Larry Espinoza's Blog

Sometimes I'm Wrong...

2011-10-11T13:24:00.001-05:00

If you spent asmany years as I did in a parochial educational system (like me) then you wereprogrammed. Programmed to embrace a particular life-death-eternity-heaven-hellparadigm. The people who taught me as a child didn’t make vague suggestionsabout how things worked (when it came to all matters religious). No, they spokein absolutes. There were no options or alternatives. The other religions perhapsweren’t wrong but we were right.

Shame about myspiritually-bankrupt and eternally-lost non-Christian friends. Oh well, atleast I’m going to heaven. J

On some level,we’ve all been programmed, manipulated, coerced and influenced into many of ourcurrent beliefs. Our current world view. That’s not to say that the people inour world have intentionally manipulated or coerced us but without doubt, theyhave influenced us (for good or bad) nonetheless. It happens automatically,constantly and often, unconsciously. It’s an unavoidable byproduct of beingaround people we trust, respect and love. On some level, we’ve all been shapedand influenced by others and, in turn, we will reciprocate.

Every day, forgood or bad, consciously or not, we will influence and be influenced.

If you are aregular reader of my words then you have been influenced by me. In fact, that’sone of my key objectives; to influence people towards their best lives. If youexpose yourself to my ideas, thoughts and ramblings on a regular basis then youcan’t help but be impacted in some way, big or small, by what you read here.Whether that impact is a positive or a negative in your world, is for you tojudge. As I’ve said many times before, your job is not to accept what I say asgospel but, rather, to consider it and see if it resonates with you. If youconsider it to be relevant and potentially valuable, then do something with it.If not, ignore it and move on.

I’m just a guywith a few ideas.

So, in themiddle of all this influence, the challenge for you and me is to discover whatwe truly know beyond what we’ve been told, exposed to and coerced to accept asnon-negotiable fact. Like it or not, want it or not, people have lied to us.Mislead us. Manipulated us. Some of us have been programmed not to askquestions. Not to doubt. Not to challenge. Not to think for ourselves. Not toconsider an alternative philosophy.

The moment westart to ask intelligent questions, to doubt (certain things) and to trulythink independently is the moment we begin to discover our authentic selves andto learn our own truth. The “us” beyondthe influence, the programming and the expectations. It’s also the moment westop being an agent for someone else’s ideas, beliefs, thinking and rules.

The older Iget, the less I know. Or so it seems. These days, I’m wrong so often that Ialways keep a fresh supply of humble pie in the fridge.

I don’t knowabout you, but there have been times in my life when I accepted certain thingssimply because it was the path of least resistance and I didn’t want to dealwith the potential consequences of being the one to step out of line. And therewere times when I believed things because those beliefs made me comfortable.They suited me. I wore them like old ill-fitting clothes. I wanted them to betrue so much that I wouldn’t consider listening to anyone who might challengemy thinking or my non-negotiable beliefs. I now know that attitude was allabout my fear.

Sometimes, thepersonal-growth journey is all about learning.

Sometimes it’sabout unlearning.

Let me knowwhat you think –

Til’ next time…

2011-10-05T14:21:00.000-05:00

In my twenty-five (plus) years of managing gyms, owning gyms and working on gym floors, I’d say that about one person per year asked me about my qualifications and academic background. Yep, one person. In my time as a trainer, I personally completed more than 40,000 (mostly one-on-one) sessions. That’s a lot of listening and observing, I can tell you. During that time, rarely did a client ask me a technical or scientific question and rarely, did I talk about myself or my life beyond the walls of the gym.

Physical or Psychological?

Yes, I would give them relevant advice, direction and feedback regarding their physical transformation (of course) but mostly, what we talked about was not the science of the getting-in-shape experience (as such) but rather, the people stuff that drives the whole process. We spoke about their feelings, beliefs and fears. Their family. Their history. Their experiences. Their expectations, hopes, dreams and goals. In short, we spoke about them. Their purpose. Their reality. Their life. Why? Because (1) people love to talk about themselves (2) they like someone else to care (3) they want someone to be genuinely invested in their transformation and (4) the session was always about them – not me.

What People Want

I started working in gyms when I was eighteen. Before I was nineteen I realized that my greatest asset as a trainer and coach would be my ability to make people feel valued, respected and important. Nearly thirty years down the track, my advice for anyone in a teaching, coaching, mentoring and/or management (type) role is to pay attention, ask great questions, pay more attention and talk about you only when necessary

What do you think?

2009-11-04T12:45:00.003-06:00

Your beliefs become your thoughts

Your thoughts become your words

Your words become your actions

Your actions become your habits

Your habits become your values

Your values become your destiny...

Til next time...

Thought for the day…

2009-10-30T09:34:00.002-05:00

Whatever obstacles you face today,
I hope they can be solved this easily!

Man plans, God…

2009-10-26T09:44:00.001-05:00

Have you ever had just one of those days that no matter which way you turned you ran into some sort of road block? Maybe you've had one of those months' even years? I know I have… I just have to believe that has to be someone or something trying to give you a message or something. More often than not, it seems to me that the prevailing way of living in our Western society is to plan out our lives, both for the long term and on a day-to-day basis.

We have planners and digital calendars that map out our lives, sometimes to the minute. We feel we're in control, with elaborate planning like this. But I think having such elaborate planning is an illusion. Hold on; don't tune me out – yet.

I just don't think we can control our lives to such a finite degree, no matter how we try. Things will always come up to spoil the best-laid plans, and the more detailed our plans the more of a guarantee that something will go wrong.

Then when our plans go afoul? We get stressed out – we stress sometimes to the point of neurosis, because things get out of our control and don't live up to our expectations. After listening to people for 25 plus years, I'm sure that I can relay story after story of how this is one of the greatest sources of stress, disappointment, divorce, etc… for most people.

Think about how often your days actually go according to plan, exactly — it's pretty rare, because we have no way of predicting the future. No matter how hard we try. There's always an email that will disrupt things, a last-minute meeting, cancellations and postponements, emergencies and fires to put out.

So if plans will almost always go wrong, and when they do we get stressed out, isn't all the time we spend creating the plans a bit of a waste?

But what's the alternative? Giving yourself to the moment. This will not work for everyone, I'll admit: there are those who will have a hard time giving up the illusion of control, and others who are controlled by their bosses or peers and cannot work or live this way.

Still, it's something worth considering. Here's how to do it — starting with the don'ts:

Don't plan. Planning is an attempt to control the world around us, but it's a futile attempt. Throw out your plans, for now at least until you've decided this method isn't for you. What do you do instead? More on this below. For now, just stop planning.
Don't worry about the future. Will something bad happen? Are there things coming up that we must anticipate and prepare for? Of course, if there's a massive hurricane headed your way, you should probably get ready. But otherwise, just realize that the future is unpredictable, and worrying about it is a waste of time. Focus on right now, and what you can do right now. You'll always be able to handle what comes.
Don't have expectations. If you expect people to act a certain way, or hope that things will turn out a certain way, you'll always run into problems. Forget about outcomes for now. Go into things without expectations, and they will always turn out perfectly (if a bit messy).
Don't get annoyed when others act a certain way. Don't expect people to act any way other than how they actually act. They are exactly the way they should be — even if that's selfish or weird or aggressive. Those are their problems. Your problem is figuring out how you should act. I'd also advise you to try to understand others — why do they act the way they do? (This truly is the mystery of life)
Don't overreact. This is a major problem when people plan and things go wrong — they overreact, and get upset and emotional and blow things out of proportion. Stay calm, because if things "go wrong", they didn't actually go wrong — they just happened. More on how to react below.
Don't try to be proactive. This is a common prescription (being proactive) in management and business literature. And while I think the general idea is fine — do something to prevent problems from recurring rather than just fixing them after they happen — one of the problems this creates is always worrying about what might happen. And creating solutions before there are problems — if there never is a problem, you've wasted a lot of time creating the solution, and a lot of energy worrying about the future.

And now for the dos:

Do be open. What would it be like to go into each day without a concrete, written in stone plan? Try, if nothing else just to see what happens? It will be a bit scary, because of the lack of security and control, a bit chaotic perhaps, a bit like we're a piece of driftwood floating in the middle of a churning sea. But in truth, this is what it's like to go into each day *with* a plan — it's just that we normally fool ourselves about the amount of control we have. So start the day with no plan, and be open to what emerges in each moment.
Do what you love. So what should you do, now that you have no plan? Do what you're passionate about, do what excites you right now. Create something amazing. Pour yourself energetically into a project. Build something new. And what you think you're creating might turn out to be completely different from what emerges, but you'll have fun doing it and something even better might be revealed.
Do act, in the moment. Giving yourself to the moment doesn't mean being passive and just letting life happen. It means acting, but doing what is best at this moment, what you are excited about right now, what needs to be done, in the present.
Do respond appropriately. Life happens, and we must respond. But instead of overreacting, we can respond calmly and appropriately. We can take the action that's required, fix the problem, do what's necessary to prevent it from happening again, and move on without it ruining our day.
Do accept. Accept what happens. It might not be what you considered ideal, but it's what life has given you, what has resulted from your actions in an unpredictable world. Accept it, respond, act, move on. Don't get caught up in things not going your way, but accept that's what has happened.

