What if I told you that one of the most effective ways to improve your health, boost your brain power and reduce stress doesn't require a gym membership, fancy equipment, or even extra time. It's something most of us already do every single day, but probably not enough. I'm talking about walking. Yep, walking. It's one of the simplest yet most powerful exercises for your overall well being. And today we're diving into the science backed benefits of walking. How it can improve your heart, brain, mood, and even your lifespan. And at the very end of the episode, I'm going to reveal the odd origins of one of today's most popular fitness standards. It'll surprise you. I'm Joe, my pal over there lacing up his shoes. Is that Velcro? Anyway, he's Kurt and we are dudes in progress. Hello, Kurt.
Hey, Joe. Good morning. You're interrupting my walk. If it weren't for you, I'd be walking right now.
I walked this morning. I have a, I have a regular path that I walk every morning. It's in my neighborhood. I walk around it. It takes me about a half an hour. It's a, not a brisk walk, but kind of none and, but not a stroll. Just kind of in between, right. And it takes me about a half an hour, 34 to 3, 500 steps, depending on how my watch is feeling that day. It's kind of all over the place. I'll confess as well. When it dips below 30 degrees, high 20s, it's tough for me, man, because then you got to put on the long johns, you got to put on the thermal socks and it gets cold and you're like, oh gosh. But I do it, you know, I, I get out there and do it almost every morning, except for the mornings I don't. And it's an important part of my morning routine. I know it is for you too. You in fact, on your show, which we haven't talked about in a while. Good for you, Kurt. You've kind of, you've not brought up Disney and their Disney podcast in a bit, but I'm going to bring it up. I know that your coffee walks are important part of your Disney podcast and the information that you or the episodes that you release to your insiders on that show. And people get to hear thoughts from Kurt as he's, as he's sipping his coffee and walking in some beautiful Disney resort. So I know that walking is important to you and it's important to me. So I thought we'd talk about it today.
That's Fantastic. Yeah. Even on vacation, whether it's my Disney vacations. And let me tell you, you do plenty of walking. It always amazed me, the people I see out jogging at Disney World when you know you're going to do 20, between 20 to 30,000 steps while you're in your vacation in Disney World. But one of my favorite vacation spots too, in Wildwood, New Jersey, it's about a three mile beach. I'm the only one who gets up early and goes for a morning walk on the beach. I mean, those are two of my greatest pleasures in life. Maybe you're going to tell me why I never. And I do. I wish I would get up out of my office here. Working from home. I seem to stay in my chair longer than I did when I'm in the office. I get up a lot in the office and walk around. We have a great indoor kind of path because it's kind of a big campus and there's some catacombs I can walk around and I'll see others doing it too. And there's even little signs from the fitness center encouraging you to walk. I'm going to learn today why I love it so much.
There are a couple segments to our show today. First thing, I want to just talk about the health, mental and emotional benefits of walking. Some simple ways to get out there and walk right now without changing your daily routine. Then I want to talk about how many steps should we take per day in the interesting origins to that standard. Let's start with physical benefits. We know the physical benefits. It's, it's intuitive. And this may be a bit of a review, but let's dig into it. Walking is amazing for our heart. Research shows from the Harvard Medical School that walking just 30 minutes a day can lower your risk of heart disease by 35% and stroke by 30%. And that 30 minutes a day, Kurt, doesn't have to happen all in one one chunk, right? You can, you can break it up throughout your day. Just get in 30 minutes a day. It helps regulate blood pressure, improve circulation and strengthen. Strengthens the heart. In the same study, Harvard Medical School called it the single best form of cardiovascular exercise.
Wow. I am so happy to hear that because I've always felt a little bit less of a physically active person compared to runners who I talk to quite often or see running.
Interestingly enough, running doesn't give you significantly more health benefits than walking. In fact, you're at an elevated risk of injury when you run versus walking. A brisk walk burns about 200 calories a day.
Okay.
Every time you walk, 30 minutes, about 200, 200 calories. Now that may not sound like much, right? It's a spoonful of peanut butter. But over time, right? If you're trying to lose weight and you're on a weight loss plan, over time, that 200 calories a day adds up and it certainly will accelerate weight loss and help with weight management.
I knew that. I remember doing lots of all kinds of exercise. Even when I was running, I noticed I wasn't losing weight that much because exercise is a very small percentage of your weight loss strategy. It's all the, you can over calorie all the benefits of absolutely the calories you lose by, by exercise. And I did get an injury when I was doing the running. I got plantar's fasciitis, which still to this day that goes back, wow, 25 years ago. I still suffer to some extent with it. And so this is what motivated me to get into the walking. About that.
