The Five-Minute Habit That Can Transform Your Day with Manoush Zomorodi

**Guy Kawasaki** (0:00)
Where has time gone? This is the sixth year of the Remarkable People podcast, and I thought maybe it's time to find a revenue model. So if you'd like to sponsor this podcast, please reach out to me. You will be able to reach an audience of highly educated, high income, open-minded, I would even say growth mindset-minded people.
And I will even read the ads or the promotions inside the podcast. We're not just going to slap it on at the beginning and the middle and the end. I will do the reading. One caveat, I will not promote products and services that I do not like. So if you have a remarkable product or service, you are in the right place. Guy at guykawasaki.com.
This is Remarkable People.

**Manoush Zomorodi** (0:57)
So what he found in his lab was that five minutes of gentle movement every half hour largely offset the harms of sitting. And the results were pretty outsized, like up to 60% reduction in glucose. People rated their concentration better, they were able to focus, their blood pressure dropped, it was pretty extraordinary.
So when I called him, I was like, dude, you found the magic formula. Congratulations. Why aren't we all doing this?

**Guy Kawasaki** (1:32)
Hello, I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is the Remarkable People podcast. And today's a big day because one of my heroes in podcasting is on today. Her name is Manoush Zomorodi and it would take a while to introduce her. She's award-winning journalist, best-selling author, NPR, goddess of NPR's TED Radio Hour. Her latest book is called Body Electric. And we are going to talk about the effects of our digital habits on our bodies and life and health. Right, Manoush?

**Manoush Zomorodi** (2:09)
That is what we are going to talk about. I am so happy to be here. And I don't think I've ever been referred to as a goddess before, not even by my husband. So I will take it, Guy. Thank you.

**Guy Kawasaki** (2:18)
You better get used to it.

**Manoush Zomorodi** (2:20)
Gladly.

**Guy Kawasaki** (2:23)
So Manoush, just to dive in here, in your book, you mention how great a role model and inspiration your mother was. And then you drop this little sentence that nobody is going to notice but Guy. And it said, my father tried the body electric experiment and he lasted one day.
So I want to know more about that story. Have you convinced him to embrace the body electric theory of movement every 30 minutes or is he beyond hope?

**Manoush Zomorodi** (2:54)
So what you're referring to is my parents symbolize two different approaches to life. One is my mom is 82 and she never stops moving like ever. She swims in the morning, sometimes also in the afternoon. She's constantly taking walks. She belongs to a chorus, an orchestra, a chamber music group. She babysits for my niece and nephew. She's just on the go. And it used to really annoy me Guy, because you could not just hang with my mother, right? She would get twitchy and have to move. And I figured like, oh, I guess I got my dad's genes, cause my dad is more like a house cat. You know what I mean? He kind of just slinks from room to room. He might come and talk to you. Maybe not. He just wants people to be around. Particularly since he retired, there's a lot of lounging, right? He's a lounger. And that used to worry me a lot, and it still worries me. But part of it is like, no one's ever going to tell my dad what to do.
He is a Middle Eastern man. He is in his mid eighties. He is a retired psychiatrist. You will not be telling my dad what to do. However, I think the message of the book that it's not shaming you. It's not like throw away your laptop, put your phone under your bed, go on a digital Sabbath forever. No, that is not the message. It's an understanding that these devices are extraordinary. They're amazing. They give us connection to our family, to information, to art, to amazing things. But we are biological human beings who need movement in our lives. I think he went to medical school. He knows that that's true. I wouldn't be surprised that if you did have a little surveillance camera on my father, you would see him getting up more often from his online chess marathons that he partakes in.
And sometimes backgammon.

**Guy Kawasaki** (4:54)
I think you should recruit his grandchildren to force them into movement. That might work, right?

**Manoush Zomorodi** (5:00)
That might work, yes. And from what I understand, recently, my nephew who's just walking now, he grabs him by the hand and is like, come, come, come. So, it's working. It's working, Guy.