Episode 129 - Moving for Creativity with Mike Kuczala
April 19, 2022
Mike Kuczala discusses how a sedentary lifestyle restricts not only our health but also our creativity; how to introduce movement into our lives; how we can combat the mindset that a more movement-oriented lifestyle is something we’ll do tomorrow; and (something that I was relieved to hear) the fact that walking is enough. Mike also shares how movement helped him transform his life, from tackling challenges that might otherwise have seemed insurmountable to overcoming the grief of his father’s death.
Mike Kuczala has delivered keynotes, given presentations, facilitated professional development, and taught graduate courses on 4 continents on his area of expertise: the importance of movement to health and creativity. He is the coauthor of THE KINESTHETIC CLASSROOM: TEACHING AND LEARNING THROUGH MOVEMENT, and the author of TRAINING IN MOTION: HOW TO USE MOVEMENT TO CREATE AN ENGAGING AND EFFECTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT and READY, SET, GO! THE KINESTHETIC CLASSROOM 2.0. His fourth book, THE PEAK PERFORMING TEACHER: 5 HABITS FOR SUCCESS, launched in February 2022.
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"When my dad got sick and died, it put me in a tailspin, and I just didn't know what to do. I was just not well, mentally, physically, I wasn't eating well, sleeping well, exercising at all. And finally, it was my physical life that pulled me out of it. It was my ability to mountain bike, my ability to be on a yoga mat, my ability to be in the weight room, at the time to run, and it brought me back from grief I had never known before. So I purposefully use my physical life to create success in my life." —Mike Kuczala
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Links
http://www.mikekuczala.com/
https://twitter.com/kinestheticlass
https://www.facebook.com/michael.kuczala
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-kuczala-2818a432/
https://www.thepeakperformingteacher.com/
Episode 045 - Nine Things Career Authors Don't Do: Exercise with J. Thorn
Episode 118 - The Martial Art of Writing with Alan Baxter
Stamina Inmotion Elliptical - https://amzn.to/3uSQrZj (Amazon affiliate link)
For links to Matty's upcoming and recent events, click here.
https://twitter.com/kinestheticlass
https://www.facebook.com/michael.kuczala
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-kuczala-2818a432/
https://www.thepeakperformingteacher.com/
Episode 045 - Nine Things Career Authors Don't Do: Exercise with J. Thorn
Episode 118 - The Martial Art of Writing with Alan Baxter
Stamina Inmotion Elliptical - https://amzn.to/3uSQrZj (Amazon affiliate link)
For links to Matty's upcoming and recent events, click here.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today my guest is Mike Kuczala. Hey Mike, how are you doing?
[00:00:05] Mike: Great Matty. Happy to be here, and thanks so much for having me on.
[00:00:08] Matty: I am very pleased to have you here. So to give our listeners and our viewers a little bit of background on you, Mike Kuczala has delivered keynotes, given presentations, facilitated professional development and taught graduate courses on four continents on his area of expertise, the importance of movement to health and creativity.
[00:00:24] He is the co-author of THE KINESTHETIC CLASSROOM: TEACHING AND LEARNING THROUGH MOVEMENT, and the author of TRAINING IN MOTION: HOW TO USE MOVEMENT TO CREATE AN ENGAGING AND EFFECTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT, and READY, SET, GO! THE KINESTHETIC CLASSROOM 2.0. And his fourth book, THE PEAK PERFORMING TEACHER: 5 HABITS FOR SUCCESS, just launched in February of 2022. So congratulations, Mike.
[00:00:45] Mike: Thank you so much. I'm pretty excited about that project. And it's been getting a nice response and I get to do some work that is a little bit different from the physical activity space. So I'm pretty pleased with it. Thank you.
[00:00:56] Matty: Cool. Well, I think we might be introducing you to a slightly different audience than you usually speak to, but we're going to be talking generally about moving for health and creativity. And as I think the listeners and viewers can tell based on the bio I read, your focus has been mainly on movement related to health and creativity in the classroom. But I feel like there's so many lessons to be learned by writers who are trying to combat the ill effect of our sedentary work, our lack of movement.
[00:01:23] And so, I wanted to start out asking why kinesthetic, why an emphasis on movement and why isn't exercise in the name of your books?
[00:01:31] Mike: Because it's broader than that. Over the years, I've gone from using only the term movement to more physical activity, which more aptly describes what I do. Exercise is a subset. It's critical, it's important, there's so many advantages. We could talk about school related; I know that's not necessarily our topic today, we know that physically fit kids do better academically, and that can translate into being physically fit in life, and have it translate to better professional outcomes.
[00:02:03] Having said that, there's a larger picture about living a physical life and physical activity and movement, our body demands it. We're brain-body creatures and our brain thrives on it. As it turns out, the brain is the primary beneficiary of, not only aerobic activity, but also just movement. We're used to living sedentary lives with more and more screen time and it works against what we're trying to do in the cognitive space. The longer we sit, the less efficient we become.
[00:02:38] Matty: I'm not proud, so I'm going to hold myself as the bad example. So I left my corporate job in 2019 and launched into making a go of writing and publishing full-time, so I'm not just a writer, I'm a small business owner.
[00:02:52] And I realized that, I shouldn't say this like it's past tense, I realize that oftentimes my schedule is, I get up, I let the dogs out, I feed the dogs, I make myself a cup of tea, I sit down and honestly, for a period of time, I might not get up, except like maybe to get more tea, until five o'clock.
[00:03:12] And I realized that as minimal as my movement was when I was in the corporate world, at least I had to walk from the parking lot into the building, and it was a big building, so sometimes, I would have to cross the building in order to get to a meeting. And even that pathetic amount of exercise was better than what I do now.
[00:03:32] And obviously, and this is what I think we're going to be talking about more, if you're relying on movement in order to build creativity and to have your brain work optimally, that's not a good place for a writer or creator to be.
[00:03:44] Talk a little bit about what the downsides are of that kind of approach, where you're just sitting and sitting for hours at a time.
[00:03:49] Mike: What happens when you sit for too long, is that blood pools in your butt and legs. And that's not what we're after. Yeah. When I'm working with teachers, I tell them that works against what we're trying to do in the classroom. And it works against what we're trying to do as writers.
[00:04:07] The other thing that happens is, and I think we've all experienced this, unless there's a real intense emotional engagement, when we sit for too long, the brain says, hey, you've been sitting for a while. You must be sleepy. And I'm going to do a little chemical brain dance, I don't need to get into all the names of the neurotransmitters. It's not important, but it makes you sleepier. And we sit for too long and get lethargic, the blood pools, and the brain is set up to shut down.
[00:04:34] And as writers, that can hamper us. That's not what we're after at all. And when I'm working on a project, because there's times when I sit. Just a quick aside here, the obvious thing is to have a standing desk, and I'll get back to that in a moment, but I do sit more than I'd like to. But the longest I'll ever go is 30 minutes because I can't take it. 20 to 25 minutes is more like it. I'm up all the time. I just take pride in living a physical life and it doesn't mean I have to kill myself exercising, but it just means being physical and using our bodies.