Again, I not foolish enough to think that this way of living is for everybody. Some people don't have the freedom to live this way, and others just won't give up control. Some will think this is a passive way of living, but it really isn't: it's just a way of living in the moment without being caught up in the future (or the past) so much.

And when we live in the moment, we're really living life to the fullest. This is the gift of the present.

Til' next time…

“B-Boy”

2009-10-20T10:13:00.001-05:00

My Thoughts….

OK, some of you have asked me to weigh in on "Balloon Boy" here goes.

Television is no longer a positive influence on our culture, if it ever was at all. It's become a means by which corporate America, bloated and unaccountable, inflicts their version of what American culture should be on the rest of us. That is, we should be a flock of sheep that will stand up on its hind legs and stand in line for whatever product they're selling, in this case bottom of the barrel, low overhead entertainment. It's as true of American Idol as it is for this type of sensationalist "reality". When the cameras are running, all bets are off and the hard sell is on. And the corporations rake in the money, the better to reward their executives. And the news media is part and parcel of this trend. They're selling their own brand of reality-based snake oil. Truth but not the whole truth.

Our media (including the Internet) has created these people and their ceaseless need for camera time. In our age of self-directed voyeurism and an almost across the board lack of shame about putting your personal life on exhibit, this is what our culture has become.

As Garrison Keillor once said about the Baby Boomers, "We are one generation removed from serious people." Well we're a couple of generations removed at this late date and we're getting less and less serious as time goes on. That's why we keep getting taken in, over and over, by dishonest politicians and their corporate ringleaders. We're oblivious.

We have become an embarrassment as a people. We are consumed with the prospect of fame and notice, much like a spoiled immature child that acts out and doesn't know what to do with the attention when they finally get it.

As long as people continue their voyeuristic camping in front of the TV every night, these "idiots" will do what it takes to "achieve" their 15 minutes of fame.

Imagine if there was a loss of life because of resources wasted looking for a boy who never left the ground.

These self-absorbed parents would be culpable for something tangible, and the rage of the American people would manifest itself in a whole other direction.

We ought to focus on preventing this from happening again - and making sure that any media outlet that abets this type of misconduct be made to pay the price along with the offending parties.

My two cents…

Divine Inspiration

2009-10-20T08:00:00.001-05:00

I read something this morning that I thought I should share… This is a blog post by Leo Babauta – he has a daily blog called "Zen Habits" and encourages people to share what he has written. I think this is one of those times. The post is entitled, "The Breath of God Inspiration Method" Hope you enjoy.

"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream." -Vincent van Gogh

The word "inspiration" to some literally means "the breath of God".

Whether you're religious or not, the idea of God or a god or a muse breathing inspiration into the depth of our beings is a beautiful one. Even if the world is naught but a natural miracle, this idea can lift you up, and give you the spark of life to *do* something great.

That's inspiration at its absolute best: not just when it lifts us up, makes us feel good or enthusiastic or excited, but when it *moves* us, when we become so moved that we create something of truth or beauty.

It's an elusive thing, this pure inspiration, something people of all types of creativity seek on a daily basis. Here's one method — a simple method I hope will help you in that everyday search.

It's three simple steps:

Find something divinely touched.
Breathe in that divine inspiration.
Do. Create. Inspire.

Let's look at each step in turn.

Step 1. Find something divinely touched.

For this step, I use a loose definition of "divine" … you don't have to be religious to find divinity in something. When Mozart wrote a symphony, or Jobs created the Macbook Air, or a stranger smiles at you, there is divinity in that. There's divinity in a sunset, in every living thing (why I'm a vegan), in a cool breeze on a humid day.

You just need to recognize the inspiration, in whatever form it comes.

Here are my greatest sources of inspiration:

People doing great things.

Things of great beauty.

Nature.

Music.

The written word: books, magazines, blogs.

People in your life.

Love, in any form.

Yourself, doing anything good, no matter how tiny.

Step 2. Breathe in that divine inspiration.

Take a slow, deep breath. As the air comes into your mouth or nostrils, through your throat, and fills your lungs, it is bringing divine inspiration into your body.

Repeat. Each inhalation brings with it more inspiration, and each exhalation releases tension.

Step 3. Do. Create. Inspire.

You are now filled with the Breath of God. Take this inspiration and use it, be moved, and do something. Don't just sit there feeling good. Channel that inspiration into creating something amazing.

Put that something out into the world, and in turn, you will inspire others.

"I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Thought vibrating the ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired." -Richard Wagner

Do his words make you take pause and think? If so, I'm glad that was my intent. If not, well…

Til next time…

Not just my 401K?

2009-10-15T08:19:00.002-05:00

Seems like making a profit especially on Wall Street seem to be the lead stories of late on all the news cast. Making a profit is defined as an excess of returns over expenses from a transaction. How about when we exercise, is it possible to make a profit?

How can we justify taking time out of our busy day to somehow fit in an exercise session? How can we also justify the energy expense when we are already tired and stressed from our hectic lifestyles? One might wonder if there is something more profitable we could be doing with our time? (other than working for Goldman Sachs?)

When you expend energy, time and money partaking in an exercise program, you do make a profit on your health and wellbeing. The big payoffs that you will reap and enjoy are that you will change and increase your life quality, increasing your health span across your lifespan. That can be broken down into three major areas. Improved physical function, psychological benefits (healthier mental state), and reduction in risk factors associated with disease.

Along with these three major benefits, you will feel and look healthier, have tons of energy, be more self confident, more productive and discover a happier, joyous and fulfilling life.

Higher quality of your life is a reward that no amount of money can buy. This investment (your commitment) that you give to your exercise program becomes even more attractive when you consider there is absolutely no down side risk. You have so much to gain and nothing to lose. This may be the ultimate investment opportunity, how much better could it get, and can you ever remember getting a better offer than this?

Yet why do so many of us fail to act on this extraordinary opportunity by simply choosing to procrastinate or ignore the proven benefits of exercise? The health profits far outweigh the potential expenditure but many cannot see this. Millions of people all over the world have an exercise deficiency, and millions of people are dying from this deficiency. Don't let yourself be one of them.

We all really do know that exercise is good for us, but sometimes our vision gets clouded and we lose track of what is really important. What could be more important than our health? Without vigorous physical activity, there in no way that a person can have a high quality of health right across their lifespan.

Focus constantly on the benefits that exercise can give you. Continually confirm to yourself your decision to get strong, fit, slim and healthy. Remind yourself how great you feel when you finish your exercise sessions and focus on the fact that you are doing it for the right reasons. Say to yourself while you are exercising "I am getting stronger, fitter and slimmer every second I keep going".

Don't question yourself as to whether you really feel like doing it or not, just do it and it will become a habit. Think about how you want your life to be like in the future. Is your health going to be important to you to be able to do all the things you need and wish to do?

There are many tasks or chores we do every single day that we may not like, but are necessary to live a happy and productive life and exercise might well be one of them. But focus on the bigger picture.

People often look to other people to motivate them, but the fact is that lasting motivation comes from within. You are doing something wonderful for yourself. No one else can take care of you in this way. Be your own coach and get yourself going. Exercise is better than money in the bank, make your deposits and become a millionaire.

Til next time…

Drama…

2009-10-08T07:19:00.001-05:00

The word "drama" has taken on an interesting meaning in recent years, beyond the performance form of fiction it's traditionally signified: "making a big deal over something unnecessarily".

It's about making a big production of something, when you could simply get on with things.

Interestingly, the word "drama" comes from the Greek word for "action", which in itself derives from a word that means "to do". And doing turns out to be the answer for unnecessary "drama."

What's the problem with drama? For one, as the urban definition implies, it's unnecessary. There's no need for histrionics when you can talk about and deal with things calmly. There's no need to get overly emotional when you can breathe, release the tensions, and focus on being happy, now, in the moment.

It complicates things, makes a big deal of little things, and ignores the little things that should be a big deal: little things like simple pleasures, and gratitude, and the simple wonderful existence of life.

Drama makes life harder. If you lose your job, you can go into a depression (perhaps understandably) and lose your home and have a hard time finding a job again — often because of the depression. But if instead you stay calm, perhaps take the view that this is a fresh start and a way to pursue the dream you've never had the time to pursue, look at it as a way to learn new skills and reinvent yourself … things won't be so hard. (at least that the story I'm sticking too.)

If you have gotten fat, instead of making a big deal about it, go outside for a walk, and make it a simple daily habit (perhaps gradually turning it into a jog). And then just start eating fresher foods — fruits and veggies and beans and nuts — rather than unhealthy foods. Start cooking for yourself instead of eating fast food. The drama will only serve to get you depressed and fatter. Simply getting on with it will solve the problem, rather easily if you don't make a big deal of it.

How to Stop the Drama

So when you feel yourself getting worked up about something — a coworker not pulling his weight, a spouse who isn't living up to your expectations, a son who isn't doing as well at school as you'd like — stop the drama.

Breathe. Let it go. Breathe in, taking in the peace of the world. Breathe out, and let the tensions and frustrations flow out of you. Repeat until the drama is gone.