25 years ago, people who walk at least 20 minutes a day, five days a week, took 43% fewer sick days. Think about that. Because it boosts the immune system. According to the American diabetes association, walking 30 minutes a day can lower your risk of type 2 diabetes by 50%. It's also been linked to a lower risk of certain cancers, breast cancer, colon cancer. It's amazing. Just this exercise, this simple little exercise of walking, the health benefits. And let's talk about our bones and joints. It's a weight bearing exercise, meaning it helps build bone density and reduce the risk of osteoporosis. And if you have arthritis or joint pain, walking keeps your joints flexible and pain free. This comes straight from the arthritis Foundation. It's one of the best exercises for joint health. I'm blown away by the health benefits of it. I mean, we know it, we know that health just moving itself is, is good for us, but the health benefits are amazing. I look at these statistics, Curtin, 43% fewer sick days, 35% reduced risk of heart disease, 30% reduced risk of stroke, 50% reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. Those are all the things that I don't want.
Well, I think you're missing a big one that I've heard recently on television commercials saying that sedentary lifestyle is the news. Smoking, they say sitting in your chair at long periods of time is worse than smoking a pack a day or something like that. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that.
And that was one of my motivations. To get up, especially at work, and not feel guilty to go get some water, walk around, do a little walk, and of course, maybe longer get that 30 minute walk at lunchtime. But I see people, most people just sit in that chair and never get up. And that's really bad. There's a lot of people now doing the standing at work. As a matter of fact, I went into work on Wednesday and one of my lady co workers was so excited because she had a standing desk and they added a motor to it. She just presses a button and it rises and goes down instead of cranking it. But you see a lot of people standing at work now because of that fact. But what better to get off your butt and go for a walk every once in a while.
Absolutely. Sitting at a desk, especially the sedentary lifestyle that we already have, it doesn't help that we're sitting at a desk eight hours a day. And if you watch people and look at people at their desks, not only are they sitting at their desk for eight hours a day, never get up, maybe for lunch, maybe to go to the bathroom, but they're also hunched over at their keyboards and you see people developing a. Like a lump on the back of their. On their back. You're like, geez, oh, Pete, this is. This can't be good for anybody. Just. It can't be good. Right?
I know, but.
But you know, there are some emotional and mental benefits to walking as well. So let's talk about how walking affects our brain. Walking has been shown to increase brain volume and improve memory. People who walk regularly have a 40% lower risk of cognitive decline in dementia.
Wow, 40%.
Let's let that sink in for a second. People who walk regularly have a 40% lower risk of cognitive decline and dementia. This comes from the University of Illinois.
I love this. These are things I worry about. And I want to quit this podcast and go out for a walk is what I'm getting. Hurry. Let's hurry up and finish up so I can get out before work.
Well, we'll get you through it. We'll get you through it. And for somebody who thrives on creativity, you and I thrive on creativity. We both do. We both have creative projects that we're working on. You your podcast? I have a couple podcast projects myself that I work on and I do personal coaching and business coaching. That takes a lot of creative thinking. So if you're somebody that thrives on creativity, walking could be your secret weapon. A Stanford study found that walking increases creative thinking by 60%.
Oh, yeah. Easy. As soon as you said that, it didn't dawn on me at first. But what are those moments where your subconscious mind has a chance that's quiet to have an opportunity to pop in your head? You talked about doing a couple minutes of quiet time, sitting down in a quiet place, but walking? Sure, if it's early in the morning especially, there's hardly anybody out there, no one to bother you. And you know, another thing I love to do is listen to music or a podcast. You can educate yourself while you're walking better than you can. I can't hardly listen to a podcast when I'm sitting in my office. Primarily listen to music. Maybe if I do anything but out for a walk. Yeah, I've got a lot of ideas come to your head when you're out for a 30, 40 minute walk. It's fantastic.
It's interesting because I intentionally don't take podcasts and I'm a podcast fan and of course I listen to more than a handful of podcasts throughout the week. But when I go for my walk, I intentionally don't take anything with me. It's just me. 4:30 5:00 in the morning, the darkness, the moon, the stars, the cool weather every once in a while, the car that'll pass by for the people that get up early for work. But it's just me and my thoughts, right? Maybe a little prayer, talk to God a bit. But yeah, I love that. I love that time. I'm so surprised by this study from Stanford University that it increases creative thinking by 60%. That's a big deal. As we go further into the podcast, when we talk about seven ways to walk more, I'm going to talk about how I, how I use that day to day. But also, walking reduces stress and anxiety. There's an organization, the Anxiety Depression association of America, found that just 10 minutes of walking can reduce anxiety as effectively as a 45 minute workout. I wonder why that is. I don't know. It didn't, I didn't go that deep into it. I'll just take them for their word. But think about this. If you're somebody who struggles with sleep, walking may very well be the answer. From John Hopkins Medicine found that people who walk daily, fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer.
Reminds me of one of my dad sayings that he always used to say. My dad always worked in a blue collar world and we had a neighbor who worked in the white collar world and he always used to tease him if he said he couldn't sleep. He said, well, you didn't work hard enough during the day.