[00:05:09] The other thing too, let me say this, that we cramp our breathing systems. If we're trying to breathe deeply and properly, we're trying to use our diaphragms and our lower half of our torso versus this very shallow chest breathing. And so when we stand up, we have a better opportunity to do that.
[00:05:27] And you know what, researchers are suggesting is that culturally, we sit for long periods of time and when we want to take a break, we stand up for a couple of minutes. When what they're suggesting is, hey, we should look at learning and doing and working from a standing perspective, and when we want to take a break, we just sit down for a couple of minutes, which is fine, but it's opposite of that. It's where we're at.
[00:05:51] And I'm glad to see workspaces and classroom spaces, they're shifting and changing, I'm sorry to say, not in a great way, but it is happening. I've seen classrooms where kids are moving all the time. They have equipment that facilitates that. I've seen corporate spaces where that happens. So there's a lot of downside to being creative and to being our best cognitively when we are just putting ourselves to sleep here in a chair.
[00:06:18] Matty: I actually do have a standing desk. In fact, the desk that I use for podcasting, which is not the desk I normally use for writing, because the desk I use for writing has a nicer view out the backyard, but I have a standing desk, an adjustable desk, and then under it, I actually have a under the desk treadmill. Sounds perfect, right?
[00:06:38] So my plan was that I would set aside a certain amount of time a day to do something which would lend itself to me walking on the treadmill. I can't really write. I find that trying to walk on the treadmill and type or do work doesn't work for me, and just standing doesn't work for me, because I have arthritis in my hips and very quickly it starts to bother my hips, but I thought if I do something where I'm just watching, like watching a webinar or watching a how-to video on YouTube or something like that, my plan was, and I'm kind of hoping my conversation with you will be a marker to make me do this, is to set aside a certain amount of time every day to do that, to say, okay, from four to five every day, I'm going to go watch a Masterclass about backstory or whatever. And during that time I'm going to walk on the treadmill.
[00:07:26] But I think that the issue for many people is, it's always like the thing you're going to do tomorrow. So do you have any tips for getting past that, I'm going to move more tomorrow, I swear?
[00:07:39] Mike: We are pain-pleasure creatures. And I write about that in this latest book. Our brain has a scale, pain-pleasure, and we are constantly weighing the outcomes with every decision we make. And so what I'd like to tell people is to think about what it will cost you. Because our brain will often do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. So what will it cost you if you do wait until tomorrow, and the next day and the next day and the next week and the next month and the next year and the next five or 10 years? What's that going to cost your life?
[00:08:13] What's it going to cost your creative process if you don't do this now? The greatest power we all have is the ability to act now. And, you know, gearing our brains up to understand the pleasure that we can gain, but even more powerfully, the pain that we can avoid, through our mental processes is one way to get ourselves to act now. And to do it more quickly than you have yourself set up for.
[00:08:42] And we are talking about standing desks and treadmill desks, and you could just start where you're setting up your phone to buzz every 20 minutes, 30 minutes, get yourself up for two or three or five minutes. Get your blood flow. When we stand up, we get about 10% more blood and oxygen flow around the brain and body, and that's what we're after. So know that getting in the front end of this is going to help our creative process. So yeah, I think using that pain-pleasure principle to your advantage is how we can get ourselves to act more quickly than procrastinating.
[00:09:16] Because procrastinating is a pain-pleasure decision. We all do it. We procrastinate because the pain of doing something is greater than the pleasure of getting it done. And when two pains come up side by side, all of a sudden, oh, I need to get in shape. My doctor says if I don't, I'm going to have health issues, then the greater pain wins. So instead of having two pains come side by side, working proactively to get ahead of the curve can help us make better decisions.
[00:09:47] Matty: The other piece of exercise equipment I have that I actually use more often than I do the under the desk treadmill, is that I have a mini elliptical. I'm actually, I like this so much, I'm going to put a link in the show notes to my mini elliptical. It's small enough, I think it's 30 pounds, but it's small enough, I actually got one of those firewood carriers, like a strip of heavy canvas with handles in the end, and I can easily move it around. So I can move it to a different window, if the view out the window is nicer.
[00:10:15] And I enjoy it. Like I enjoy the motion, it's easy on my hips. It's very sturdy. But I find that the trick is finding a way to remind myself. And I know if I got like a smart watch this would probably take care of it for me, but do you have tips if people don't have a smart watch, of just tips to remind you to do these kinds of things?
[00:10:37] Mike: Yeah, I'm just, it's so ingrained in me that I take it for granted. I just have this physical need to get up after I've been sitting for a little while. Because it doesn't feel good. You start to get really stiff. So what I do sometimes, I'll set the alarm on my phone. Most people have some kind of smart device that they can set the alarm at 30 minutes, and it just goes off and it reminds you. Maybe you set it with a great piece of music that's motivating and can get you up and moving and going. I think that's my best tip, is to set an alarm.
[00:11:10] There are devices out there, standing devices that have you set first, and then when the alarm goes, it actually stands you up. The machine pushes you up and out of your seat. So that's even better. They're not cheap. I don't have one of those, but I think that could be pretty effective. So I think just setting the alarm.
[00:11:32] Or if you're working on paragraphs or chapters, you tell yourself, hey, when I'm done with this page, when I'm done with these three paragraphs, when I'm done with this particular chapter, I'm going to stand up and move around for five minutes before I get back to work.
[00:11:44] Matty: Yeah. I think that the idea of having an alarm is important because for myself, I find that if I'm sitting there, I could sit there for an hour and a half and really not be moving anything except my fingers on the keyboard. And then I don't notice until I go to stand up, how stiff I am. And so having that alarm to remind me that I'm going to pay the price, I'm going to experience the pain if I don't move around a bit, is I think a good idea.
[00:12:08] The other thing I wanted to loop back on is, we were talking about the pain- pleasure motivators, and I think that one of the most difficult things for me, and I'm speaking now as a small business owner even more than I am as a writer, is that if I get up in the morning and I say, I'm going to work on my fiction from eight to noon. And then I have this list of tasks, I need to upload a new file for a book, or I have to get a podcast episode ready, or I have to edit an article that I'm supposed to submit or whatever, each of those has a benefit associated with it. It's a clear benefit to me. Let's say I find a typo in a book, and I upload an updated file, there's a concrete benefit that that has, and a concrete cost that has if I don't do it. I'm going to make some reader unhappy when they get to that page and there's a typo and it hasn't been fixed.
[00:12:59] So it's very immediate, as opposed to the pain you're going to experience if you don't exercise is somehow more theoretical. Do you know what I mean? Is there a mindset people can bring so that the immediacy of the need to exercise or to move is as immediate as the need to upload the new file or edit the article or prepare the podcast episode?