And then simply be, in the moment, right now. When we get worked up about something, it's usually about something that has already happened (in the past) or something that might happen, that's coming up (in the future). Forget about all that right now (you can reflect on it later, when you're calmer and dispassionate). Right now, focus on what you're doing. This might be sitting in front of a computer, reading. Or walking. Or drinking a glass of water. Washing dishes. Driving. That's what you're doing, in the moment. That's all you should think about. As you feel your mind returning to the past or the future, return it gently to what you're doing right now. Trust me it takes a lot of practice but well worth the effort.

Simply get on with it. Do what you need to do to calmly address the situation. Deal with it, in as simple a manner as possible. Forget all the complications — just do.

Overwhelmed with too much to do? Breathe, focus on what you are doing right now, and just focus on getting that done.

Tired of your horrible job? Breathe, focus on now, and do what needs to be done to deal with it.

Annoyed by someone? Let it go. Focus on what you're doing, right now. And just get on with it.

If you start getting worked up again, start back at the first step.

Your 4 Pounds…

2009-09-09T12:15:00.001-05:00

I don't know what you had for lunch today, but I had 18 apples.

What do you think of that? You probably think I'm a glutton and have the GI tract of a gorilla.

But check this – a typical fast food value meal has the same amount of calories as 18 apples.

18! So I wanted to see what would happen if I downed the same amount of calories from apples.

Not pretty.

Yet I've had buddies knock back 2 value meals while watching Monday Night Football. And no, I haven't seen any of them go through a bag of red delicious by the 4th quarter.

What does this tell me? Well, it tells me that Mother Nature has got your back.

Remember:

Real food regulates appetite – so you don't overeat
Real food controls blood sugar/insulin – so you can avoid energy swings and diabetes
Real food provides the best nutrition – so you can remain healthy for life
Real food has a sane amount of energy – so that you can't accidentally overeat
Real food has a longstanding relationship with our body – so that our bodies know what to do with it

Energy density

This leads me to the world of energy density. Are you familiar with it? It's the amount of energy (calories) per unit of food. Let me explain.


This is 200 calories of melon. This is a lot of melon.	This is 200 calories of cheese. This isn't very much cheese.

This is 200 calories of celery. Good luck eating this.	This is 200 calories of a candy bar. Good luck NOT eating this.

Seeing a trend? It's hard to rack up excess energy (calories) from whole, real, calorie-dilute foods.

Food poundage

Interestingly, research shows that most humans eat around 3-5 pounds of food per day. Indeed, as we approach 4 pounds of food intake for the day, most of us are feeling pretty satisfied.

Now, this can be 4 pounds of celery. Or it can be 4 pounds of candy bars. It's not the food or calorie content that matters. It's the volume/poundage that counts. And obviously, there are some big nutrient differences between celery and candy bars, right?

Now, let's take some extreme examples of this…

4 pounds of raw veggies will provide 400 calories
4 pounds of raw fruits will provide 1000 calories
4 pounds of cooked whole grains/legumes provides 1600 calories
4 pounds of nuts/seeds provides about 10,000 calories
4 pounds of Lucky Charms, Pop Tarts, Cheese provides about 10,000 calories

Note: I'm showing calories only as a measurement unit to help illustrate a point. Don't get wrapped up in the numbers.

People that struggle with body fat management tend to fill up on energy dense, processed foods. This means stored energy for later.

Translation: Fatness.

If we eat 4 pounds of energy-controlled, whole, real food – we get lots of nutrition with a calorie count that our body can handle.

What's our poundage portion?

Most people in the U.S. are consuming (on average) the following amounts of food each day:

2.0 pounds of meat, dairy and eggs

1.5 pounds fruits and veggies

0.5 pound grains

0.5 pounds added sugars, fats and oils

= 4.5 pounds

= about 3,700 calories per day

What if we switched this around?

2.5 pounds of fruits and veggies

1.0 pounds of grains and legumes

0.3 pounds nuts/seeds

0.3 pounds meat, dairy and eggs

0.1 pounds added sugars, fats and oils

= 4.2 pounds

= about 2,075 calories per day (this isn't really that much, especially if you're physically active.)

Putting it to the test

I'm curious: what does a day of my food weigh?

How much my day of food weighs = 3.7 pounds

Foods – Clockwise, starting in upper right

2 lentil burgers, steamed broccoli

Peaches & blueberries

Raw buckwheat granola with hempseeds and flax

Roasted garbanzos & Goji berries

Sprouted grain bread with peanut butter

Lettuce & kale

Celery, carrots, zucchini

Note: I was surprised it didn't weigh more. The actual food weighs less than 3.7 pounds, as the food containers contribute to the total weight. I left out condiments like salad dressing and mustard.

Oh, and this was just a random day of eating. Some days I eat more, some days less.

What have we learned today?

If we prioritize and eat nutritious, real, controlled energy foods – there isn't much room left for the energy dense, fake foods. You only have about 3-5 pounds to work with each day.

So… think about it…what are your 4 pounds made up of?

Til next time…

Schooling?!

2009-08-30T21:42:00.001-05:00

"Our culture lies. They say they want to encourage and reward individuality and creativity, but in practice they try to hammer down the pointy parts, and shame off the different parts." – Sandra Dodd

I know this post will be a departure from most of the things that I write about, but this is something that I'm passionate about – education; what and how we are trying to teach our kids.

Going through the traditional school system was never my favorite thing as a kid, but as a parent, I've grown to realize that the whole system is upside down.

Not the system of any particular state or nation, but system of education as a concept.

Traditionally, schools use this model:

Decide on what kids need to know to prepare them for adulthood.
Prepare a curriculum based on this.
Give students a schedule based on this curriculum.
Have educated teachers hand them the info they need, and drill them in skills.
The student reads, memorizes the info, learns the skills, and becomes prepared.
Students must follow all rules or be punished. This is actually more important than the info and skills, although it's never said that way.

Unfortunately, this isn't a great model. Mostly because it's based on the idea that there is a small group of people in authority, who will tell you what to do and what you need to know, and you must follow this obediently, like robots. And you must not think for yourself, or try to do what you want to do. This will be met with severe punishment.

This is ideal if you're going to be a corporate employee, and need certain skills in order to work for the corporation — mostly skills of obedience, actually. This isn't ideal for the workplace of the coming decade, when people are less likely to be employed by a large corporation, and more likely to work for themselves. And have to think and figure out things for themselves, what they want to do and when they want to do it. Let alone learn new things without a teacher.

Things are changing faster than ever before. Every month, new technology is announced that alters the way people work, or will work in the future, and we need to be able to learn and adapt to this ever-changing landscape.

How are we to do that? Or more importantly how are our children to learn to do that, if they have no authority telling them what they need to know, or how to learn, or what to do?

People often grow up to be competent learners, and achieve great things, after going through the traditional school system. But this is in spite of the system, not because of it. We are pretty adaptable people, inherently curious, and we can learn without an authority, but the current school system tries to beat this down. It usually fails to some degree, but to the degree it succeeds, it harms people.

Schools fail not because they don't impart knowledge or skills, but because they kill curiosity, smother excitement for learning, club down with a furious brutality our desires to be independent, to think for ourselves, to learn about things that actually interest us.

"I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas." - Agatha Christie

But Teachers are great…

Yes, I agree, they are. A very good friend of mine is a middle school teacher, of English, and she worked tirelessly with her students' interests at heart. She really wanted to teach them to love reading, and did everything in her power to do so. Unfortunately, she constantly frustrated by the authoritarian nature of school administration, and will soon be leaving that particular district maybe even teaching.

My great grandmother was a teacher for decades. My aunt was and my cousin is a teacher, of elementary and middle schools and both were wonderful at getting kids to love reading. I love teachers, and have the highest respect for them.

I just think they're in a system that doesn't work. That cannot work, given the nature of what the world has become.

How can we prepare children for a future we cannot foresee? How do we know what skills they will need, what knowledge will be important, in 10 years, or 15? We have no idea what the world will be like then. I sure don't. Do you? Does anyone know how people will be working 15 years from now?

I submit this is impossible. And what's more, it always has been impossible. The workplace now is vastly different than it was when I was a lad in short pants four decades ago running around in the schoolyard, wiping snot from my nose and learning about the Cold War. People then didn't have computers in the workplace, at least not most of them, and those who did have computers didn't have anything resembling what we have today. Most people used electric typewriters, and fax machines weren't in offices yet. Fax machines?!

So yes, I love teachers, and think they are incredible at what they do. What I think they need to do, though, is not be teachers, but facilitators.

Don't direct learning, because when students grow up they won't be directed in their learning, they'll be self-taught. Think about it: when you learn things today, as an adult, do you learn from a teacher, or do you learn things on your own? And isn't learning on your own more fun? Don't you love learning new things? Doesn't that make the learning stick with you for longer than when you had to memorize things in school?

What we learn in school isn't nearly as important as HOW we learn, because how to learn is the lesson of school.

"The founding fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on their parents. So they provided jails called school, equipped with tortures called education." - John Updike

How to learn…the way we're taught to learn is as receivers of information, non-thinkers. Follow the rules. Read pages 100-132. Do the exercises. Memorize the information. Spit it out in a test. Do this project, because we tell you to, not because it's fun or interesting.

The way we need to be taught to learn is completely different. It's this: learn about what interests you, gets you curious, and gets you excited. Figure out where to get the information you need. Read about it, talk to someone about it, and find out about it. Try it. Do it, make mistakes. Figure out how to correct the mistakes. Figure out how to solve the problems you encounter. Repeat.