There's something to that. I think there's something to that.
I giggle, but I'm cutting the same cloth. I find myself saying that to other people. If you're not sleeping, you must not have worked hard enough.
We could have a whole episode about sleep, and I think we may have. Actually. We could look back in the archives. But sleeping is important. And if you're having trouble sleeping, try taking a walk.
Yeah.
Before you go to bed. Not right before you go to bed, but, you know, maybe an hour or so before you go to bed and get rid of that anxiety. Get rid of that. Whatever's in you that's keeping you awake. If you have too many carbs, I mean, there's whole. There's a whole thing to eat. If you have too many carbs before you go to bed, if you don't get enough exercise during the day, that can all affect your sleep. But walking is a big deal when it comes to affecting your sleep. Again, you can't deny it. People who walk every day fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. And that's what we want. Right? I want to go to bed and fall asleep and stay asleep for as long as I can.
Yeah, that's. Again, we know the health benefits of sleeping. We just had at work a post in our news and our intranet talking about the importance of sleep. But even that anxiety piece, that is a big motivator for my lunchtime walk. If you. It just breaks up the day. If you had some rough morning, getting out for a walk just clears the mind to reset for the afternoon. And yeah, it breaks up my day. I love that.
So to sum this part up, walking is a total game changer for your brain, your body and your emotions. It really, really has an impact. Just a simple walk every single day. Let's talk about how we walk and where we can take the opportunities to walk. I put together a list of seven simple ways to walk more without changing your routine. This first one may change your routine a little bit. I get up early in the morning. It's part of my morning routine. So I'm not even changing my routine. But I get up and walk about 30 minutes. But if you just get up and walk five or 10 minutes first thing in the morning, find yourself a little path. Maybe you're just walking around the house, but find yourself a little path outside, preferably. But again, maybe it's just in your house to just walk 10 minutes. Find a little. A little way to walk 10 minutes, 5 minutes there and 5 minutes back and it'll be. You'll be amazed at what it does for you first thing in the morning. So there's an opportunity to walk there. There's really no excuses when you go through this list. You'll say, ah, okay, I could walk there. Yeah, you're right, Joe, I can, I can walk that time. But it, it can start first thing in the morning. Just take 10 minutes.
Well, especially if you're more sedentary and you need to start slow, it's okay to start slow. And if Your goal is 30 minutes, like you said before, I like the fact you get the same health benefits. If you walked 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night, you've covered your 30 minutes or. I like counting the steps. I've always liked to have a step counter on my wrist to track my progress.
I do too. I have a watch that, my Samsung watch here that tracks my steps and I love it. It's the first thing I put on when I get up in the morning. I don't wear it to bed because it's uncomfortable. It could track my sleep and all that other stuff, but it's just uncomfortable and it's distracting to sleep. But walking first thing in the morning, just take five or ten minutes. Start there walking first thing in the morning, then walk over lunch. We just talked about this. A 15 or 30 minute walk after eating can really help with digestion, blood sugar levels and your focus for the rest of the day. I love to do this walking over lunch. In fact, I have a path that I walk a couple times a day at work and we'll talk about that here in a second. But over lunch is definitely a game changer for me. After I eat, just get up and go for my walk. It's about 900 steps, takes me about 10 minutes and I'm done.
I struggle with this working from home and it's something. Add that at that winter weather to it and it's been rough. So this is really good timing. Joe, I need to get up. And the weather. When you get out in the weather and the sun is out and it's shining and it's the middle of the day and now glorious. A 50 degree weather we've had over the last week. My gosh. Does it change your attitude? It's so sure does. You know we. I know that vitamin D and getting that sunshine is a good thing too.
We did talk last episode about the winter blues and getting over the winter blues when it is nice. We gotta take advantage of it when it is nice. Let's, let's get back in that routine. We may have been a little distracted, a little depressed, a little down, whatever, whatever you want to call it over the winter time. But as we, as we come into spring and in a, in a few weeks, I'm going to do an episode on, on spring, springtime and what we can do to get ready for spring. But let's take advantage of these, of these, of this nice weather and get back into that routine as soon as possible. And it starts with walking. Like I said, I do it over lunch, I do it a few times a day, but I certainly do it over lunch. And there's some real benefits to it. These are no excuse moments to, to walk, to get your steps in, to get your 30 minutes or an hour of walk in walk while taking phone calls. I do this a lot as well. If I have a phone call with a client or I have a phone call with a customer or a manager or one of my associates, many times I'll switch that, that call over to my phone and walk around the office or walk outside while I'm, while I'm taking that call. It helps me with the call if it's, especially if it's a particularly stressful call or particularly taxing call for whatever reason, I'll get up and walk and talk. And it really helps if we couple that with the idea that it boosts creativity by 60% when you're taking a call, just get up and walk. Even if you're walking around the office or walking around down the hallway, whatever it might be.