[00:13:21] Mike: Yeah, and actually, when you're talking about exercise, it has moved beyond theoretical. We just know beyond a shadow of a doubt what exercise does for your life and let's put all the muscle, vascular, lung capacity, et cetera aside, we're talking about your brain. So we know these things now, that it balances your neurochemicals, your neurotransmitters. We know that it causes brain cells to talk to each other in networks in a more constructive way.
[00:13:50] We know that exercise unleashes levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which are critical for learning. You become a better author, you just do, I know this. You become a better author when you exercise, when you're physically fit, but also when you move. It's one of those things where, when you're talking about there's an immediate benefit, I would just practice it and then see the immediate benefit in your own life.
[00:14:17] It's probably the only way that you can do it: experience it. Get up, it's worth the two or three or four or five minutes, come back and you're going to feel refreshed. And that will help you to make a better pain-pleasure choice when you're sitting down to write. You're just going to be more effective and you're going to feel better. And you might be able to work a little bit longer that day, if that's something that you want to do.
[00:14:39] So I think it's experience and understanding how it feels and understanding the benefits to you very personally. So once you make it a habit, if you don't do it, then it becomes problematic and you'll notice, oh my gosh, I didn't do this.
[00:14:56] This is a little bit of aside, but I've been a regular meditator for like three decades. And if I have a day where I can't do it, I'm like, oh my gosh, when can I sit down to do this? And I notice it. The same thing will happen once you begin to move more. It's going to become habit. It takes a while to change habits, and then you're going to notice the difference if you don't do it, and it is going to be better for your writing and your creativity.
[00:15:18] Matty: Yeah, I don't think anyone would argue about the benefits of exercise. It's that, I know it in my head versus I'm acting on it in my life kind of dichotomy.
[00:15:29] And I think that the other thing is, and I'm going to point listeners and viewers to two episodes. One is episode way back in 45. This episode was NINE THINGS CAREER AUTHORS DON'T DO: EXERCISE with J Thorn. So it's obviously a problem for a lot of us.
[00:15:46] And one of the things that J and I talked about, and I'm interested to get your perspective on this, so clearly, you're at like a naturally active person and I'm the counterpoint as the naturally sedentary person. One of the things that I find really demotivating about exercise is I could say, you know what, I'm going to commit to get up twice a day, I'm going to go out for a 20-minute walk with the dogs and get moving. That's going to be great.
[00:16:08] But that's never it. You do the 40 minutes of walking a day and then there's always the next thing you should do. It's okay, fine, but you really need to do weight training or, sure, but now you need to be doing this other thing. And I think that another thing that holds me back is, okay, if whatever I do is never going to be enough, then why bother? What are your thoughts about that?
[00:16:28] Mike: Well, I want to take your angst away and let you know that walking is enough. So I've been a weightlifter for 30, 35 years. And my wife and I play pickle ball regularly, and I like to ride my mountain bike and I like to golf. I just like a physical life, because it has so many benefits for me. Another topic.
[00:16:49] You don't have to do anything else. If all you can do is walk, that's fantastic. If you're walking twice a day for 20 minutes, just 11 minutes of exercise a day can increase our life expectancy and our lifespan. So I want to take your angst away. If you ever feel like you want to lift weights, it's good for our bones as we age, et cetera, but walking is perfect. It can be social; it can be mindful. It's a stress reliever. It just gets the blood flow around our brain and bodies. And if you don't ever do another thing, don't worry about it. Just continue to walk, and there's great benefits around that. So you're good.
[00:17:32] Matty: This in itself, like the last 60 seconds has made this whole episode worth it for me, and I'm hoping for others as well.
[00:17:39] The other episode I want to point people to is a more recent one, Episode 118, THE MARTIAL ART OF WRITING with Alan Baxter. That in general, was a conversation about lessons that Alan, who is a martial arts practitioner has brought to his writing experience and how those two areas are similar and different. But he does have a part about the importance of movement. And exactly, as you were saying before, it's not like he gets up and runs five miles. He gets up and stretches or he does a pushup, or he goes to get tea, walks around the house while he is waiting for it to brew or something like that. So another good resource for people who are looking for more inspiration.
[00:18:16] Mike: It's just about looking for moments to move versus being sedentary. Walking around the house while your tea brews is great. It's better than sitting. When I'm at an airport, instead of sitting and waiting for the plane, I put my backpack on and I just walk the airport, because I know that that's better for me than taking that half hour or 45 minutes of sitting. So you don't have to slay the world in a physical way. You can just walk.
[00:18:43] Or stretch. As we get older, all of this changes. And I consider my stretching routine, which I got from a practice that is called Svaroopa® yoga, and it's a part of my movement life. Friends that do really intense yoga make fun of me, because I'm not good at yoga. It's just not my thing, but this kind of yoga, the stretches are held in these wonderful positions for up to three to five minutes. It feels so good. And I consider that very soft, slow movement a part of my physical life. So it can look many different ways for different people.
[00:19:16] Matty: That sounds very appealing to me. I think I would enjoy that.
[00:19:18] Mike: It's Svaroopa® yoga, and when you look at online, it centers around four magic poses. Everybody can do it, most everyone, and it'll be great, it's good stuff.
[00:19:28]
[00:20:01] Matty: So I want to hit a topic, and we probably should have talked about this before, but we've been talking generally about the cognitive benefits of physical activity. and this I think, is what is going to be most attractive to the viewers and listeners. Like how can making this effort improve either my creative efforts or my business efforts, if they're publishing themselves? Can you talk a little bit about what's behind that?
[00:20:25] Mike: Yeah, so I want to talk a little bit about how a physical life can increase motivation. And it does that for me on a daily basis.
[00:20:34] I'm not expecting listeners of the show to do this, but examples of how my physical life has transformed the rest of my life, that your physical life is critical to your emotional life, that your physical life is critical to your intellectual life. That your physical life is critical to your academic life. That your physical life is critical to your social life. That your physical life is critical to a successful life.
[00:20:58] I'll give you three quick examples, what I'm talking about. Back when I was a long time ago, 20 years old was the last time I entered a bodybuilding competition. I wasn't very good at it, I was an average competitor, but the weight room transformed my life. It gave me desire, dedication, discipline I had never known. And right after that, I became a music major and I had never played a note of music in my life, but I credit my physical life for being able to partake in that.
[00:21:29] In 2009, I ran my first Broad Street Run. I had never run more than four miles ever, and I'm a social guy and my friends were doing it. I'm like, okay, I'm in. And it was February. The race was in May. So I had to increase this to 10 miles. And the race was so invigorating. I finished like 8,000, like 25,000 people. I wasn't looking to win, just to experience the physicality of it all. When I crossed the finish line that day, for the first time in my life, I think I was 43 at the time, I felt like I could take on anything. And that great gift came from my physical life and less than eight months after that race completed, my first book was published, and I still credit my physical life for bringing that to me.