In other words, find problems that interest you, and figure out how to solve them.

Sometimes, you'll have to solve problems that aren't so interesting, just to solve problems that do interest you. That's OK. That's how things work.

And here's a secret: we already know how to do this. From birth. This method of learning is innate in all of us. It's built in.

When a toddler wants to do something, like get a stash of chocolate you've hidden on top of the fridge, he'll figure it out. He'll find ways to move a chair to the fridge, or climb up onto a counter near the fridge, in order to get the candy. Along the way he'll learn a thing or two about cabinet doors and fridge doors and why you shouldn't lean too far in one direction on a chair if you don't want to fall and get bruises.

When a kid wants to play a video game, he'll learn things like how to set up and turn on the Xbox, how to navigate menus, how to get started with the game, how to convince his mother that he'll clean his room later and that his homework is pretty much all done so that he can play the game now.

Kids know how to solve problems, when they want to do something.

We don't need to teach them to learn. We need to get out of their damn way.

And that's the problem with schools. They can't motivate kids to learn, because they're forcing it. They're trying to impart on them a rigid system of authority that kids naturally rebel against. In fact, this is the main problem kids face, and they come up with all kinds of incredibly creative ways to solve it, from skipping school and smoking pot to drawing incredible doodles in notebooks instead of listening to a history lecture to finding ingenious ways to communicate with peers, through technologies like texting and iPhones and through old technologies like passing notes and so on.

Creativity isn't dead in our kids. It's alive, but it's being marshaled to beat the forces that are beating them down.

"No use to shout at them to pay attention. If the situations, the materials, the problems before the child do not interest him, his attention will slip off to what does interest him, and no amount of exhortation of threats will bring it back." - John Holt

I think it's time to turn education on its head.

So how should we prepare our kids for tomorrow? Better people than I have written on this. It's pretty much just getting out of the way of kids. Let them learn about what they want to learn about, and you know what? They'll actually care about what they're learning, because they chose it themselves. They'll get excited about things, something schools usually fail to achieve.

They'll learn how to deal with the delicious problem of freedom, a problem most kids don't have these days. They'll get some hands-on, down-and-dirty experience with autonomy, something they'll have in spades as adults.

But what if they watch TV or play video games all day? What if they aren't interested in math or science and never learn them? What if they're totally unprepared for the workplace?

I'll just say a couple things. One, we need to relax and not look at childhood as a time when every minute needs to be filled up with rigid rules and learning. It's a time that should be enjoyed, and kids should play, and in playing they'll learn. They'll learn to play well and work well with each other. They'll learn how to figure things out for themselves. They'll learn to love the lovely freedom and its associates, autonomy and responsibility and choice and time management and, yes, passion.

Two, remember what we talked about above: we have no idea what the workplace of the future will be, so stop worrying about preparing them for that. In fact, stop worrying so much. Let kids learn how to learn, and learn how to be excited about things. That will prepare them for the future.

Three, also realize that we don't need to be hands-off. We can be hands-on, if we're facilitators instead of directors or dictators. We can help kids find things they're interested in, expose them to worlds of fun (like science and math), teach them games that they might like, help them solve problems so they'll learn how to do it on their own, guide them to resources and people who will give them mountains of information. Be there for them, as guides.

This is a huge topic, and one that I can't adequately cover in one post. I'll do another post sometime, but for today, I just wanted to throw out some thoughts on schooling, and get you riled up a bit perhaps. We could all use some good riling now and then, I think.

"To trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves…and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted." - John Holt

Til next time…

—

More thoughts on exercise....

2009-08-25T08:22:00.002-05:00

You are never too unfit, too young or too old to begin proper exercise program. Regardless of your age, gender or role in life, shape or size everyone can benefit from regular physical activity.

Getting moving is a challenge because today physical activity plays a very small role in our daily lives as there are fewer jobs that require physical exertion. We have become a society who is reliant on technology and machines rather than physical strength to perform our work and to get around.

In addition, we have become mainly observers with more people (including children) spending their leisure time pursuing just that - leisure which usually doesn't involve physical activity. Consequently, statistics show that overweight and obesity, along with the problems that come with it (high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, etc.), is on the rise.

Today, there is a growing emphasis on looking good, feeling good, staying as young as possible and living longer. It has been well proven that one of the keys to achieving these ideals is fitness and exercise. But if you spend your days at a sedentary job and pass your evenings watching television, it may require some determination and commitment to make regular activity a part of your daily routine.

To achieve a higher level of fitness, strength, health and wellness requires a sustained, commitment to regular exercise. Without this commitment, other priorities take over and consume our time. It is way too easy to put our exercise program on hold when something else comes up.

Sometimes this is unavoidable but when you find yourself putting your program on hold for months (until it gets warmer) or even years (when the kids are in school), then you are waiting too long. If not now, when will you really be less busy - next year?

A commitment to regular physical activity is a commitment to yourself and those you care about and that care about you. The difference between people who do reach their health and fitness goals and ones who do not is that successful people are willing to do the things that are necessary to reach those goals.

Firstly, you need to identify the habits and beliefs that are holding you back from accomplishing your goal. It is therefore important to identify these habits in order to plan a realistic strategy to eradicate the old habits and create new ones.

It is not necessary to pressure yourself to be perfect, all we should look for is improvement and we all have to start somewhere. So start where you are.

Even changing the way you think is a positive step towards new health and fitness goals. Demand a little bit more of yourself with each passing day. Work at making it a habit to think only positive things, work at making it a habit to reach your goals. Creating new habits, new plans, and new beliefs is what will get you to your goals.

Once you become aware of the power you really have, overcoming obstacles will be easier. After a few successes, your confidence will grow and it will be even easier to reach further towards your health and fitness goals.

Just remember that in any area of life you can have excuses or experiences, reasons or results. Your mind is a powerful thing so use it positively and allow it to help you develop self discipline. Make your exercise time a priority; schedule it into your diary like any other appointment and don't let anyone or anything get in the way.

You will be rewarded with loads of energy, new found strength and a vibrancy that only the fit seem to have. You will also find you have an inner sense of well being deep inside you that confirms you are doing all you can to look after yourself.

Til next time...

new friends....

2009-08-16T22:26:00.000-05:00

Now that I have some time off to reflect I'm going to start to learn more about the rest of the world. I've spent 30 plus years delving into the science of the body. From cellular physiology to psychology. From traditional western medicine to a more spiritual mind/body energy medicine. It's been an interesting and eclectic ride, but there is just so much more to explore...

When I was in high school I was humbled by a group of folks - I guess we would call them nerds now days but in truth I was intimidated by the literature crowd. According to the dictionary the word nerd refers to a person who passionately pursues intellectual activities, esoteric knowledge, or other obscure interests rather than engaging in more social or popular activities. Hey, if that is true then I was a nerd! It's just that enjoyed a good party every once in a while.

Yet in high school those "nerdy" types scared me with their 40 dollar multi-sylabic words. There were times that I could hold my own especially when history was involved, but when they started to discuss the deeper sides or Shakespeare, Solzhenitsyn, Voltaire or even Vonnegut just about every spincture in my body would pucker up. At the time I didn't feel like I could understand or learn this literature stuff... which is strange because I really do enjoy history and they do seem to go hand in hand.

But I have found that my interest in history and literature has been peeked again. It's really the fault of a 20 something who has quite a knack for explaining history. (Who says an "old man" can't learn at an advanced age!) What she does that is so critically important for my brain is that she has this ability to make the past come alive. I find that a whole new world is opening up to me and a different part of my brain is starting to work. Let me give you an example of how history tickles my fancy.

Sir Francis Bacon, made the ultimate sacrifice - He died in the quest for knowledge, and was for sure a martyr to the cause. I hadn't remembered too much about Bacon from school, except that he's suspected by some to be the "real" Shakespeare.

My guess is that he also wore a huge ruffled collar. And they say blogs aren't informative. Apparently, Bacon, a 17th century intellectual and politician had a troubled public life. He was convicted of taking bribes in 1621 and thrown into the Tower of London. His defense: yes, he took bribes, but they didn't affect his judgement.(And here we thought we had that king of thing cornered in Chicago). As a scholar, he wrote cleverly about language and the philosophy of science.

But my favorite about Bacon, the one that will stick with me, is how he died. It happened in March of 1626, north of London. Bacon was riding along in his horse and carriage when he suddenly decided he needed to know whether snow delays putrefaction. So he abruptly stopped his carriage, hopped out to buy a hen, and stuffed it with snow. Unfortunately, this caused him to be seized with a sudden chill, which brought on bronchitis, and he died soon after at a friends house.

To me this is a Nobel anecdote. Okay, it's a little embarrassing that his death involved frozen poultry. And maybe he displayed a touch of sadism - I'm just hoping the hen wasn't alive when he rammed snow into its gullet. But then there is something great about it. Bacon had such an itch for knowledge, he was so giddy about an idea, that he just went bonkers and bolted out of his carriage. The man couldn't wait another second to find out more about antiputrefaction techniques. I mean seriously, if your are going to give you life for a cause, furtherance of knowledge has got to be in the top two or three.

