#WALK30: Transforming Communities through Movement with Stephen Ives

On this Inside the Texas Heart Studio episode, Dr. Joseph G. Rogers sits down with Stephen Ives, the President and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Houston, to discuss a new campaign launch encouraging people everywhere to #WALK30.

Join them as they discuss these topics:

• The importance of integrating movement into daily life.
• Some benefits of walking for cardiovascular health.
• The power of community in sustaining healthy lifestyles. 
• Innovative approaches to promoting exercise.
• Accountability partners in fitness journeys.
• Upcoming initiatives from the YMCA aimed at fostering active communities.

For more information regarding #WALK30, visit  texasheart.org/tag/walk30

Watch On Demand Videos on Texas Heart TV

Visit Our Website: texasheart.org

Chapters

• 0:14 #Walk30 Campaign
• 1:19 The Concept of Connectivity
• 3:12 Work-Life Integration
• 5:05 Future YMCA Programs & Initiatives
• 6:12 Benefits of Walking

Transcript

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Hi, it's Joe Rogers president and CEO of the Texas

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 Heart Institute. And I'm pleased to be joined today by

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 Steve Ives. Who's the CEO of

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 the Greater Houston YMCA Steve. Thanks for

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 joining us. Well, thank you for having me. We've had a great time this morning

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 talking about Fitness and the things that we all can do

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 to improve our our cardiovascular fitness

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 and we're specifically talking about it in the context of a new

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 program that's going to be rolling out in Houston in 2023

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 called walk 30 and

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 I'm interested to hear what your perspectives are

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 on this kind of an exercise

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 program for our community and how you're planning to

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 participate and Advance the initiatives

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 around a healthy lifestyle.

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Thank you. Thanks for having me and I I'd say first and

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 foremost whenever a community commits to something and chose

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 their intentionality and key leaders get out in front

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 of it and speak into it and then actually behave in

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 the ways that we're suggesting it makes a huge difference. It really

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 helps people to appreciate and understand and believe in

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 that as a thing. So the thing we're talking about

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 is 30 minutes of walking every day. I think this idea

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 of modeling behaviors that we find important

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 is going to be critical for us as leaders

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 in the community. Absolutely.

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So one of the things that really caught my

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 attention in our discussions before we started taping was

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 you're this concept of connectivity with

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 others. So how important that is

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 in not only getting a program like this

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 up and running but even the harder part is sustaining an

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 over time. We all make commitments to our Healthy Lifestyles

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 over and over and over again and sometimes we're

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 more successful for longer periods of times than

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 others, but at the end of the day when we have accountability Partners

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 be a spouse be a child be a

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 neighbor the person we meet at the gym or people that we

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 walk within the neighborhood. We're much more likely to stick

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 with it and it's because of that connectivity and that relationship

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 that happens when we're in relationship with other people

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 and other thing happens and that is that our hearts and

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 our souls and our our Spirits are lifted up

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 and we're sitting here the sense we're not alone and I think there's too

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 many people feeling alone out there trying to fix whatever problem

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 they might have or to improve their lifestyle.

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you know one of the other things that we talked about and I think as an

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 important theme is as how as

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A community or just all of us in general

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 tend to live our lives in.

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And time silos, right? You know that we spend a

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 certain amount of time at work. We spend a certain amount of time preparing

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 dinner. We spend a certain amount of time,

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 you know doing a number of other things and I

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 think that one of the challenges that we face in promoting

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 exercise is that we try to

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 carve out time right to exercise

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 and we're all so busy, there's

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 so much time pressure that we find

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 it hard to fit that into our full pack today

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 what kinds of recommendations do you have for

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 people to try to to think

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 about exercising and movement in a

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 different way. I guess, you know, there's this thing

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 we keep talking about which is work life balance and we

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 can talk about this work Wellness or health balance and

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 I just I think that sets us up like

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 we've got it as you said we've got our time for work and our time for taking

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 care of ourselves. I think as much as we can merge those two things

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 together and find ways through our

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Work life be it going for a walk to when you're

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 having a meeting walking to the next meeting when the

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 weather permits getting up

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 in the morning and having your phone call while you're walking with

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 earbuds in all of those kinds of things send a

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 strong message. I think we're in a world right now, especially post covid where

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 if you're if you're walking and taking

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 a phone call, it's much more understood acceptable

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 believed in I think that's one of the gifts of the last couple

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 of years is that we can do virtual kinds of

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 things and so being on a phone call while you're walking is another one

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 of those virtual things. You don't have to be sitting in your office to do

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 this or driving in your car to do that. So, I

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 think just breaking that cycle of we've got to balance this. I've

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 got to carve out these 30 minutes in separate from

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 my work life and to make it part of