[00:22:14] And when my dad got sick and died, it put me in a tailspin back in about 2014, 15, and I just didn't know what to do. I was just not well, mentally, physically, I wasn't eating well, sleeping well, exercising at all. And finally, it was my physical life that pulled me out of it. It was my ability to mountain bike, my ability to be on a yoga mat, my ability to be in the weight room, at the time to run, and it brought me back from grief I had never known before.
[00:22:45] So I purposefully use my physical life to create success in my life. Many other ways to do that. That's how it's worked out for me, and I think people and authors can take bits of that and use their physical self to be a better version of themselves.
[00:23:04] I just know that to be true, that they can use this purposefully, even if it's walking. If you can walk five minutes one week, you can walk seven the next, you can walk 10 the next, you can walk 25 the next, and start to transform yourself from a physical perspective.
[00:23:21] So I hope that answered your question a little bit.
[00:23:23] Matty: Yeah, that was a lovely answer. And it also made me think of another aspect. I mean, many of the things we've been talking about, at least I've been talking about, are more solitary things like jumping up and getting in my elliptical for a few minutes. But you had talked about the fact that you running the Broad Street Run was as a result of you wanting to do something that your buddies were doing. Are there other tips, especially because you're an author, you've lived this life, ways that you can engage others, especially other authors, to support each other in this?
[00:23:56] Mike: Sure, we live in an online world and so I think that's a great way to do it. It could be a Facebook group. It could be just staying connected virtually. This is interesting too, you bring this up, I rarely do things alone, when I'm exercising. I do, but I have a workout partner in the gym, I have a mountain bike partner that I ride with, I have pickle ball that I play with lots of people.
[00:24:23] So being social with it keeps you accountable. And so if you have a group of authors that say, hey, we keep each other accountable by meeting in the park, 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, we're going to walk for 30 minutes and then go back to our work. Being social has really helped me to continue the workout, because it's harder to say, you know what, I can't make it today, or I can't do it today, if someone's counting on me being there.
[00:24:50] So I think that is a great way for authors to put themselves in pairs or in small groups, to be physical together and do better work as a result.
[00:25:01] Matty: So cool. It's all very inspirational. I'll have to have you back in six months and let you know how things are going. I did want to ask you about something, this is totally different, but the titles of your books indicate that you're very focused on teaching in the classroom. So you have this general area of expertise about moving for health and creativity, I'll say, and you've chosen to focus very specifically on teachers in the classroom and students, and I'm always interested when people make that decision about, do I go wide for my audience, or do I go specific for my audience? I'm wondering what led to you to the decision to go specific in that area.
[00:25:39] Mike: Yeah, it's just the space I live in. So I come from a family of teachers, wife, sister, both parents, three grandparents, and a cousin. It's just what we do in my family. So that I think that's really the big driving force and motivator behind that decision. I work for a company that offers graduate courses for teachers, I'm the academic director. And so every day, I'm dealing with educational issues and it's a natural thing for me.
[00:26:05] Actually, my second book, TRAINING IN MOTION, is written for corporate trainers, and I worked in the corporate space for a while. I still do a little bit. Whenever I would try to go out this way, like the lane brings me back. It's very natural for me to be in front of teachers. I just know that world and know that audience very well, and so I'm comfortable there as well. THE PEAK PERFORMING TEACHER, this latest book could be THE PEAK PERFORMING anyone. I could edit that book in about an hour, remove some of the educational references and you have a book for anyone.
[00:26:40] At some point I may try to step out again and do some work or do some, whatever it might be, PD workshops for a population outside of education, but we'll see. So that's what keeps me in that space is my background, and my life is just generally about teachers.
[00:26:57] Matty: It would be interesting that there are two routes you could take if you decided to take the book and take out the teaching-specific references or the corporate-specific references and make it more generic, that would be a route. And I think the other route would be, you create another one for another audience. I'm pitching authors, because I think what you've said today has been and so helpful. And as an author, you can offer all those specific, you know, it's not like you're going to do the importance of movement for astronauts or something like that. Targeting a group of authors would be specific to your area of personal experience.
[00:27:31] So it is just an interesting business question, because for example, for the podcast, I’ve cast the net quite wide, it's the writing craft and the publishing voyage. So there's pretty much nothing that I can't talk with people about that interests me in those areas. But a lot of people are spinning up podcasts that are on, you know, fly fishing in Montana or whatever. I think it's an interesting strategic decision to make about one's business.
[00:27:52] Mike: You have to make those business decisions. My first love, I want to say this in a positive way, my first love is being in front of groups. I love speaking. I love professional development. It's just one of those things I'm good at in this life. Some people would rather put a needle in their eye than do that, but I happen to love it. So the books are not number one for me. I don't dislike writing, you know, I like writing, but it's a means to an end. And it's the space where people will hire me.
[00:28:20] So they have books, they see that, they read them, they see me present at conferences, et cetera, then they hire me to bring me into their schools or to speak at their conferences. And so that's one of the things that has kept me right in that space. But yeah, THE PEAK PERFORMING AUTHOR, I kind of like that ring.
[00:28:36] Matty: Yeah, if you need a co-author let me know. But it is a good other strategic business decision that you're really using your book as a calling card and an entree to your true love, which is speaking in front of groups, and I can see how that would steer you toward continuing with the teaching focus because each of those speaking engagements, you don't necessarily need to cast your net to include author conferences, because you only have so much time that you want to be on the road or on a Zoom, as the case may be, talking to people. And so it's another interesting strategic business question to consider.
[00:29:09] Mike: Those are all business decisions, you're absolutely right. There was a point in time in my career where I thought, I wonder what this would be like if I tried to do this consulting work full time. And I love my work that I do with Regional Training Center. And I just decided that I would have to be on the road so much, comes down to dollars and cents. And I just, at this point in my life, I don't think I want to, I like to travel, but generally I do work one or two times a month, maybe a little bit more sometimes, maybe a little bit less other. Pandemic changed everything, it was weird of course, everyone knows that. So yeah, those are definitely strategic business decisions.
[00:29:44] Matty: So I pride myself on being able to make a connection between any topics, as part of the podcast interview. Because I think the underlying theme is you have to know yourself. You have to know yourself, not only in when you're putting together your strategic and tactical business plan, and when you're deciding on your creative work, but even with things like exercise, I think you and I are a good point counterpoint because, we just have different attitudes about the enjoyableness of getting out there and moving around, like I'm just a desk person. But knowing those things about yourself means that somebody like me is never going to be motivated to run the Broad Street Run. But totally motivated by the assurance that if I can just get outside and walk for 20 minutes a day, that's better than nothing.
[00:30:27] Mike: Yes. And it's practical as well, because I have a publisher. You don't make a lot of money from books. They become your marketing arm. I will make more money in a day than I will in a year from a book, from my consulting work and my professional development. And so that's kind of hard too. So that becomes a practical decision. I know people that continue to write books. I just, I don't know if I'm that prolific, so we'll see.
[00:30:52] Matty: Yeah, all great points, and as I said, just great inspirational information. I think all my podcast interviews are going to bring people value, but I think this is one that can be life-changing because of exactly the things you were saying about the benefits of just getting up and moving around.