As opposed to Jeremy Bentham who was a British ethical philosopher who advocated the greatest good for the greatest number of people - died in 1832. After his death, in accordance with his directions his body was dissected in the presence of his friends. The skeleton was then reconstructed, supplied with a wax head to replace the original (which had been mummified), dressed in Bentham's own clothes ans set upright in a glass-fronted case. Both this effigy and the head are preserved in University College, London. I'm not quite sure how this contributes to the greater good of mankind - but I give him props for creepiness!

Hey this history stuff can be fun. And you never know what you might learn. Thanks Ash..
Til next time...

I’m back…

2009-08-15T07:06:00.001-05:00

We live in an information overloaded society. There has not been a moment in history when information has been this available, right at our fingertips. By typing one simple phrase, we now get hundreds, thousands, sometimes even millions of answers to our most desired questions. And now it seems, because of the abundance of information available to us, that a lot of us are confused.

No more confusing has been our struggle with living excessively. As a result, many of us are in debt, have too much stuff and are overweight.

There are too many questions on how to exercise, how to eat, or how to live healthily - cardio or weights? How much protein? Does fat make me fat? Will sit-ups give me abs? Am I going to get big, bulky muscles?

I don't profess to know the answer to EVERY question out there, but I do know that all things being equal, the simplest answer is most likely the right one. That holds true in life as much as it does in weight loss, exercise and general health.

So in saying that, I have devised a list of The 7 Essential Rules to Optimal Health.

You may read these rules and be turned off that I'm insulting your intelligence. But let's face it, now more than ever, do we need to get back to the basics in order to save our waning, unhealthy & obese society.

We've veered off the path of "simple" and have really made things more complicated than they are.

1. Eat REAL Food.

For a busy population who doesn't have time to count calories or how many grams of protein or how much sodium or saturated fat, this is your answer to health and weight loss.

Anything that Mother Nature put on this earth in its simplest form is real food - unpackaged, unprocessed, unpreserved fruits, vegetables, legumes, naturally raised meat & fish. Steak from a critter that has been allowed to eat from a pasture, not an all-beef hot dog. Water, not soda. Apples, not apple fritters.

Here's the truth … if you eat nutritious real food then your body feels nourished and doesn't feel the need to consume more. If you eat the common processed food products of today with empty calories and little to any nutrition value, then your body needs to 1) work harder to digest and assimilate what you've eaten thus using energy 2) still feel hungry because what you've eaten provides no nourishment and 3) throw your systems out of whack because your body has no idea what you just ate.

2. Live Life Actively.

Our society was the healthiest when there were no such things as treadmills, ellipticals and Pec Decks. We used the gym to support our activities (like what athletes do). We rode our bikes, skied, surfed, played pick-up basketball and walked everywhere.

Now, we go to the gym. We run on treadmills like rats in a cage, partake in bodybuilding programs that give us bulky, "unuseable" muscles and create imbalance & injury, and do aerobic classes that give us little to no benefit with the way we look.

As our society transitioned from an active culture to a gym-going culture, obesity, heart disease and diabetes slowly started to increase. Coincidence? Maybe. But staying active and trying new things - playing a sport, going for a hike, being active with family, playing Frisbee with the dog- never killed anyone.

Ask yourself these questions…When was the last time you got excited to go to the gym (to actually workout, not to see the hot aerobics instructor or personal trainer)? And what about when you knew that the weekend was just around the corner and you were going to the beach to play some volleyball? Or out to the golf course with your buddies to play 18 holes?

Live actively and use the gym to support your efforts.

3. Get outside.

This goes hand-in-hand with the point above.

True that some of us live in a climate that isn't always conducive to outdoorsy things. Hogwash.

Unless it is 110 degrees in the shade or sub-Arctic temperatures outside, there are always options for us to be active outdoors - even if it's just for a walk after dinner. Our bodies crave the outdoors and being with nature. It's hard-wired into our systems. Being outdoors gives us a feeling of freedom and calm that no gym, mall or office building could ever provide for us.

4. Constantly strive to improve in order to see change.

If you are doing the same thing, day in and day out (lifting the same weights, running the same distance for the same time, etc) without any change or improvement, then nothing is going to happen to your body.

Your body wants to stay the same, and it is only when you decide to venture outside of your comfort zone that you will actually see any improvement - and that rule holds true with life as much as it does with exercise. Set goals, break records and constantly strive to get better. If you ran 5km in 30-minutes yesterday, then the next time out, aim for 29-minutes. If you did 10 push-ups yesterday, then aim for 11 the next time you attempt them.

Force yourself out of what's comfortable and you will change - both in body and in mind.

5. Get some sleep.

Often the "missing link" to everyone's weight loss quest is their lack of quality sleep. (This tends to be where I fall off the wagon.) Healthy adults require 7-9 hours of uninterrupted, good quality sleep EVERY night. Yea sure you say! But really, sleep helps regulate your hormones. It kills off bad bacteria that have accumulated in your gut throughout the day and it's the primary time for your body to repair its tissues - especially your muscles. Don't get enough of it and your immune response will suffer (your ability to fight off disease & sickness), you gain belly fat (because of the higher amounts of the hormone cortisol) and you'll experience lows in energy.

6. Practice Active Recovery.

This is the Yang to intense exercise's Ying and is probably the most overlooked rule. You were not designed to "go hard" 100% of the time.

Regardless of what you may believe, exercise, with all its benefits to your body and health, is still stress. Any response that produces an adrenalin rush will also produce a stress response in your body. Because of this, we must balance our intense exercise activities with calming, stress management exercises. Traditional yoga, tai chi, qi gong or some form of deep breathing or meditation are the most common examples of ways to handle stress.

Try to incorporate at least one of these activities into your weekly (if not daily) practice. Only a few minutes of deep breathing or mediation is all you need to regain balance move on with your day without anxiety or nervousness.

7. Use Natural Movements.

There are 5 natural movements - Squatting, Lunging (which includes walking & running), Pushing, Pulling & Rotation. If you want to save time, increase your results and live healthy, then all your exercises should incorporate at least one, if not more, of these movements.

Is there a need to stand in front of a mirror holding dumbbells and lifting them up to the side while standing on a ball? No. Is there a need to sit on a machine, strapped in and squeeze your thighs together or push them out? No. These movements are unnatural. They force you to break your body up into individual parts, when in truth, your body operates as a network of nerves, bones and muscles to move you and the objects you lift or carry from Point A to Point B.

Exercise naturally, move naturally, and you'll be more healthy.

So Now What?

Use the above rules as a checklist and try to incorporate and adhere to one rule per week, introducing a new rule each time you have mastered one.

Try not to get overwhelmed. This isn't a "shotgun" approach. We've gotten away from the basics of health and it will take time to get back. Just keep at it and be consistent and you'll get there.

Til next time…

What the heck is an "A-ak"?

2009-08-06T10:46:00.011-05:00

Humm...

I was handed the first volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica the other day. We were cleaning out some shelves at work. It felt weighty...maybe even learned. Yet comfortable. When I cracked it open, the spine of the volume gave me a pleasant amount of resistance - something I've long forgot about while holding a real book - I read so much electronically now days. I was curious what was the first entry.

A-ak
A-ak, wtf is that? Here is the write up... "Ancient East Asian music. See gagaku. That's the entire article. Four words and then: "See gagaku."

What a tease! Right at the start, those way to smart for the room folks at Britannica have presented me with a dilemma... Should I dig into the pile and search for volume 6 and find out what is with gagku or move on in the A section?.... Don't see volume 6 nearby, let see what else is in the AA section. Of course if anyone else brings up "a-ak" in conversation between now and then I can play it cool, bluff and say "Oh, I love gagku!"

Next word, acapella - I knew that one, I had a friend in college that belonged to an acapella group - they sang songs from Def Leppard and called it Rockapella. Not bad one for two.

The next few entries destroy my average - I didn't even come close to recognizing the names of any Chinese generals or Buddhist compendiums. Aachen followed, but I got the wrong country - it is a German city that is home to Schwerbad-Quelle, the hottest sulfur spring in the country. Who knew?

I wonder should I be memorizing this stuff? I'll move on...

Aaron - the brother of Moses. Seems that he was sort of the Frank Stallone of ancient Judaism. The loser brother, the one that Mom didn't talk about too much. I can just hear it.."Oh Aaron? He's doing okay. Still finding his way. But back to Moses. Did you hear about the Red Sea?"

Hey this is cool stuff. I'm not Jewish, and really am a mix of religious training...probably got most of my religious lore for Charlton Heston movies - I wouldn't call my self observant, though out of respect I do have a light lunch on Yom Kippur. Hey maybe this could be my belated Hebrew school.... Nah.

Next.
Oh a bunch of Persian rules named Abbas, but then I get to these two familiar faces. "Abbott, Bud and Costello, Lou.", But any sense of relief fades when I learn about their sketchy past. Turns out that the famed partnership began when Costello's regular straight man fell ill during a gig at the Empire Theater in New York and Abbott who was working the theater's box office, offered to substitute. It went so well, Abbott became Costello's permanent partner. Well there is a cautionary tale, I'm never calling in sick again!

More facts, ABO blood group - hey did you know that stomach cancer is 20 percent more common in people with type A than those with type B or O. I'm type O, missed that one - however this just proves that reading this can be more disturbing than the tale of backstabbing Costello. Clearly I have to be prepared to learn some things I don't like!

