again one of the, if not the most popular neuroscientist in pop culture from Stanford University. But he also has a lot of work under his belt, right, he's not just popular, he is smart and deserves every single bit of that fame. So he made a post about. There was so much evidence that exercise changes the neurochemical milieu of the brain in ways that are supportive of neural circuit health and opens the gate to neuroplasticity, basically to change and adaptation. Exercise opens up the gate to learning, to changing, to neuroplasticity, to forward movement, thinking, to learn it all culture inside of you and around you. Indeed, it is fair to say that exercise is the feedback signal to the brain that helps keep it alive and able to self-modify.
Speaker 1So if you don't want to be stuck yourself mentally, cognitively, if you want your people to get unstuck, get them moving, literally, if you believe in science even a tiny bit, there is no controversy whatsoever that movement is great for the brain, and sitting and not moving is not great for the brain. In fact, it induces, more often than not, things like dementia, alzheimer's, all kinds of brain diseases that make people dumber. But then also, on the less dramatic side, yes, you might not get the disease, but your learning is going to be compromised. Your ability to change, to get unstuck, to embrace change will be compromised if you don't move regularly. So the question then how do you make yourself and people around you as a leader, your teammates again, your partners, your kids, your company, your country? How do you make people move? And here I want once again to introduce you to my 3E model of behavioral change. You can tell yourself and definitely other people, adults, to get moving, even to your kids, like you tell them to exercise, they will probably do the opposite, and a lot of adults are still like that. So what do you do? How do you make people move? How do you keep yourself moving. 3e model One.
Speaker 1Educate Meaning, understand. Read about why exercise is so amazing and why it matters for the things that you care about, like your career, your families, your success. Everything that you do as a human is done better when you exercise. Your brain works better when you exercise. Follow people like Andrew Huberman. Follow research paper Google stuff. Read articles about how exercise changes, enhances your brain and how not exercising, not moving, sitting for eight hours a day, becoming a chronic sitter, how that dumps you down, how that creates less aversion of you, how that steals your opportunities in life.
Speaker 1Appreciation, even like if you're doing it for the fame, so to speak. Looking good makes people respect you. When I walk into the room and I wear a sleeveless, shirtless, people immediately pay attention. Like, what are you doing, looking so great? When you get on stage and you look like you just finished a hardcore race, people respect you because they see a person with discipline, if nothing else. So for a leader, your image does matter. We say don't judge book by its cover, and yet we do, and that will never change. So, anyhow, educate. This is the first step, but the first step is definitely not the final step. Just because you know something doesn't mean you're going to do it consistently, and that's what matters when it comes to the brain consistency, not so much the intensity, but consistently daily movement, the second step of the 3E model of change, behavioral change that lasts enabling.
Speaker 1Let's get an example of a small company. How do you make your people move with limited resources? You don't have to give them gym membership. In fact, gym membership for most of the companies doesn't work. So people now have access to the gym. Well, if they wanted to exercise, they would do it even without you and your gym membership.
Speaker 1Just because you give someone the opportunity is not going to make them do it. Just because there is so much, plenty of healthy food available, people don't eat it, so just having it doesn't change anything. So how do you enable it in a proper way? You make it easy, visible, accessible. So if you have a smaller office, you don't need to have a gym or an exercise room. Even you can create a corner where people would come to you to do things like stretching and you can have a poster there. You can have some information about exercise, how it changes your brain and enhances your career. You can go there as a leader, and we're going to talk about this, lead by example in the third piece of 3E model, but making it easy, accessible, visible If your office is in a place where you can do some walking. Put up some posture with walking route, maybe even mentioning something of an interest for people to see, or maybe a health food store, and invite some people to walk together or announce that you are going for a walk in 10 minutes. If somebody wants to join you and kind of consult you or pick your brain on anything, then let's do it together. So make it easy, visible, accessible. Again, that squat corner, that stretch posture, do it yourself so people see that you're doing it, so people see that exercise is a part of this culture, because we care Not just about people's health but about people's ability to learn, change, adapt and create the future change that we want to change.
