Don’t sit. Get up and move.
“I was talking with a very successful friend in the restaurant business world.
I suggested we go to lunch soon to catch up & talk business.
He suggested we go hike up a mountain, instead.
Seems subtle, but smart people know exercise fuels the brain/creative thinking.”
-Ray Zingler on X
You know those friends you can go several months without talking too, but then when you finally get reconnect it’s like you never missed a beat?
That’s this dude.
Very little catch up small talk and a whole lot of objective and solutions based conversation.
Towards the end of our 30-minute unplanned phone call (sometimes those are the best ones) I mentioned, that when he gets back from vacation, we need to sit down and have lunch together.
He, replied, “actually let’s go hike up Stone Mountain or something, instead.”
At first I was like, “ehh that came out of left field”, especially because after all my friend owns restaurants and I have been known to eat food at volume.
When I hung up with him, I was rejuvenated. I was challenged. I started thinking more and more outside of the box. I went write to one of the yellow legal pads I keep scattered throughout my house and just starting jotting down notes.
And then I circled back to the idea of the hike?
“The hike? Why does he want to go hiking? Why didn’t he just agree to get a meal like everybody ‘catching up’ does?”
And then I remembered that throughout our conversation we talked about health, movement, and exercise and how those played critical roles in overall well-being and how the constructs parallel business. (No such thing as overnight success, repetition, discipline, etc.)
And there it was, right in my face.
Of course, he doesn’t want to go sit on his ass and shove food down his throat and talk about business ideas and growth strategies.
He wants to go out and be active. Get the wheels turning and the brain firing on all cylinders.
Where do you think the majority of creative thinking comes from? The quick dopamine rush from food that is ready to send you into a coma or the dopamine rush from an enhanced circulatory system pumping blood throughout the system, making everything in your life clearer?
The hike, while it seemed subtle when he suggested it, makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Smart people know that exercise is the most powerful weapon of them all.
Utilize movement to your mental and physical advantage.