Absalom - I knew about him getting his hair caught in the branches of an oak tree, which allowed his enemy, Joab, to catch and slay him. I figure this is why the army requires crew cuts. At least that is going to be my twist on it.

Oh and you can never forget the Acoemti, a group of monks who provided nonstop choral singing in the 5th century. They did it with a relay system-every few hours, a fresh monk would replace the exhausted monk. I love this image, though I'm glad I didn't live next door. We're talking 24 hour entertainment long before MTV went on the air. Quite possibly before Mick Jagger was born....

Reading this is much harder than I expected...but at the same time, in some ways, strangely easier. In some ways this is the perfect book for someone like me, who grew up on Peter Gabriel videos and has the attention span of a gnat on methamphetamines. Each essay is a bite sized nugget. Bored with Abilene, Texas? Here comes Abolitionism. Tired of that? The abominable snowman's lurking right around the corner -oh BTW, Britannica says that the Snowman's footprints are actually produced by running bears - I'm not convinced.

Reading Britannica is like channel surfing on a very highbrow cable system, the changes are so abrupt and relentless, you get mental whiplash. You go from depressing to uplifting, from tiny to cosmic, from ancient to modern. There is no segue, no local news anchor to tell you, "And now for the lighter side." Just white space, and boom you switched from theology to worm behavior. I don't mind though. Bring on the whiplash, the odder the juxtapositions, the better. That's the way reality is - a bizarre, jumbled-up Cobb salad. I love seeing the prophet Abraham rub elbows with Karl Abraham, a German shrink who theorized about the anal expulsive and phallic stages.

Oh yes, that another thing, just like Comcast cable, there is sex. It might not be Cinemax but it's got its fair share of randiness. I've learned that Eskimos swap wives. Achagua men have three to four spouses and flowers in the Acanthaceae family are bisexual! Now that is some racy stuff. Hot. Hotter than Schwertbad-Quelle sulfur spring. I expected Britannica to be prudish, but it seems quite happy to acknowledge the seamy world below the belt.

Titillating R-rated material, that is nothing compared to the violence! It's extraordinary how blood soaked our history is. One Persian politician was strangled by servants, another suffocated in a steam bath. Or Peter Abelard, and 11th century Christian theologian who, came up with some interesting ideas - namely that deeds don't matter, only intentions. You know the guy who coined the phrase "the road to heaven is paved with good intentions." Of course the article goes into great detail about his love affair with his student Heloise, which ended rather badly. Abelard suffered castration at the order of Heloise's outraged uncle. Maybe deeds do mater?!!

Sex, violence, MTV - all this makes my diversion in Britannica much more of an adventure and much cheaper than cable. Why don't you pick up a volume an see what you can learn.

Til next time...

Oh by the way, A-ak, is Korean court music - it is ritual music that is considered elegant it was imported from China. Not sure Madonna is going to record this anytime soon.

Life’s guidelines…

2009-08-03T19:49:00.001-05:00

For those of you who know me I have been pretty public about the notion that I am going to live until 104. It's funny, but some of my friends' think that I am completely nuts thinking that I want to live to such and age; where others think it is pretty cool. Now you may ask, "How do I know that I am going to 104?" – I just do. I've always known it and it has been ingrained in my thinking all of these years - besides I have a great deal to do in the interim.

Well, I think I finally have the guidelines to make my goal. I was sent this via email and wanted to share it with you. Below, is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. A few years ago he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed.

Enjoy…

My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.

'In those days,' he told me when he was in his 90s, 'to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it.'

At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in: 'Oh,

bull----!' she said. 'He hit a horse.'

'Well,' my father said, 'there was that, too.'

So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars – the Kollngses, next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the Van Laninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.

My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.

My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none.

'No one in the family drives,' my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, 'But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one.' It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.

But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown.

It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car. Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother.

So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. 'Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?' I remember him saying more than once.

For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.

Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)

He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home. If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests 'Father Fast' and 'Father Slow.'

After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: 'The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.'

If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, 'Do you want to know the secret of a long life?'

'I guess so,' I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre. 'No left turns,' he said.

'What?' I asked.

'No left turns,' he repeated. 'Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.'

'What?' I said again.

'No left turns,' he said. 'Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights.'

'You're kidding!' I said, and I turned to my mother for support.

'No,' she said, 'your father is right. We make three rights. It works.' But then she added: 'Except when your father loses count.'

I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. 'Loses count?' I asked.

'Yes,' my father admitted, 'that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again.'

I couldn't resist. 'Do you ever go for 11?' I asked.

'No,' he said.' If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week.'

My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003.

My father died the next year, at 102.

They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)

He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.

One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news. A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, 'You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred.'

At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, 'You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer.'

'Why would you say that?' He countered, somewhat irritated.

'Because you're 102 years old,' I said.

'Yes,' he said, 'you're right.' He stayed in bed all the next day.

That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night.

He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said:

'I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet.'

An hour or so later, he spoke his last words: 'I want you to know,' he said, clearly and lucidly, 'that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have.' A short time later, he died.

I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long. I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, or because he quit taking left turns.

Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it.'

So here is the deal, we don't always have to take left turns, we for sure can walk a little more and if it's a bad day, more than likely it can be put off to another day.

Til next time…

The two questions…

2009-07-31T01:22:00.002-05:00

What do near-fatal incidents, self reflection and death all have in common? They all, for me at least, help to put life into perspective. Each of these offers a different view point, for example a close encounter might help us to realize what really matters to us and what isn't worth the stress. Similarly, self reflection can help us see where we may be wasting time or opportunities and how we can improve on that.

I don't know if it is just me, but when somebody I'm close to passes away, I cease worrying about all my little problems and stop thinking that the world owes me a favor. Instead, I feel inspired to make the most of this opportunity, because it can disappear at any time.

It is as if the illusion and distorted view I have of reality starts to sink away and things start to become clear.

Over the last year, quite a few people have passed away and moved on to some other place. Yet, up until very recently I never realized quite what it was about death that inspired me to take action in life and stop taking the things that matter to me for granted. The effects of this inspiration never seemed to last very long, but I was always curious about what it was.

After sitting down and pondering over this for a while, the answer hit me. I came across a very simple, yet elegant understanding for what was happening: I was aligning myself with truth.

That is it, the catalyst of life that hit me when someone close passed away. I was simply seeing reality in its true form. The truth that:

The little problems we have in life really aren't that important
Our time on earth is fragile and we should make the most of it
This is it, this is life, right now

There were more things that became clear to me, but those are arguably the most important. Once I had this realization, I started to look at how I can apply this simple understanding of truth to propel me to take action in life. After all, simply telling ourselves to "make the most of this opportunity" rarely results in some continued, effective, output.

I decided to look at my current situation and I formed two questions that helped me to really put things into perspective. I believe that everyone can benefit from answering these, the key being that you need to apply the principle of truth in your responses. If you don't, the only person you are fooling is you.

Question 1: If someone had a video tape of your typical day, what would they see?

I'm not talking about some bad habits you might have or an argument with a family member, instead I'm referring to your productive actions. Would they see you working hard at in your day job? Would they see you wasting time on irrelevant activities? Would they see you taking action or being complacent because you don't believe in yourself?

I don't know what it is about this question, but when I asked it to myself, the answer wasn't pretty. I realized that in my typical day I can let the smallest things get me down, I waste time checking email that doesn't need to be read, just to feel busy and so on. I take for granted the roof over my head, the food on the table and the abundance of clothes I can put on every morning.

"How you live each day is, of course, how you live your life"…anonymous

It is only through honest self-assessment through this question that you can realize where your shortcomings may lie. After that, it is down to you to take this realization and use it to help you take action and change things for the better.

Question 2: Based on your current actions and behaviors, where would you expect to be in five years?

Note that this isn't asking where you would like to be; this is taking into consideration your current efforts and looking at where you would expect to be. As with the previous question, answering this requires you being totally truthful.

Unlike my response to the first question, my answer to this was fairly positive. I took out a piece of paper and jotted down both the question and my response. My reply basically stated that I was heading in the right direction (I would continue to work for myself and try to help heal people through using my knowledge and inspire via my blog) but I could be doing much more.

"You can't escape the consequences of your actions." - Steve Pavlina

Because it is so easy and addictive I have found that I would often waste time on sites like Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and even instant messaging clients. I decided to start to push these out of my life, and even set myself a 7-day self-discipline challenge where I would not use them at all. And I thought giving up sweets was bad.

If I kept up my current actions for the next five years then I might be maintaining a steady income and have helped thousands of people live up to their true potential. Yet, it would actually take the five years, whereas this is probably something I could do in the next one or two by focusing on clients in person rather than making contacts via social networking.

It is only through giving a truthful answer to this question that I can fix my flaws, rather than living in the illusion that I'm doing my best or everything is as good as it can be.

It may be the case that you're happy with the answers you've written down or worked out, and if so, congratulations. Keep doing what you're doing. On the other hand, I suspect a lot of people won't be proud of the results after honestly giving this exercise some thought. If that's you, then you've now taken the first and quite possibly the hardest step to rectify the situation and start creating the life you're meant to live.

I truly hope that everyone who has taken the time to really ponder over these internal enquiries has benefited from gaining a new, honest perspective about their lives. Now it's just up to change the things that you feel you should…

I've enjoyed writing over the last few years and hope you all stay tuned… Til next time.