[00:31:08] Mike: Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
[00:31:10] Matty: So Mike, please let our viewers and listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and all you do online.
[00:31:16] Mike: Sure, they can go to MikeKuczala.com. It's a tough Polish last name, so it's Mike and K U C as in Charles, Z as in Zebra, A L A dot com, or they can go to https://www.thepeakperformingteacher.com/. And that's mostly about that work. MikeKuczala.com is a little bit more broad, with what I do with physical activity, et cetera. Then https://www.thepeakperformingteacher.com/ is focused on that book. And people can contact me through either one of those websites as well. It's always good to hear from people who might have a question or a comment.
[00:31:49] Matty: Great, and people I'm now directing people to go to the YouTube version of the podcast episode to comment, and so that would be another option for people as well. So, Mike, thank you so much, this has been so interesting and so fun.
[00:32:02] Mike: Thanks so much, Matty. It's always a pleasure to see you and I'm really appreciative have me on the show. Thank you.
[00:00:05] Mike: Great Matty. Happy to be here, and thanks so much for having me on.
[00:00:08] Matty: I am very pleased to have you here. So to give our listeners and our viewers a little bit of background on you, Mike Kuczala has delivered keynotes, given presentations, facilitated professional development and taught graduate courses on four continents on his area of expertise, the importance of movement to health and creativity.
[00:00:24] He is the co-author of THE KINESTHETIC CLASSROOM: TEACHING AND LEARNING THROUGH MOVEMENT, and the author of TRAINING IN MOTION: HOW TO USE MOVEMENT TO CREATE AN ENGAGING AND EFFECTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT, and READY, SET, GO! THE KINESTHETIC CLASSROOM 2.0. And his fourth book, THE PEAK PERFORMING TEACHER: 5 HABITS FOR SUCCESS, just launched in February of 2022. So congratulations, Mike.
[00:00:45] Mike: Thank you so much. I'm pretty excited about that project. And it's been getting a nice response and I get to do some work that is a little bit different from the physical activity space. So I'm pretty pleased with it. Thank you.
[00:00:56] Matty: Cool. Well, I think we might be introducing you to a slightly different audience than you usually speak to, but we're going to be talking generally about moving for health and creativity. And as I think the listeners and viewers can tell based on the bio I read, your focus has been mainly on movement related to health and creativity in the classroom. But I feel like there's so many lessons to be learned by writers who are trying to combat the ill effect of our sedentary work, our lack of movement.
[00:01:23] And so, I wanted to start out asking why kinesthetic, why an emphasis on movement and why isn't exercise in the name of your books?
[00:01:31] Mike: Because it's broader than that. Over the years, I've gone from using only the term movement to more physical activity, which more aptly describes what I do. Exercise is a subset. It's critical, it's important, there's so many advantages. We could talk about school related; I know that's not necessarily our topic today, we know that physically fit kids do better academically, and that can translate into being physically fit in life, and have it translate to better professional outcomes.
[00:02:03] Having said that, there's a larger picture about living a physical life and physical activity and movement, our body demands it. We're brain-body creatures and our brain thrives on it. As it turns out, the brain is the primary beneficiary of, not only aerobic activity, but also just movement. We're used to living sedentary lives with more and more screen time and it works against what we're trying to do in the cognitive space. The longer we sit, the less efficient we become.
[00:02:38] Matty: I'm not proud, so I'm going to hold myself as the bad example. So I left my corporate job in 2019 and launched into making a go of writing and publishing full-time, so I'm not just a writer, I'm a small business owner.
[00:02:52] And I realized that, I shouldn't say this like it's past tense, I realize that oftentimes my schedule is, I get up, I let the dogs out, I feed the dogs, I make myself a cup of tea, I sit down and honestly, for a period of time, I might not get up, except like maybe to get more tea, until five o'clock.
[00:03:12] And I realized that as minimal as my movement was when I was in the corporate world, at least I had to walk from the parking lot into the building, and it was a big building, so sometimes, I would have to cross the building in order to get to a meeting. And even that pathetic amount of exercise was better than what I do now.
[00:03:32] And obviously, and this is what I think we're going to be talking about more, if you're relying on movement in order to build creativity and to have your brain work optimally, that's not a good place for a writer or creator to be.
[00:03:44] Talk a little bit about what the downsides are of that kind of approach, where you're just sitting and sitting for hours at a time.
[00:03:49] Mike: What happens when you sit for too long, is that blood pools in your butt and legs. And that's not what we're after. Yeah. When I'm working with teachers, I tell them that works against what we're trying to do in the classroom. And it works against what we're trying to do as writers.
[00:04:07] The other thing that happens is, and I think we've all experienced this, unless there's a real intense emotional engagement, when we sit for too long, the brain says, hey, you've been sitting for a while. You must be sleepy. And I'm going to do a little chemical brain dance, I don't need to get into all the names of the neurotransmitters. It's not important, but it makes you sleepier. And we sit for too long and get lethargic, the blood pools, and the brain is set up to shut down.
[00:04:34] And as writers, that can hamper us. That's not what we're after at all. And when I'm working on a project, because there's times when I sit. Just a quick aside here, the obvious thing is to have a standing desk, and I'll get back to that in a moment, but I do sit more than I'd like to. But the longest I'll ever go is 30 minutes because I can't take it. 20 to 25 minutes is more like it. I'm up all the time. I just take pride in living a physical life and it doesn't mean I have to kill myself exercising, but it just means being physical and using our bodies.
[00:05:09] The other thing too, let me say this, that we cramp our breathing systems. If we're trying to breathe deeply and properly, we're trying to use our diaphragms and our lower half of our torso versus this very shallow chest breathing. And so when we stand up, we have a better opportunity to do that.
[00:05:27] And you know what, researchers are suggesting is that culturally, we sit for long periods of time and when we want to take a break, we stand up for a couple of minutes. When what they're suggesting is, hey, we should look at learning and doing and working from a standing perspective, and when we want to take a break, we just sit down for a couple of minutes, which is fine, but it's opposite of that. It's where we're at.
[00:05:51] And I'm glad to see workspaces and classroom spaces, they're shifting and changing, I'm sorry to say, not in a great way, but it is happening. I've seen classrooms where kids are moving all the time. They have equipment that facilitates that. I've seen corporate spaces where that happens. So there's a lot of downside to being creative and to being our best cognitively when we are just putting ourselves to sleep here in a chair.
[00:06:18] Matty: I actually do have a standing desk. In fact, the desk that I use for podcasting, which is not the desk I normally use for writing, because the desk I use for writing has a nicer view out the backyard, but I have a standing desk, an adjustable desk, and then under it, I actually have a under the desk treadmill. Sounds perfect, right?