Speaker 1And then piece number three is encouraging. How do you make the change last? Well, the most powerful thing is, yes, lead by example, inspire, but also create opportunity for your people to show off the change that you want to see, the behavior that you want to make part of the culture, like putting a fitness leaderboard somewhere on the wall where people can check in and put a check mark on the days when they exercise and maybe have some sort of celebration for the person who, at the end of the month, will put the most check marks right. Put a board where people can also clip their photos from their recent runs or gym sessions, or maybe they compete, so people feel encouraged to show off this part of themselves, of their lifestyle, and then other people would see that and they would want to do that, to feel that something special about themselves. So encouraging, and then again having celebrations around that like, oh, we have three people checking in today, good to go, guys. And then you name those guys and then other people would want to hear their names the next time.
Speaker 1So encouraging is a crucial, essential part of making any change last for a human being. If you want to induce change in your kids, in your partners, in any people around you, encourage them by celebrating the behavior that you want to see. So 3E model educate, enable, encourage. It's a very powerful model for behavioral change based on a lot of neuroscience, of behavioral psychology and a lot of other research and real world data that I've encountered. I kind of like put it together into this model that, when it's there. Done properly, you can help people to create almost any change, and not only create it, but make it last.
Speaker 1So, educate, enable, encourage. That's how you get people moving. Grooving, that's how you make yourself moving and grooving. Make sure that you again understand why it's important. Make sure that it's easy, that it's accessible, that it's visible, that you have tools to exercise in your house, where you spend most of the time. Make it easy for yourself, right. That's where a lot of people fail. They're like I'm going to go to the gym that I have to drive to. That is not making it easier, that's making it more difficult, creating more friction. And at the beginning, all that matters to create the habit is the consistency. And if you make something more difficult, you're not going to be consistent at the beginning. Now for me, someone who has been exercising for more than 20 years of their life now for me, you can make it as hard as you want, but it's still going to exercise. But at the beginning, making it easy is the key. And again, why bother? Why bother moving? Because the future belongs to movers. If you trust the science even a little bit again, check out Andrew Huberman's last post If you trust the science, even a little bit.
Speaker 1The benefits of movement for learning, adaptable and innovating brain are unbeatable and undeniable. To create what Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, who took it through amazing transformation to create the learn-it-all culture that Satya Nadella gave the name to, to create that kind of culture, you need to get people moving and you need to not just tell them to move or give them gym membership. You have to make it a more pronounced part of the culture, of what people see and what is encouraged, enabled and, ultimately, what people do. So will you be the force of change shaping our future, creating what Satya Nadella calls the learn-it-all culture in your people? Or will you lag behind, only catching up when everyone else does it, while future forward leaders are on the move, quite literally. What will it be? The choice is always yours, but think what you want and then think of the behavior that aligns with what you want, and then use my 3E model educate, enable, encourage to change yourself, to change people and to get moving, because movement, as Andrew Huberman confirms, is a must for learning, growing, innovating future, moving future, creating brain. That's it for today, guys.
Speaker 1What kind of movement? Well, you know, as long as you move. For me it's getting my 10,000 steps every day and then getting a minimum of 30 minutes of purposeful exercise. That's what I signed up for and I made it super simple for me to do it. Sometimes I do workouts at home, sometimes I do something outside, you know, whatever works on that specific day. Sometimes I would just do some push-up, squats and purpose at the airport, if I happen to travel for 24 hours. So anything will work, especially at the beginning. Get your steps in. At least. Go for walks. I do three times per day morning, afternoon, after my dinner. Start simple, enable it understand why it's important. Educate and then encourage. Celebrate your own successes and celebrate those successes movement successes in other people. That's it for today. Folks Get moving. It's Monday. September just began. In this part of the world it's the second day of spring. In your part of the world it's the second day of spring. In your part of the world it might be second day of autumn. So maybe dedicate the whole season or September to minimum viable product of movement, but done daily.
Speaker 1Don't forget to share this episode with people who are leading, who are committed to leading the change and want more people to move, grow and shape the future. Please do share. Our podcast does not run any ads, but we want to reach more leadership ears, so please do share this podcast episode. Also read review our podcast. That also makes a huge difference. And what else? Well, keep moving and stay tuned for episodes on how to feed a leading learning, growing brain and a couple of more lifestyle choices to enhance that growth, learning, adaptability and change. So have an awesome day and keep it moving.