Mindset...

2009-07-22T09:00:00.002-05:00

I was reading a magazine article about Muhammad Ali the other day… I smiled when I read this quote. (Ali was 3x world heavyweight boxing champion and generally considered the “greatest boxer of all time”.)

"Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion."

It's the last sentence from a longer quote of Ali's that goes as follows: "I hated every minute of the training, but I said, Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion."

How many of us who would read this quote would "get" the message – my guess is some would - many wouldn’t. The ones who did will succeed. The ones who believed they didn't need to suffer at all - well, my guess is that they'll never get anywhere.

Suffering is a state of mind that you go through on the way to focused bliss. Think about the foregoing sentence for a moment. I may be wrong, but I think I know what Ali meant when he said he hated every minute of the training. I don't think he "literally" meant what he said.

I believe what he meant was: When I wasn't focused on my goal, the training was hard. Unbearable. Brutal. I hated it. It was insufferable. But as soon as I put my mind on the goal, I could handle it. I could bear it. I stopped suffering. I could endure the training. I could keep going.

As a college athlete, I discovered this truth during practices where my side ached in pain; when my sweats were soaked and dripping with perspiration; when my shoes were sopped and left a slosh with every step.

I wanted to quit. I wanted to call it a day.

But a message came to me in the midst of my agony. The message was as follows: "Put your mind on your goal and all will be okay."

I was more fortunate than most and could do this on a daily basis. I started thinking about hitting winning shot after shot - I pictured being written up in the newspaper, interviewed on television - and so on.

Next thing I knew - not much more than a few seconds later, the side ache was gone. The pain was no more. I ran as if in a state of reverie.

Best of all, by doing this, when it came time for competition, a funny thing happened: I won the tournament, got interviewed, got written up in the papers.

Strange? Not at all.

Before you begin working toward a goal - all you see is the finish line. All you see is the celebration. Then, when you're challenged to see how badly you want it - you may have a tendency to forget the finish line. The trick is to keep your eyes on the prize while also staying focused on what you're doing in the present moment.

Some goals come easier than others. Champions understand this. But the achievements champions prize more than anything, are the battles that tested them with every fiber of their being.

Think about this today. If you are suffering - refocus and watch the pain dissipate. Keep doing this and the prize will go to YOU.

"Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a CHAMPION."

Til next time…

Striving to adapt...

2009-07-21T13:37:00.001-05:00

One of the many lessons and probably first lesson I learned from my sport coaches was the importance of being able to 'adapt and improvise’. To have the ability to change course on the fly and still come out ahead. In today’s world I think this concept is critically important, not only to the athlete, but to anyone who wants to be at the top of any profession or maintain a job.

Here goes a blast from my past…

It was the day after a dual meet with College of DuPage, if we had won the meet we would have had a bye to the junior college national tournament. We didn’t and our season though not over, felt like it was. We were all pretty disappointed. We all knew it was a season that didn’t live up to expectations, but we still had some matches before our conference tournament where we would have a chance individually at some redemption. Our head coach; a man by the name of Gene Richards stood before us with a legal pad in his hands - giving each player a brutal evaluation in front of the entire team - something you're just not supposed to do in today's politically correct 'feelings first' world.

A couple of my team mates received a boatload of praise for their performance; others were told what they needed to do to improve; two were deeply criticized. Don't know what it was about Gene, but he could pretty much say whatever he wanted and you would listen. Maybe it was his advanced age, maybe he just knew what the hell he was talking about, being a former Australian and US amateur doubles champion didn’t hurt and after licking our wounds always listened.

Yet, nothing he said was ever sugar-coated or communicated in order to please. The good thing about Gene was that we ALWAYS knew where we stood. He was consistent.

After critiquing the first few players, Gene began evaluating our only All-American on our team - Jeff, who lost a close match to a former Marine - who also happened to be an All-American.

"You know Jeff," he said. "You're one of these guys who go out to compete with a plan. And then when the plan doesn't work, you fall to pieces. It's okay to have a plan - but when the plan doesn't fit - you've got to be able to change gears and do whatever you need to do to win."

When I heard this I was stunned - mostly because I, too, was one of those players who didn’t have a lot of experience but did put together a plan. And like Jeff, if the plan didn't work - I was s-o-l.

In tennis we are taught to practice various strokes and patterns of strokes over and over and over again. And we train in such a way so that "what we know" becomes second nature.

As a former champion Gene pulled me aside one day and told me that "You've got to know your game inside and out. That you have to know the shots you can make for that given day like the back of your hand. You've got to be able to do them in your sleep." What he was talking about is being "programmed" to react in a certain way to specific situations. And he's right.

On the other hand, what he told Jeff was equally right. You've got to be prepared and able to change gears, to adapt and improvise - and be able to do so right during the heat of battle.

This is something that may not come easily - but it is possible, regardless of your endeavor. It's all a matter of training, confidence and the willingness to flow into something else - on the fly.

On more than one occasion I’ve witnessed examples of how this philosophy of "having a plan but being flexible" is NOT simply a athletic strategy. It applies to everything. It even applies to a business meeting or seminar.

One of the things I have noted about many presenters is their reliance on "Power Point" when they talk.

Occasionally I will use one - albeit with blank slides or cartoons in between the actual content, - so that I am forced to communicate based on the audience feedback, not based on 'what does my next slide say.' But most of the time all I want is a microphone and that's plenty, in my book.

There are a few reasons why I don't like Power Point and they tie nicely into this concept of planning what you're going to say, but being willing to adapt and improvise. One of the biggest reasons I don't like to rely on Power Point is simple: What if suddenly, during the middle of your talk, the computer shuts down?

Well, if it does, can the speaker immediately adapt and improvise? Most of the time, when I have witnessed this happen - the speaker is totally thrown and then clueless about what comes next.

You feel bad for the speaker the same way you feel bad for an athlete who is stumped by an opponent who comes out to fight with techniques and strategies you have never seen before, haven't prepared for and cannot defend.

Like my coaches I believe the ultimate level of skill is being able to flow with whatever is happening, whether you prepared for it or not - yet still come out smelling like a rose.

I think only a handful of speakers or athletes can actually do this. But every person has it within himself to do so. If you study the top people in any profession, take note how relaxed and calm they are when they are performing or competing. This is critically important.

Then think back to the times in your life in which you are able to adapt with ease. I'm betting you've had the experience and the first thing you'll recall about it was that you were totally relaxed and having a good time. You weren't stressed out or worried about how you were going to do. You simply went with the flow.

Having a plan can help you relax. I know it helps me. But knowing I can adapt and improvise if the plan isn't working - that's a level of skill worth striving for.

Til next time….

moaners! &%$#

2009-07-20T11:24:00.001-05:00

This past weekend I had some time with myself (no, not in the biblical sense) but had some time to reflect and muse over some of the things I won’t miss when my career at the JCC ends in about 3 weeks. One of the things I won’t miss is the very small percentage of the colleagues that continue to moan about life’s circumstances. Quite frankly they are using too much of my air!

I sat in a meeting not too long ago where I had to use every bit of self control to not jump on the desk and scream at these people to just stop- Stop, Stop, Stop…the frigging moaning!

These folks don’t understand that their moans are not heard! That moaning and self pity does not serve them in any positive way. That constant moaning is tiresome, it is disempowering and frankly it is very unattractive, because it is spilling over with self pity. And more importantly just pisses me off and gives me an eye tick!

When I was heavily into traveling the oceans lecturing on physical fitness, one of the first things I learned and one of the primary lessons taught to us was the need for the individual to accept personal responsibility. If you talk to the police they will tell you (and rightly so) that your personal security is first and foremost your own responsibility. It is not theirs. They will do their utmost to prevent crimes against the person and they we be diligent in trying to stop a crime in progress and solve crimes and prosecute criminals post assault. But the fact still remains that your security always was, always is and always will be your problem.

Personally, I have extended that lesson of self-defense against an assailant on the street to self-defense against the self (defending yourself against your own shadows, addictions and ignorance) I find myself evangelizing the self same message.

Your personal security is your responsibility. It is not the responsibility of the judiciary.

Your health is your responsibility; it is not the charge of the medical fraternity.(They are only really there to mend and heal what is already broken and worn)

Your welfare is your responsibility. It is not the liability of the state, even if you think it is, even if you wish it was. Stop trying to shame some smarmy politician into admitting his duck-pond guilt and instead look in the mirror; shame yourself, be guilty that you are not in charge of your own life.

Your employment (and how much money you earn) it determined by you, if your job is below you and the wages poor you are accountable. You and you alone. By studying and increasing skills anyone can make them selves more valuable, more recession proof in the work place. Your education is also your responsibility, in the public libraries you have access to every book ever written, by the greatest representatives of our species. They are all free. If you are under educated you will not have to look far if you want some one to blame. Your pension is definitely your responsibility, you have a whole life time to prepare for your retirement, and if you fail to prepare then you should be prepared to fail – and don’t point the finger at anyone other than the man in the mirror.

Ultimately your life is your responsibility. Even God helps only those that help themselves. And the moment you surrender that responsibility to a third of fourth party you “disempower” yourself, and become obsolete and impotent.