A couple things about this. It was difficult for me to get used to this when others were walking around talking on their phones. I thought they've lost their minds because I didn't know they were on the phone, especially if they have earbuds on. And I found it kind of rude. Now, culturally, we've kind of figured this out. I have people walking up my hill and I hear them talking on the street quite loudly as they're walking. But I was thinking some of the meetings I've had, we'll just say let's go for a walk. And it's a one on one maybe with my manager. And when I was in the office, we did a little bit of that. He said, hey, I got to take off but let's go for a walk. And it really breaks down any anxiety of that conversation. It wasn't a difficult one, but if it was, I think it makes it easier. We're just taking a Walk and chilling out and talking during the time or go out for a walk with a friend. It's a great social activity too.
A while back at work, somebody put together a walking initiative and once a week a group of 15, 20 people would get up and. Yeah, in the middle of the day and just walk. And it wasn't over lunchtime. It was like in the middle of the day, like 2:00 in the afternoon. And get up and walk. Yeah, walked or walk around the building. And it was, it was cool. It was cool. And those middle of the day walks are important. If you, if you have a job that allows you to do that, to just get up and walk in the middle of the day, that, that's what we're talking about here when we're taking phone calls. But even at night, if you're talking to somebody at night and you're just, you're, you're texting, you're talking, you're doing whatever you do while you're doing that, take a walk, do it while you're walking, watch what you're doing.
Right.
But do it while you're walking. Again, these are all opportunities to walk, all while you're doing something else. So it doesn't take any more time in your day. You're not adding another activity. You're just walking as you're, as you're doing these things that you're already doing. There's also a lot of dead moments that we have. If we're doing laundry at a laundromat, if we are waiting for a reservation at a restaurant or on our waiting list at a restaurant instead of just sitting there. Most restaurants that I know have a text system that you give them your text number, your number, and they'll text you when your table's ready. So instead of just sitting there in the lobby, go outside and walk around a little bit. Are you waiting for coffee? Whatever you're doing in those dead times that you're waiting, you can be walking around at the doctor's office. As long as you know you're still within shouting distance when they, when they call you. There's nothing wrong with, you know, walking around the hallway there at the doctor's office, whatever it might be. All I'm saying is recognize the dead times that you have take a moment to have. Even if it's two or three minutes that you're walking, five minutes that you're walking during those waiting times. It's time to get those steps in, it's time to get those minutes of walking in and again, it doesn't have to be 30 minutes to an hour altogether at one time, but if you break it up during the day in moments like this, you'll get them in and you'll be better for it.
Yeah, it'll add up. I think as I watch the people that sit at their desk and never move, they think they're more productive. And that's a fallacy. If you're working for 45 minutes sitting there on a project and I do. Do you do a lot of context switching at work, Joe? I know I do.
Context switching. Like you're going from one project to another.
Yeah, I do that a lot. Yeah, because I do a lot of troubleshooting or different. I have a lot of small projects and I find finishing up what I'm doing, going out for a little walk and then picking up, you know, closing that one down and picking up the next one is really good. But it's a productivity tip actually to take that little break, reset yourself and get back in the flow in a different project. It's difficult to do that straight on. Eight hours. It's impossible. You're kidding yourself.
How about walking when you do errands? I know there are a lot of places within walking distance near my house and we talked about this a couple times. I think near my house I could do a, I could do like grocery shopping because there's A Kroger Probably 20 minute walk from my house, 15 minute walk from my house. Walking around the grocery store certainly counts. There's lots of places that you can go that you get in your car and you take a five minute drive that you could, that it could be a 15 minute walk and you're there.
I do this in the wintertime just to get out of the winter weather. And I have a thought about something. I do a lot of woodworking or projects I was doing. I would go over to Lowe's or Home Depot. Those are big box stores where you can get in a lot of steps and just caruse browse. You don't have to buy anything. But I like doing that. And I look at it, getting my steps in as well as, I don't know, think of my next project.
How about walking when you first get home from work? I'll speak for myself. When I first get home from work, the thing that I want to do is throw my backpack down on the floor and sit and just sit. But if I just change my routine a little bit and put, come in, put my backpack down on the floor and then go Back out the door and just walk around for five minutes. Just five minutes, and then come back in. And if I still want to sit, I just sit. If I still want to veg, I just veg. But that's an opportunity to walk as well. As soon as you get home from work, just set your stuff down, walk around for five minutes. And I wouldn't do any more than that. Just five minutes.
There's one on your list that you're missing, and. And I know why you're missing it.
What's that?
Walk your dog?
Yes. That's one I didn't think of because I don't have a dog.