[00:06:38] So my plan was that I would set aside a certain amount of time a day to do something which would lend itself to me walking on the treadmill. I can't really write. I find that trying to walk on the treadmill and type or do work doesn't work for me, and just standing doesn't work for me, because I have arthritis in my hips and very quickly it starts to bother my hips, but I thought if I do something where I'm just watching, like watching a webinar or watching a how-to video on YouTube or something like that, my plan was, and I'm kind of hoping my conversation with you will be a marker to make me do this, is to set aside a certain amount of time every day to do that, to say, okay, from four to five every day, I'm going to go watch a Masterclass about backstory or whatever. And during that time I'm going to walk on the treadmill.
[00:07:26] But I think that the issue for many people is, it's always like the thing you're going to do tomorrow. So do you have any tips for getting past that, I'm going to move more tomorrow, I swear?
[00:07:39] Mike: We are pain-pleasure creatures. And I write about that in this latest book. Our brain has a scale, pain-pleasure, and we are constantly weighing the outcomes with every decision we make. And so what I'd like to tell people is to think about what it will cost you. Because our brain will often do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. So what will it cost you if you do wait until tomorrow, and the next day and the next day and the next week and the next month and the next year and the next five or 10 years? What's that going to cost your life?
[00:08:13] What's it going to cost your creative process if you don't do this now? The greatest power we all have is the ability to act now. And, you know, gearing our brains up to understand the pleasure that we can gain, but even more powerfully, the pain that we can avoid, through our mental processes is one way to get ourselves to act now. And to do it more quickly than you have yourself set up for.
[00:08:42] And we are talking about standing desks and treadmill desks, and you could just start where you're setting up your phone to buzz every 20 minutes, 30 minutes, get yourself up for two or three or five minutes. Get your blood flow. When we stand up, we get about 10% more blood and oxygen flow around the brain and body, and that's what we're after. So know that getting in the front end of this is going to help our creative process. So yeah, I think using that pain-pleasure principle to your advantage is how we can get ourselves to act more quickly than procrastinating.
[00:09:16] Because procrastinating is a pain-pleasure decision. We all do it. We procrastinate because the pain of doing something is greater than the pleasure of getting it done. And when two pains come up side by side, all of a sudden, oh, I need to get in shape. My doctor says if I don't, I'm going to have health issues, then the greater pain wins. So instead of having two pains come side by side, working proactively to get ahead of the curve can help us make better decisions.
[00:09:47] Matty: The other piece of exercise equipment I have that I actually use more often than I do the under the desk treadmill, is that I have a mini elliptical. I'm actually, I like this so much, I'm going to put a link in the show notes to my mini elliptical. It's small enough, I think it's 30 pounds, but it's small enough, I actually got one of those firewood carriers, like a strip of heavy canvas with handles in the end, and I can easily move it around. So I can move it to a different window, if the view out the window is nicer.
[00:10:15] And I enjoy it. Like I enjoy the motion, it's easy on my hips. It's very sturdy. But I find that the trick is finding a way to remind myself. And I know if I got like a smart watch this would probably take care of it for me, but do you have tips if people don't have a smart watch, of just tips to remind you to do these kinds of things?
[00:10:37] Mike: Yeah, I'm just, it's so ingrained in me that I take it for granted. I just have this physical need to get up after I've been sitting for a little while. Because it doesn't feel good. You start to get really stiff. So what I do sometimes, I'll set the alarm on my phone. Most people have some kind of smart device that they can set the alarm at 30 minutes, and it just goes off and it reminds you. Maybe you set it with a great piece of music that's motivating and can get you up and moving and going. I think that's my best tip, is to set an alarm.
[00:11:10] There are devices out there, standing devices that have you set first, and then when the alarm goes, it actually stands you up. The machine pushes you up and out of your seat. So that's even better. They're not cheap. I don't have one of those, but I think that could be pretty effective. So I think just setting the alarm.
[00:11:32] Or if you're working on paragraphs or chapters, you tell yourself, hey, when I'm done with this page, when I'm done with these three paragraphs, when I'm done with this particular chapter, I'm going to stand up and move around for five minutes before I get back to work.
[00:11:44] Matty: Yeah. I think that the idea of having an alarm is important because for myself, I find that if I'm sitting there, I could sit there for an hour and a half and really not be moving anything except my fingers on the keyboard. And then I don't notice until I go to stand up, how stiff I am. And so having that alarm to remind me that I'm going to pay the price, I'm going to experience the pain if I don't move around a bit, is I think a good idea.
[00:12:08] The other thing I wanted to loop back on is, we were talking about the pain- pleasure motivators, and I think that one of the most difficult things for me, and I'm speaking now as a small business owner even more than I am as a writer, is that if I get up in the morning and I say, I'm going to work on my fiction from eight to noon. And then I have this list of tasks, I need to upload a new file for a book, or I have to get a podcast episode ready, or I have to edit an article that I'm supposed to submit or whatever, each of those has a benefit associated with it. It's a clear benefit to me. Let's say I find a typo in a book, and I upload an updated file, there's a concrete benefit that that has, and a concrete cost that has if I don't do it. I'm going to make some reader unhappy when they get to that page and there's a typo and it hasn't been fixed.
[00:12:59] So it's very immediate, as opposed to the pain you're going to experience if you don't exercise is somehow more theoretical. Do you know what I mean? Is there a mindset people can bring so that the immediacy of the need to exercise or to move is as immediate as the need to upload the new file or edit the article or prepare the podcast episode?
[00:13:21] Mike: Yeah, and actually, when you're talking about exercise, it has moved beyond theoretical. We just know beyond a shadow of a doubt what exercise does for your life and let's put all the muscle, vascular, lung capacity, et cetera aside, we're talking about your brain. So we know these things now, that it balances your neurochemicals, your neurotransmitters. We know that it causes brain cells to talk to each other in networks in a more constructive way.
[00:13:50] We know that exercise unleashes levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which are critical for learning. You become a better author, you just do, I know this. You become a better author when you exercise, when you're physically fit, but also when you move. It's one of those things where, when you're talking about there's an immediate benefit, I would just practice it and then see the immediate benefit in your own life.
[00:14:17] It's probably the only way that you can do it: experience it. Get up, it's worth the two or three or four or five minutes, come back and you're going to feel refreshed. And that will help you to make a better pain-pleasure choice when you're sitting down to write. You're just going to be more effective and you're going to feel better. And you might be able to work a little bit longer that day, if that's something that you want to do.
[00:14:39] So I think it's experience and understanding how it feels and understanding the benefits to you very personally. So once you make it a habit, if you don't do it, then it becomes problematic and you'll notice, oh my gosh, I didn't do this.
[00:14:56] This is a little bit of aside, but I've been a regular meditator for like three decades. And if I have a day where I can't do it, I'm like, oh my gosh, when can I sit down to do this? And I notice it. The same thing will happen once you begin to move more. It's going to become habit. It takes a while to change habits, and then you're going to notice the difference if you don't do it, and it is going to be better for your writing and your creativity.
