Note: This is an audio version of IoNTELLIGENCE Issue 50. Usually, this podcast is only available to paid Community Members, but today, everyone is receiving it. Enjoy!

IoNTELLIGENCE draws on science and philosophy to help busy people achieve professional success, personal transformation, and lasting happiness in five minutes a week.

* 🧠 The Big Idea: Exercise is more important than diet or sleep in keeping you happy and healthy. It’s also a performance enhancer for your career prospects.

* 🔧 What To Do Next: Learn the 4 Reasons to Make Exercise a Top Priority in Your Life and Work.

* 🔬 Go Deeper: Read this article on how exercise improves work performance and check out “Exercised” by Daniel E. Lieberman.

One minute of exercise buys you five minutes of extra life.

Read that line again.

This is the mic-drop conclusion of a recent Stanford study on the remarkable benefits of regular exercise. And this isn’t dependent on you killing yourself at CrossFit, either: this result was from something as simple as a brisk walk. Working out more intensely could buy you seven or eight extra minutes of life.

Remember these stats the next time you struggle to hit the gym. Catching that spin class will give you a 5x return on investment in your lifespan, not to mention help you feel better, look more attractive, and perform more effectively at work.

Here are more numbers to persuade you to jump on the Pickleball craze. People who exercise frequently are:

* 25% less likely to get breast cancer

* 50% less likely to have colon cancer

* 60% less likely to have heart disease

* 70% less likely to fracture your hip

Stanford Professor Euan Ashley goes further: “Exercise may be the most potent medical intervention ever known.”

I will now channel those late-night infomercials by saying: “But wait! There’s more.”

Those are the benefits for your health and body; there are just as many for your mind, mood, and brain. As you’ll see, exercise even gives us an edge in a knowledge economy where we are increasingly rewarded for the quality of our judgment and the creativity of our work.

That’s why you - and your boss - should make exercise a part of your job.

🏆 Key Takeaways

The IoNTELLIGENCE 5 Rules®️ of Becoming Bold: Become aware of your brain bugs. Reframe your view of risk. Replace Status Quo with Venture Go! Start small. Turn the lights on.

🔬 Go Deeper

* If you have a few hours, 📖 Cass Sunstein’s new book Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There, co-written with neuroscientist and professor Tali Sharot. 

* If you have one hour, 🎧 to the podcast episode that changed it all for me - a lively discussion between Ezra Klein and maverick thinker Tyler Cowen.

* If you have 10 minutes 👓 this article on the power of inertia in our lives.

Thank you very much for being a Member of the IoNTELLIGENCE Community and supporting my writing and podcasting.

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