The benefits of walking your dog, which are tremendous. My wife and I really enjoy this. We miss it. We do it together. So it's an activity we do together. We do it after work. We go up to the middle school here where there's some space to walk. There's a field or around the school. And dogs just. They'll bounce around the walls if they don't get outside and go for a walk. So it burns their energy. He likes sniffing. My Sawyer just love sniffing. And she'll say, that is so good for his cognitive health. For some reason, that is a great thing for them to do, but it tires them out. He'll come back, he'll sleep. And I don't want to get gross, but walking moves the bowels.
Oh, yeah.
I don't know if it does for.
Humans, for both you and the dog.
I'm sure there's benefits there, but it's.
So that's a bonus. Number eight. Absolutely. Walk your dog.
And it's not even a long walk, Joe. I mean, he's a big guy. It doesn't really take a lot of effort to do it. I mean, we try to get to a place where he's safe and we can enjoy his company. He gets a little wild with other dogs and people, so we haven't really gotten beyond that right now. And it's been difficult because he had the surgery. But we can't wait to get. We're missing that, and we can't wait to get back to it.
And finally, I'm going to wrap up with my favorite moment to walk. It's the Pomodoro method. We've talked about this. I've used the. My little device here as a resource or tip or hack, and I've talked a lot about this. I have a thing that I do at work. Let me explain the Pomodoro method. It's a productivity method that says, work for 25 minutes and then take a five minute break. Work for 25 minutes and take a five minute break. Now, mine's a little different. I work for 50 minutes and I take a 10 minute break. And that 10 minute break is a walk around the perimeter of my office. It's about 900 steps. It's the same walk, same walk that I do over lunch, but I do that probably four times. At four times a day. Three to four times a day. It's on my schedule, it's on my. It's on my notes to do it every hour. But that, that doesn't always happen. But life at 80%, right?
Yeah.
And so I love this man. I get a lot of looks because it seems like all I do is just walk around because I'm doing it intentionally at the same time. Right. Believe me, I get my work in, but I love this man. It's. It's the Pomodoro method, but regardless of what you call it, work for 25 minutes, set yourself a timer, work for 25 minutes and then take a 5 minute walk. Come back, work, set your timer, work for 25 minutes and take a five minute walk. Do that three, four times a day, as many times as you can. You'll be amazed by the health benefits, but most importantly, you'll be amazed by the creativity that it releases and the energy that it releases for you to get back there and get to work again and dig right in.
This is awesome. I didn't know there was a name to it. I've always done this. Didn't know. I think mostly it's because I can't sit still. Right. But this helps. My issue with my inability to sit still, but I love that. I don't. Like I said before, I don't think anyone's at any advantage of me. I don't know what they're doing during all that time sitting on their desk, but the health benefits that you just went through today are simply amazing. Motivating to get back into my swing of walking and all the habits I've had in the past shouldn't be too hard.
If you had to guess, Kurt, what would be the standard for the number of steps per day that you need to take?
Well, I've always heard the number 10,000. I'm interested in hearing what you're going to say because I felt like that was overkill and my goal as of late has been 7,000 steps. So I'm really curious, is this the. The odd origins of some popular fitness standard that you Were gonna reveal to us.
Yes, let's talk about that. So let's talk about that myth about 10,000 steps. It's my standard. I'll be honest with you. But it's the idea that to be healthy, somebody needs to take 10,000 steps a day. We've heard that before. It's on fitness trackers, workout plans, health blogs, everywhere. Right. Here's the truth of matter. It was never based on science. Do you know where it came from?
I'm dying to hear.
The 10,000 step standard came from a 1960s Japanese marketing campaign for a pedometer, not from actual research. I Read this on menshealthforum.org the idea of walking 10,000 steps a day was invented as part of the marketing campaign for an early pedometer ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The Japanese character for 10,000 looks rather like a person walking. So the device was called the manpo kei, or 10,000 steps meter.
I am so glad to hear this. I hope you research what the real number is.
There is a real number, According to a 2023 study published by the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. Here's what they found. Walking at least 3,900 steps per day. Actually, they put a very specific number on here. 3967. But let's just be real. 3900. 3900 to 4000 steps a day significantly lowers the risk of dying from any cause.
Wow.
Walking 2,300 steps a day is enough to start lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease. But walking 7,000 steps a day is linked to a 40% lower risk of depression. And as we talked about, overall mental, physical, and emotional health benefits. So you're spot on with your 7,000.
This makes my whole week. Joe, I'm so happy for your research here. I'm surprised that that 10,000 step thing that we thought about was from the 1960s. I would have thought it was more recent, but still. That's hysterical. That. Not surprised. Probably that came from advertising. Who can believe advertising?
Yeah. I'd be curious to research how many of the myths that we have that we think are based in science are actually advertising.
Let's write that one down.