[00:15:18] Matty: Yeah, I don't think anyone would argue about the benefits of exercise. It's that, I know it in my head versus I'm acting on it in my life kind of dichotomy.
[00:15:29] And I think that the other thing is, and I'm going to point listeners and viewers to two episodes. One is episode way back in 45. This episode was NINE THINGS CAREER AUTHORS DON'T DO: EXERCISE with J Thorn. So it's obviously a problem for a lot of us.
[00:15:46] And one of the things that J and I talked about, and I'm interested to get your perspective on this, so clearly, you're at like a naturally active person and I'm the counterpoint as the naturally sedentary person. One of the things that I find really demotivating about exercise is I could say, you know what, I'm going to commit to get up twice a day, I'm going to go out for a 20-minute walk with the dogs and get moving. That's going to be great.
[00:16:08] But that's never it. You do the 40 minutes of walking a day and then there's always the next thing you should do. It's okay, fine, but you really need to do weight training or, sure, but now you need to be doing this other thing. And I think that another thing that holds me back is, okay, if whatever I do is never going to be enough, then why bother? What are your thoughts about that?
[00:16:28] Mike: Well, I want to take your angst away and let you know that walking is enough. So I've been a weightlifter for 30, 35 years. And my wife and I play pickle ball regularly, and I like to ride my mountain bike and I like to golf. I just like a physical life, because it has so many benefits for me. Another topic.
[00:16:49] You don't have to do anything else. If all you can do is walk, that's fantastic. If you're walking twice a day for 20 minutes, just 11 minutes of exercise a day can increase our life expectancy and our lifespan. So I want to take your angst away. If you ever feel like you want to lift weights, it's good for our bones as we age, et cetera, but walking is perfect. It can be social; it can be mindful. It's a stress reliever. It just gets the blood flow around our brain and bodies. And if you don't ever do another thing, don't worry about it. Just continue to walk, and there's great benefits around that. So you're good.
[00:17:32] Matty: This in itself, like the last 60 seconds has made this whole episode worth it for me, and I'm hoping for others as well.
[00:17:39] The other episode I want to point people to is a more recent one, Episode 118, THE MARTIAL ART OF WRITING with Alan Baxter. That in general, was a conversation about lessons that Alan, who is a martial arts practitioner has brought to his writing experience and how those two areas are similar and different. But he does have a part about the importance of movement. And exactly, as you were saying before, it's not like he gets up and runs five miles. He gets up and stretches or he does a pushup, or he goes to get tea, walks around the house while he is waiting for it to brew or something like that. So another good resource for people who are looking for more inspiration.
[00:18:16] Mike: It's just about looking for moments to move versus being sedentary. Walking around the house while your tea brews is great. It's better than sitting. When I'm at an airport, instead of sitting and waiting for the plane, I put my backpack on and I just walk the airport, because I know that that's better for me than taking that half hour or 45 minutes of sitting. So you don't have to slay the world in a physical way. You can just walk.
[00:18:43] Or stretch. As we get older, all of this changes. And I consider my stretching routine, which I got from a practice that is called Svaroopa® yoga, and it's a part of my movement life. Friends that do really intense yoga make fun of me, because I'm not good at yoga. It's just not my thing, but this kind of yoga, the stretches are held in these wonderful positions for up to three to five minutes. It feels so good. And I consider that very soft, slow movement a part of my physical life. So it can look many different ways for different people.
[00:19:16] Matty: That sounds very appealing to me. I think I would enjoy that.
[00:19:18] Mike: It's Svaroopa® yoga, and when you look at online, it centers around four magic poses. Everybody can do it, most everyone, and it'll be great, it's good stuff.
[00:19:28]
[00:20:01] Matty: So I want to hit a topic, and we probably should have talked about this before, but we've been talking generally about the cognitive benefits of physical activity. and this I think, is what is going to be most attractive to the viewers and listeners. Like how can making this effort improve either my creative efforts or my business efforts, if they're publishing themselves? Can you talk a little bit about what's behind that?
[00:20:25] Mike: Yeah, so I want to talk a little bit about how a physical life can increase motivation. And it does that for me on a daily basis.
[00:20:34] I'm not expecting listeners of the show to do this, but examples of how my physical life has transformed the rest of my life, that your physical life is critical to your emotional life, that your physical life is critical to your intellectual life. That your physical life is critical to your academic life. That your physical life is critical to your social life. That your physical life is critical to a successful life.
[00:20:58] I'll give you three quick examples, what I'm talking about. Back when I was a long time ago, 20 years old was the last time I entered a bodybuilding competition. I wasn't very good at it, I was an average competitor, but the weight room transformed my life. It gave me desire, dedication, discipline I had never known. And right after that, I became a music major and I had never played a note of music in my life, but I credit my physical life for being able to partake in that.
[00:21:29] In 2009, I ran my first Broad Street Run. I had never run more than four miles ever, and I'm a social guy and my friends were doing it. I'm like, okay, I'm in. And it was February. The race was in May. So I had to increase this to 10 miles. And the race was so invigorating. I finished like 8,000, like 25,000 people. I wasn't looking to win, just to experience the physicality of it all. When I crossed the finish line that day, for the first time in my life, I think I was 43 at the time, I felt like I could take on anything. And that great gift came from my physical life and less than eight months after that race completed, my first book was published, and I still credit my physical life for bringing that to me.
[00:22:14] And when my dad got sick and died, it put me in a tailspin back in about 2014, 15, and I just didn't know what to do. I was just not well, mentally, physically, I wasn't eating well, sleeping well, exercising at all. And finally, it was my physical life that pulled me out of it. It was my ability to mountain bike, my ability to be on a yoga mat, my ability to be in the weight room, at the time to run, and it brought me back from grief I had never known before.
[00:22:45] So I purposefully use my physical life to create success in my life. Many other ways to do that. That's how it's worked out for me, and I think people and authors can take bits of that and use their physical self to be a better version of themselves.
[00:23:04] I just know that to be true, that they can use this purposefully, even if it's walking. If you can walk five minutes one week, you can walk seven the next, you can walk 10 the next, you can walk 25 the next, and start to transform yourself from a physical perspective.
[00:23:21] So I hope that answered your question a little bit.
[00:23:23] Matty: Yeah, that was a lovely answer. And it also made me think of another aspect. I mean, many of the things we've been talking about, at least I've been talking about, are more solitary things like jumping up and getting in my elliptical for a few minutes. But you had talked about the fact that you running the Broad Street Run was as a result of you wanting to do something that your buddies were doing. Are there other tips, especially because you're an author, you've lived this life, ways that you can engage others, especially other authors, to support each other in this?
[00:23:56] Mike: Sure, we live in an online world and so I think that's a great way to do it. It could be a Facebook group. It could be just staying connected virtually. This is interesting too, you bring this up, I rarely do things alone, when I'm exercising. I do, but I have a workout partner in the gym, I have a mountain bike partner that I ride with, I have pickle ball that I play with lots of people.