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 the work life part of the work day is I think a great example people

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 like you and I can give to our colleagues. Yeah. I heard

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 a really great concept A couple

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 of years ago that it's not

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The person that was promoting. This idea was not

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 promoting work-life bouncy. We're promoting work life integration,

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 you know, and it's really the two things have

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 to fit together, correct. And so I

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 I really like this idea of integrating Right

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 movement and exercise into just

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 our daily lives. I think that that's how we're we're going

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 to bend the curve. I think a little bit on on people

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 getting out and exercising. So tell me a little bit. What's the what's

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 what's the YMCA thinking about in the

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 next year in terms of new programs and initiatives that that

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 will benefit our community so

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 we know first of all we've we're doing a whole lot

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 more Outdoors. So in our buildings, we've created outdoor

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 spaces and recognizing that not everybody's comfortable

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 being indoors and quite frankly. We live in a climate

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 where it's possible to be outdoors a whole lot more than other places. So

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 we're we're moving outside the walls of our YMCA with

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 much of our Fitness Wellness programs Not

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 Just Sports, but

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Bigger than that we're recognizing that what people want more

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 than anything is not just to have a

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 great treadmill to walk on and a really nice fit in

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 the center or a gym or a pool to swim. And what they really

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 want need is to be part of a club part of a tribe part of a

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 community that's doing something active and the

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 clubs activities that we'll be coordinating

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 and organizing in the coming years are just going to ramp up

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 because we've got some great examples of that some running clubs out

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 of some of our Lives. Why is that have really come

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 out organically, you know, it's been mostly member driven and

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 so we're just gonna pour gasoline on that add some

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 more, you know encouragement for that happening at

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 a greater level in community.

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What are the other things I really enjoyed about our discussion

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 was?

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The emphasis that you put on the benefits

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 of walking. Hmm. And and you know, I we

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 talked a little bit about the fact that you were quite a high-performing athlete

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 at one point. Yeah, but but

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 it's interesting now because you it

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 sounds like you're doing much more walking right done the

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 same thing. I spend a lot of time my free time. Yeah and

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 my exercise time just walking right and

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 I think that there are great benefits. It's

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Cheap, you know, as you

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 know, there's a lot of places to walk in Houston

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 and the climate, you know, well allows us to

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 get out and spend a lot of time Outdoors, but I I

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 support this idea as in from

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 a cardiovascular perspective. I think walking is

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 a terrific way right to try to maintain some

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 cardiovascular health and certainly has

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 great benefits in terms of

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blood pressure and blood sugars and

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 all of the things that our communities are struggling with from a

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 health perspective. I wonder if you know you would elaborate a

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 little bit. I'm sure benefits of walking sure.

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Well, I'll make it personal so for my wife and I

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 when we go on vacation, there's multiple hikes. That's

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 how we see the place the new region that we're

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 in climb a mountain walk on a path going on a

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 beach whatever it might be. It's just a whole different way of

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 experiencing space together but also relationships, you

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 know, when the best talks we have are when

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 we're out moving, you know, not sequestered to

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 a couch or a chair and I think

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 the same thing happens with my friends and my family and quite frankly

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 work colleagues do we'll go out to Camp Cullen and

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 walk around Camp Cullen solve. A lot of the world's problems when

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 you when you're doing those kinds of things in a different way. So

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 but you also have that connection that sense of we're in

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 relationship together differently than you and I sinning

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 now, we're friends now we've met and we've spent some time together

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 and being share a lot of similar World Views and

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 ideas around how to build a healthier Community. But when

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 we go on a walk together to go to a whole other level, I

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 think this is a wonderful Community for urban

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Hiking and I sort of

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 laugh every time I take off out of my building on the weekends and

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 think okay, I'm gonna go out and take a several mile

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 Urban hike today. I think the the bayous the

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 Memorial Park the multiple parks around the

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 around the region create wonderful

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 opportunities. I'm quite frankly the streets, you know, it's our

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 city neighborhoods even good sidewalks wide

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 streets. You can get to them if they're not right in

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 front of you. That's where I actually have gotten to know my

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 neighbors, you know, we're out on our walk and they see us with the dog and they

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 remember us, you know, so now we're not strangers in

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 the city. We are actually friends with or at least

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 known to people in our neighborhood. Yeah, really

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 enjoyed you taking the time and thanks for coming

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 over to the Texas Heart Institute today, and I'm looking forward

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 to partnering with you in the next year and Beyond as

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 we continue to promote walking and health

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 in our community agreed. I think you and I can be living examples of

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 that as we take to the streets ourselves, but also continue

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 to

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People walking 30 minutes every day. Sounds great

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 Steve. Thanks again. Thank you.