You know, for a long time. Yeah, we should. That would be an interesting show. In fact, early cigarette advertising espoused the benefits of smoking, the health benefits of smoking, the calming benefits of smoking, how it could help your breathing. Interestingly enough, the truth is we don't need 10,000 steps a day to be healthy. Now, I'll probably keep it at 10,000 steps a day. Because I don't know. May. Maybe I. I just like, maybe I should buy a Japanese pedometer. But any. But anyway, the real sweet spot is between 5 and 7,000 a day. 5 and 7,000. 7,500 a day. And that's where you'll see the biggest health. Health benefits. If you'll get. If you'll get between five and 7,500 steps a day, you're in a real good place there. So the bottom line is more steps are great, but even small amounts of walking can make a huge difference, Kurt. No doubt.
Well, the truth is you're an overachiever. And I really. My goal is to be a B student my whole life. Maybe B plus is really good enough.
I strive to be extremely mediocre. That's funny. So there we go. The mental and health benefits of walking, the opportunities that during your day that you can take a walk, and that myth of 10,000 steps. Again, we should be between 5,000 and 7,500 a day. That's the real sweet spot. I don't think there's anything wrong with 10,000, but if you're beating yourself up because you're not reaching 10,000, stop it. You're not a Japanese person Preparing for the 1964 Olympics or whatever it was.
Yeah. And based on your health and age and all those things, to know that even 3,4000 steps is so beneficial. Yeah. Consult your doctor again. You don't have to go for 10,000 the first day. Work up to it. Joe, thanks so much for bringing this. It's so timely because spring is coming here. The weather's better. I've been thinking about this. I've always enjoyed this. Didn't know why, but now I do, based on all your research.
So it seems so basic. It seems so primitive, mundane. Yeah. Most people have the ability to get up right now and take a few steps. That's all it takes. Let's wrap up that part right there.
Awesome job. Well done, my friend.
Thank you.
How about your win for the week I was mentioning? I went into work, into the office on Wednesday, and the reason I went in, my company was sponsoring Microsoft 365 Copilot Summit. So artificial intelligence is huge this year. We've all been playing around with it. It's time to implement it and get some of the benefits. And my company implemented the Copilot, which is Microsoft. I think you already know this, Joe. I don't know if anyone else knows, but I learned also we had a representative from Microsoft do an hour part of the summit too. And she said they are 49% owners of ChatGPT OpenAI.
Yeah, I've heard that.
And they. Microsoft has incorporated it into their products. You can get it commercially, go to Bing and look for Copilot. But in an enterprise, especially a financial enterprise like ours, a lot of compliance and legal things to work out before you can just implement it and governance around this and all that has been really done well. We've do this really well. Matter of fact, the woman from Microsoft said you guys are way ahead of the curve. And when we go into. They're piloting this right now and I forget it's like three or four thousand people have been given this tool and we have a work version, the little tab on our Bing search or it's built right into Microsoft 365. There's Copilot right there. You have a work version and you also have a web version. It's called. And the work version is within our walls of our company and you can look at data as part of your AI searches or AI prompts and point it to documents, document libraries and all kinds of content that we have. So really fantastic. I told you last week my win for the week was the Prompthon. I'm. I was a finalist and there were. I found out there was 103 submissions for the promptathon and there were nine finalists. They had three categories. I hate to say I'm a loser, but I'm a loser, Joe. But I'm not what I appear to be.
Well, you're a finalist, right? There's something to be said for that dude. Congratulations.
I was, remember, I think I said last week, I wonder how many people would really put in a submission. I was really proud of being in the top 10% of the submissions. So that was fantastic. But I also met up with my teammates from around the country, some I've never met before in person, which was fantastic. Had hung out with the cool kids, a lot of people who support these platforms that I'm a part of doing also. So I hung out with them as they were helping put on the thing, had lunch and then I was motivated to submit a use case to build my own Copilot agent so you can build your own chatbots with this product called Copilot Studio. And I saw a training session of that. One of my coworkers put that on and I met up with another one of my colleagues and said, hey, you want to join me in this endeavor? So we're going to Build a chatbot based off the content that we save for the SharePoint questions and answers. And we do that today. And so now we're going to add this added feature that people could have a chat bot to get questions and answers done. And we're going to build that with Copilot Studio. So there you go, man.
That sounds exciting.
I know you love that because you're into AI.
Yeah, that really sounds exciting. And I continue to be surprised by how real some of these chatbots are, are becoming and how real some of these help sessions that you feel like you're talking to a real human being and they're answering you and it feels, genuinely feels like you're talking to a customer service rep. In fact, I'm. I'm convinced that many times they're take. They pause intentionally in their programming to make it feel like you're talking to somebody. Right?
Yeah.
And it's very interesting. It's very interesting. So that's cool, man. Congrats on being a finalist. Congrats on your work on this. I'm excited to see what you do with it.