[00:24:23] So being social with it keeps you accountable. And so if you have a group of authors that say, hey, we keep each other accountable by meeting in the park, 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, we're going to walk for 30 minutes and then go back to our work. Being social has really helped me to continue the workout, because it's harder to say, you know what, I can't make it today, or I can't do it today, if someone's counting on me being there.
[00:24:50] So I think that is a great way for authors to put themselves in pairs or in small groups, to be physical together and do better work as a result.
[00:25:01] Matty: So cool. It's all very inspirational. I'll have to have you back in six months and let you know how things are going. I did want to ask you about something, this is totally different, but the titles of your books indicate that you're very focused on teaching in the classroom. So you have this general area of expertise about moving for health and creativity, I'll say, and you've chosen to focus very specifically on teachers in the classroom and students, and I'm always interested when people make that decision about, do I go wide for my audience, or do I go specific for my audience? I'm wondering what led to you to the decision to go specific in that area.
[00:25:39] Mike: Yeah, it's just the space I live in. So I come from a family of teachers, wife, sister, both parents, three grandparents, and a cousin. It's just what we do in my family. So that I think that's really the big driving force and motivator behind that decision. I work for a company that offers graduate courses for teachers, I'm the academic director. And so every day, I'm dealing with educational issues and it's a natural thing for me.
[00:26:05] Actually, my second book, TRAINING IN MOTION, is written for corporate trainers, and I worked in the corporate space for a while. I still do a little bit. Whenever I would try to go out this way, like the lane brings me back. It's very natural for me to be in front of teachers. I just know that world and know that audience very well, and so I'm comfortable there as well. THE PEAK PERFORMING TEACHER, this latest book could be THE PEAK PERFORMING anyone. I could edit that book in about an hour, remove some of the educational references and you have a book for anyone.
[00:26:40] At some point I may try to step out again and do some work or do some, whatever it might be, PD workshops for a population outside of education, but we'll see. So that's what keeps me in that space is my background, and my life is just generally about teachers.
[00:26:57] Matty: It would be interesting that there are two routes you could take if you decided to take the book and take out the teaching-specific references or the corporate-specific references and make it more generic, that would be a route. And I think the other route would be, you create another one for another audience. I'm pitching authors, because I think what you've said today has been and so helpful. And as an author, you can offer all those specific, you know, it's not like you're going to do the importance of movement for astronauts or something like that. Targeting a group of authors would be specific to your area of personal experience.
[00:27:31] So it is just an interesting business question, because for example, for the podcast, I’ve cast the net quite wide, it's the writing craft and the publishing voyage. So there's pretty much nothing that I can't talk with people about that interests me in those areas. But a lot of people are spinning up podcasts that are on, you know, fly fishing in Montana or whatever. I think it's an interesting strategic decision to make about one's business.
[00:27:52] Mike: You have to make those business decisions. My first love, I want to say this in a positive way, my first love is being in front of groups. I love speaking. I love professional development. It's just one of those things I'm good at in this life. Some people would rather put a needle in their eye than do that, but I happen to love it. So the books are not number one for me. I don't dislike writing, you know, I like writing, but it's a means to an end. And it's the space where people will hire me.
[00:28:20] So they have books, they see that, they read them, they see me present at conferences, et cetera, then they hire me to bring me into their schools or to speak at their conferences. And so that's one of the things that has kept me right in that space. But yeah, THE PEAK PERFORMING AUTHOR, I kind of like that ring.
[00:28:36] Matty: Yeah, if you need a co-author let me know. But it is a good other strategic business decision that you're really using your book as a calling card and an entree to your true love, which is speaking in front of groups, and I can see how that would steer you toward continuing with the teaching focus because each of those speaking engagements, you don't necessarily need to cast your net to include author conferences, because you only have so much time that you want to be on the road or on a Zoom, as the case may be, talking to people. And so it's another interesting strategic business question to consider.
[00:29:09] Mike: Those are all business decisions, you're absolutely right. There was a point in time in my career where I thought, I wonder what this would be like if I tried to do this consulting work full time. And I love my work that I do with Regional Training Center. And I just decided that I would have to be on the road so much, comes down to dollars and cents. And I just, at this point in my life, I don't think I want to, I like to travel, but generally I do work one or two times a month, maybe a little bit more sometimes, maybe a little bit less other. Pandemic changed everything, it was weird of course, everyone knows that. So yeah, those are definitely strategic business decisions.
[00:29:44] Matty: So I pride myself on being able to make a connection between any topics, as part of the podcast interview. Because I think the underlying theme is you have to know yourself. You have to know yourself, not only in when you're putting together your strategic and tactical business plan, and when you're deciding on your creative work, but even with things like exercise, I think you and I are a good point counterpoint because, we just have different attitudes about the enjoyableness of getting out there and moving around, like I'm just a desk person. But knowing those things about yourself means that somebody like me is never going to be motivated to run the Broad Street Run. But totally motivated by the assurance that if I can just get outside and walk for 20 minutes a day, that's better than nothing.
[00:30:27] Mike: Yes. And it's practical as well, because I have a publisher. You don't make a lot of money from books. They become your marketing arm. I will make more money in a day than I will in a year from a book, from my consulting work and my professional development. And so that's kind of hard too. So that becomes a practical decision. I know people that continue to write books. I just, I don't know if I'm that prolific, so we'll see.
[00:30:52] Matty: Yeah, all great points, and as I said, just great inspirational information. I think all my podcast interviews are going to bring people value, but I think this is one that can be life-changing because of exactly the things you were saying about the benefits of just getting up and moving around.
[00:31:08] Mike: Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
[00:31:10] Matty: So Mike, please let our viewers and listeners know where they can go to find out more about you and all you do online.
[00:31:16] Mike: Sure, they can go to MikeKuczala.com. It's a tough Polish last name, so it's Mike and K U C as in Charles, Z as in Zebra, A L A dot com, or they can go to https://www.thepeakperformingteacher.com/. And that's mostly about that work. MikeKuczala.com is a little bit more broad, with what I do with physical activity, et cetera. Then https://www.thepeakperformingteacher.com/ is focused on that book. And people can contact me through either one of those websites as well. It's always good to hear from people who might have a question or a comment.
[00:31:49] Matty: Great, and people I'm now directing people to go to the YouTube version of the podcast episode to comment, and so that would be another option for people as well. So, Mike, thank you so much, this has been so interesting and so fun.
[00:32:02] Mike: Thanks so much, Matty. It's always a pleasure to see you and I'm really appreciative have me on the show. Thank you.
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Mike! Is there a change you’re going to make to introduce more movement into your life—and to reap the benefits in terms of both health and creativity?
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
However, I don’t get notifications of comments posted here, which means I may miss some, and my website builder doesn’t enable commenters to respond to a specific comment, which makes it hard to engage in any kind of dialogue. So I’m recommending that you post any comments on YouTube. Just scroll to the top of this page and click the YouTube link to leave a comment on this or on any other aspect of the show—and to chat with your fellow creative voyagers!
