It is true that many of us sit for hours each day. According to Nilofer Merchant, in this short and powerful TED video, most of us sit for over nine hours in a day, more than we sleep. And it is true that sitting that much can cause a health crisis – sitting has been linked to cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, to name a few.
To address our sitting epidemic, Nilofer offers us her revolutionary idea – schedule meetings over walks. Nilofer shares her personal experience that walking for her meetings helped her to think differently, brainstorm more effectively, and find better answers and better results.
We’ve been coaching our clients for years to get out of their offices. Meet someone in person, we counsel. Find somewhere (and some time) to think, plan, and reflect before you open your office door and your computer, we offer. Get away from your normal places and thinking patterns and imagine, solve, and resolve, we advise. All these steps yield great results, and Nilofer’s suggestion takes our suggestions one step further.
How much better would it be if we moved our bodies along with our minds? If we reaped not just business benefits, but also health benefits? If we made moving part of our life and our leadership – moving through issues, moving past challenges, moving away from our habit of sitting our lives away? Watch Nilofer’s TED talk (it’s just over three minutes long – something you can sit through) and then schedule a walk-and-talk with someone. Get out of the office and out of the box – and off of your butt.
Click here to share how walking and talking might work for you.
For support in walking the talk, and walking while you talk, contact Lisa at lkohn@chatsworthconsulting.com.
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Love this Lisa, thanks for sharing. It’s health & fitness week here so yesterday we took a team walk, followed by a healthy potluck breakfast and a team meeting. Everyone was awake, engaged and focused.
Thanks Yuki. It’s great what exercise and movement do for us. Awake, engaged and focused – what could be better?