Well, I want to talk to you tomorrow morning in our regular Saturday morning. I sent you a picture of one of the slides that the Microsoft rep gave. And one great thing about AI, as far as our productivity is all those mundane tasks that we don't like to do. And I happen to know, and I don't know if Joe wants me to read his mail out loud, but he does not like mundane tasks at work.
I do not.
And I think that is common. Joe as a sales professional and me as an IT person, all that busy work annoys us. I think we share that both in our respective careers. And they had a graph and I saw it right away and I sent you a picture of it. So I don't know if you had a chance to look at it, but we'll talk about it tomorrow. But as a sales rep, she had a graph showing all the tasks and the percentage that time of your day that you spend on those tasks or week, whatever it is, like prioritizing leads and opportunities of 11%, generating quotes and proposals, 11% researching projects, 22% admin tasks and data entry, 22% of your day Joe spent on doing those things. I don't know how real this is. We'll find out. And only 35% prep, plan and meet with customers. I think Joe gets frustrated that only 35% of his work is devoted to the most productive thing of your career.
Yeah, that 35% is where the real money is made. And if you could figure out a way to do more of the 35% and increase that to 60% or 65% or 70%, think about how much more revenue you could produce if you could figure out a way to get rid of all that other junk. I am terrible at that administrative stuff.
Right.
I just, I'm bad at it because I don't like it. I mean, when I force myself to do it, I do it. But it's a source of consternation for, for me and for my team because there are many times, there are many times that I'm late on internal reports just because, you know, hey, I made the sale. Here's the check, here's the, here's the purchase order. I'm going to move on and get another one and my team's going to move on and get another one. And I have a system set up to do that. I'm really big on systems, I'm really big on processes. So anything that I can put into my systems and processes that will increase the productive time and decrease the mundane time, I'm all for it. So, yes, we will certainly talk about that tomorrow. My win for the week is I connected with an old friend. Haven't, probably haven't seen him in five or six years, maybe longer. And he just showed up at my church and I said, hey, Tim. And we chatted and we talked. And it's always neat when you, when you connect with an old friend, Kurt, because especially when you can kind of pick up right where you left off. He and his wife and me and Karen, we all went to lunch after church and it was a two hour lunch and we just sat there and talked and caught up. And he's a scientist, he's very much like me. He came to Faith in a very logical way and we share that. But he also does a lot of, he's done a lot of studies on the health benefits of the keto lifestyle. So we talked a lot about that.
Cool.
And I've been moving in that direction for a few weeks now, even before I connected with Tim. So it was kind of a divine meeting. And I believe in those because he knows a lot about this and I've been asking a lot of questions about the keto lifestyle and I would certainly consider him an expert in that. But yeah, I've been moving in that direction for. I would call it maybe even several weeks now. And it was just a really good time to catch up with a pal. And I'll take those moments when they come, and I'll certainly consider that a win.
That's huge. I love that it's again, all those meeting up with friends is so good for our health.
You got a resource for us.
I'm going to continue that conversation with my copilot Summit because the woman that spoke from Microsoft gave us some great AI prompts. You know this, Joe. The better you can, the better question you can ask, the better answer you're going to get. And to have a structure is really interesting that she gave us a structure and some examples, and I'm going to give that to you right now. So if you want to do a great AI prompt, there are four components to that prompt. One is to have a goal, a context, source, and expectations. To give you a little example, you want to clearly define the request. Here's an example I did this week. I need to interview questions. I need interview questions for a Disney podcast segment. The context is, please, you want to provide relevant background information to guide that response. So I said, julie shared trip. Julie shared trip notes from her November and January Disney visits. So my friend had given me two long lists of bullet points and I wanted to combine them into two. And so I told him the source of this is include specific details, data and references the response should draw from. So I said, use both trip reports to highlight resorts, dining experiences, and ChatGPT combined both reports into one. So I could clearly do my interview, then tell give us some expectations. You want to specify the output, what it should look like, and how it should align with your goals. And I said, this is what I want. I want 10 thoughtful questions focusing on the highlights and make them conversational. So there's the My tip is doing your AI prompts have a goal, explain the context, give it a source if you can, and what is your expectations? What exactly you want the output to look like?
We could do a whole show just on this.
Kurt.
We can do a whole show just on the effective use of AI, and especially people in our age bracket, right? The mid-50s, early 60s kind of age bracket. But even for people younger than that, there are many people out there who are intimidated by AI. There are people out there who are afraid of AI thinking that it's, you know, the iRobot situation or some kind of weird matrix situation, and it's not right. I joke that I'm nice to AI, so one day, when it becomes, when it, when it takes over the world, it's nice to me. But we could do a whole show on the effective use of artificial intelligence and Some of these chatbots, chat GPT and so forth. So we, we certainly can do that, I think, and I think we probably should. My resource is really different. And this kind of goes on with.
We're all over the place.
My keto lifestyle. And this is so simple and so easy. And the recipe is all over the Internet. I don't know why I've not done it in the past, but this weekend I made homemade mayonnaise.
My wife loves mayonnaise, so I'm interested to hear this recipe.
It is the simplest thing in the world. The simplest thing in the world.
Kidding.
You take an egg, you kind of have a. Need a tall container if you have one. And it's really easy if you have one of those stick immersion mixers, the kind that you stick kind of can stick down into a cup or a glass or in a bowl. Everybody has those. Or they're all over the place. They're pretty cheap. You can pick a good one up for 25 bucks. But it's an egg, it's a cup of oil. Now, I used extra virgin olive oil. I think next time I'll use some avocado oil. If you don't have a problem with seed oils. And I as the more I read, I've got a problem with seed oils like vegetable oil. I would recommend avocado oil or olive oil. But a cup of oil, an egg, you want, you're going to want to put some salt and pepper in there, and you're going to want to put maybe a little bit of mustard, mustard powder in there and any, really, any kind of flavoring that you want. If you want to put a little chipotle flavoring in there, you can use that. If you want to put a little extra, a little extra Tabasco sauce in there, you can use that. And once that's all in there, you just, you take the immersion mixer, stick it on the bottom and slowly lift up. By the time you get to the top, you've got mayonnaise.
Wow. So whipping olive oil with an egg.
Whipping oil with an egg, is mayonnaise. Basically, those two ingredients, no vinegar, are the, are the. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Excuse me. I'm sorry, dude. I do put a teaspoon of vinegar in there.
Okay.
A tablespoon of vinegar in there. But the basic ingredients, an egg and a cup of oil, I want to try. That's it.
I'm gonna look that up on the Internet.
An egg and a cup of oil, you don't need to look it up on the Internet, dude.
I just Told you I gotta get my measurements exactly right.
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. And it tastes awesome. It tastes awesome.
Wow. Yeah, you may. You might make me a big points with my wife if I get this right.
Where I'm leaning is, is healthy eating and natural eating, clean eating.
Okay.
And when you look at these boxes, even mayonnaise, something. Something as simple as mayonnaise. Just when you look at these, these, these packages, Kurt. And I'm. We could do a show on this, but I'm not ready yet. But when you look at the. The packages and all the ingredients that are on these packages, I. I just don't like it. Yeah, I just don't like it. And I want to eat as, quote, unquote, clean as possible and homemade mayonnaise. How about that?
I love that. This is fantastic. I'm looking forward to trying this today for my lunch.
Yeah, what fun. You got a quote for us?
Every walk brings me a little closer to being the person I want to be. Except when there's ice.
Did you make that up?
No, that was from Anonymous.
That's funny. Anonymous. I love Anonymous.
I wish it was from Anonymous.
Anonymous has a lot of quotes out there, but that's funny.
I don't know Anonymous, but that's funny. I was trying to do a little something a little humorous. Although there's a lot of truth to that.
I found something humorous myself. This comes from the comedian Steven Wright. And if you know Steven Wright or you've heard any of Stephen Wright's stuff, you can hear Steven Wright talking. Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.
I love Steven Wright and I did see your quote that motivated me to try to find something humorous too. He's one of my favorites. We lost Steven Wright, didn't we? Man, that's.
Yeah, yeah, he's hilarious. Deadpan, Deadpan comedian. These little. These little quirky things. I'll never forget the time that I heard him say somebody came into his apartment and stole everything he had and then replaced it with an exact replica.
He's amazing. Talking about creative Thinker. My phone. That sticks out in my mind. And there's so many of his jokes that are so great. I don't know why this one sticks in my mind. But he said he lost his socks and he's looking everywhere. He can't find his socks. He's looking everywhere. All through his apartment. And so he called up 91 1. He says, hey, oh no. He called up information. That's what it was. The info line. Hey, I've lost my socks. And she said, they're behind the couch.
Let's wrap up right there. Our website is dudesinprogress.com dudesinprogress.com our email address is dudes@dudesinprogress.com if you want to email us about the show, about an idea for the show, anything you want. We had a listener reach out to us this past week with a suggestion on a show, and we'll certainly take that into consideration. But if you have a suggestion for the show, dudesinprogress.com we would love to hear from you. Remember, walking is making progress. You could be making progress on getting to where you want to go, or you could be making progress on making your mental, physical, and emotional health better. Either way, walking is making progress. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to. You don't have to power walk. You don't have to do all of that because if you just make progress, it's so much better than perfection. Just keep moving forward.
That's amazing how little effort you got to put into this. And the benefits are just tremendous compared to the amount of effort you got to put into it. It's fun, enjoyable. And Joe, I'm going out for a walk right after we hang up.
Awesome. Talk to you soon.