How many times have you heard the pathetic and the weedy and the wan attack the police for not policing them or the government for not governing them or the doctors and nurses for not caring. Who the f**k wants to be governed, why would you want to be policed by some one else and, let me tell you, doctors will be far more inspired to care for you when they can see that you have bothered to care for yourself.

If you are not a self sovereign, if you don’t lead your self, you become anybody’s “Bi**h”, you become everybody’s lackey and like a carriage without a directing passenger you will be driven and dragged in the direction of the strongest forces, but they will not be the forces of your own will, and you will be taken in every direction, but it will not be a direction of choice.

Your life is not their responsibility it is yours. To be truly safe you must ‘self’ police. For perpetually good life policies, you must ‘self’ govern; look after the body politic. And to be in good health…heal thy self.

This is exciting! This is very exciting.

When you stop blaming and claiming and shaming and take charge of your self, when you empower your self and take responsibility for your own bones you become one very powerful, one very rare and one very attractive individual, and you permission your self to access a brave and limitless existence.

You are great! You are your own police. You are your own medicine. You employ and govern yourself. You are your own Alpha and you are your own Omega. You are your only enemy, you are you only friend.

So please….stop the “F*ng” moaning about who is letting you down and stop letting yourself down. You’ll be surprised that when you are determined to wholly take responsibility for your existence, (insert the deity of your choice), or the universe will proffer you the power to own and determine that existence.

Til next time…

Perfect practice...

2009-07-19T06:45:00.003-05:00

When I frown, complain, or otherwise lose touch with my positive side, my family and friends tease me about emotional awareness, the benefits of smiling, or one of my other upbeat article topics that I've written about in the past. Damn this blog!

I get their point; it’s funny to think that my writing could cause people to imagine me as a smiling, Buddha-like guru, the perfect model of mental health and enlightenment. And that image isn’t entirely false… I do have a buddha like belly - (albiet smaller than last year), smile a lot, and I believe in the benefits of mindfulness, awareness, and a positive attitude. But you know something that I don’t believe in? Perfection.

Do I sound a little defensive? I am. I'm virgo! - but really the truth is, while I claim that perfection is a myth, part of me still expects that I can and should be perfect. Yes, there is some degree of social expectation to be at our best all the time; I detect a touch of challenge in the good-natured ribbing of my friends. But the real challenge resides in my own mind, in the pressure that I place on myself.

Here’s how it looks for me when I’m not so self-aware: on a low energy day, I push myself and demand accomplishment. I keep a mental list of what I’ve done that day, which inevitably won’t measure up to my expectations. Or when a bad mood comes, I fight it and try to act as though everything is okay. Now, I know I’m not the only one who does this. Yet although these “downs” are normal parts of our energy and temperament cycles, we hide them away like shameful defects. Why the pressure to be— to appear—so perfect when we’re doing the best that we can?

Obstacles and uncertainty are a natural part of the self-improvement process. Being honest about our vulnerabilities deepens the value of this process by setting more realistic expectations and connecting us to one another. That’s why I include examples of my own experience in my writing. When we acknowledge our shared weaknesses and common humanity, everyone can breathe a sigh of relief because it’s safe to be ourselves. And in accepting our own fallibility and lack of control over external circumstances, we can more readily accept “what is.”

Despite perfectionist expectations from within and without, the real objective is to keep pushing our growing edge. To allow space for growth, we can use a daily practice (such as exercise, meditation, journaling, even prayer) as an opportunity to slow down and peacefully check in with ourselves. These practices expand our capacity for acceptance when we use them to let go of thoughts about what we should be in favor of appreciating what we already are.

Often times a 10 minute meditation break allows me to focus on gratitude or repeat a positive mantra. As I practice it, I reactivate the positive, accepting parts of myself. Writing is another practice I use to let go of perfectionist ideas. In my writing I explore ways to live a full and balanced life— as tools, not as standards to which we should compare ourselves. Writing functions both as a practice that enhances my awareness and as a reminder of my ideals. Any wellness practice—even reading and writing about self-improvement— keeps self-validating concepts fresh in our minds and hearts.

I am a long way from Buddha-like equanimity or enlightenment, but I try to learn from Buddhist teachings. One of those is to relieve suffering by removing desire. Perfectionism is a desire for the impossible. Acceptance is the ultimate antidote to perfectionism. Through a mindfulness practice, we develop the ability to accept what we are rather than what we think we should be.

When self-criticism and perfectionism seep into my consciousness, I remind myself that I am a learner, not a master of these ways of life. I refocus on gratitude, positive intention, and the benefits of the process itself. I practice, and then I practice some more. Practice will never make perfect. But I can be content in the knowledge that, for me, practice IS perfect.

Til next time...

2009-07-17T10:27:00.001-05:00

Isn’t funny how a little stress in one’s life can make the daily irritants (usually little) that we all encounter much bigger than they normally are? I’ve been noticing this at work lately…

People’s reserves are diverted to take on real problems and then the little (nuisance) things become the straw that breaks the camels back. During these times I think it is important to have a mindset of non-judgment. Let me explain.

Instead of expecting things that we see as negatives to occur simply be prepared for things to happen and when they do accept them as the reality of the situation. Any person paying conscious attention to life knows that unexpected things happen. Someone driving in rush hour traffic every day to work knows that they are going to get cut off. And yet most people fly into a rage every day at the same thing. This is non-acceptance and a blinding failure to learn from experience. If you complain about something you’re not accepting it.

The underlying idea is to let go of opinions. You might feel that someone should not be rude and cut you off in traffic. That is an opinion and despite that people will cut you off in traffic. Accept that it will happen and when it does just smile. Like all things this is a skill and to acquire a skill it must be practiced. Start with easy things and build from there. Practice consciously and actively letting go of your non-acceptance. The art of letting go (or non-doing) is quintessential to a free life skillfully lived.

Til next time…

Rebooting....

2009-07-16T10:11:00.003-05:00

For a guy who has been in the recreation business for a quadrillion years, I sure can’t shoot baskets worth a (insert your favorite word here). But for some reason I am attracted to the basketball court - I like to shoot free throws to zone out and often end up observing my body trying to learn or relearn something new. For sure basketball is an area where I'm no expert. Yet time after time I find it amazing what I feel when I sink one after another - as well as when I miss several in a row.

When I'm successful, I am fully connected to the ball and basket. When I'm not, mind, body and spirit are scattered throughout the gym. I’m just out of sinc…

This is something that is not often discussed. Yet it's a major key to developing your mental and spiritual strength.

Most students of success have trouble getting results because they are physically lazy. They want to just sit there and visualize. Or say positive affirmations. Or write their goals in a notebook. Or listen to peaceful music. Or do a series of chants or prayers.

All of the above are good.

But what about doing something physical?!

The human being needs to blow off steam on a regular basis to feel good. Whether it's punching a bag, going for a walk, swimming, cycling or practicing martial arts - a physical release does more than relax you physically.

It reboots you, it puts you back together. It doesn't just give you a balance of body, mind and spirit. It gives you all three - wrapped up in one - as one.

An elite martial artist doesn't think body, mind, spirit. He may talk in these terms to make what he's saying understandable to those who aren't integrated. But to him, he's talking about all three whenever he's talking about one.

If you do something physical each day and your ability to breathe, visualize and manifest will go off the charts.

Til next time…

Programming...

2009-07-14T09:48:00.001-05:00

I really believe that you can program yourself into having a good day, even under the most trying of circumstances. It begins from the first moment your eyes open - then progresses through your entire day - right up to the moment before you go to sleep.

That is not to say that we will never have a challenging (read: shit) day. The trick and to some extent skill is taking each day and learning how to turn EVERYTHING that happens, the good and the supposedly bad and framing it into feedback that serves you and your purpose.

It seems to reason that when you begin your day looking for and expecting good things to happen to you - you'll attract more of them. Conversely, when you begin by looking for everything that could go wrong - you'll find more of them as well.

Think of this mental picture: Someone you admire calls you on the phone… You answer and they say, "Larry, something really good is coming to you today. I can't tell you what it is. But keep your eyes peeled for it."

After hanging up the phone, I believe you would spend the rest of the day LOOKING for the good thing coming your way.

And I bet you would FIND it.

In fact, I'm willing to bet that before the end of the day you would call the person who phoned you to give them an update. And my guess is that it would be positive.

So the moral of the story – try finding something good today, matter of fact try finding something good each day the rest of the week – see what happens, you just might find it.

Til next time…

I want to share....

2009-07-04T23:56:00.003-05:00

I had the good fortune to read this the other day and it gave me pause. The funny thing is that I had just gotten off the phone with one of my cousin's who was lamenting about her lot in life. It was a difficult conversation for me because I found myself getting angry at her. I couldn't figure out why I had such a visceral reaction to her phone call, but then had an "ah-ha" moment after reading this.... I was getting angry because all I was hearing was complaint after complaint - and then I started to think about how or if I handled different twists in my life we grace. It seems to me if we really want to be happy, why do we act like such babies?

We can claim to be proactive in our life by settings goals and going after what we want. But if we’re always whining and complaining all the time, are we really living effectively?

If you don’t believe me, count how many times you complain about something or other in one day. Whether it be being stuck in traffic, being bothered by the weather, not enough mustard on your sandwich, or whatever it is, there are endless instances where you can find a reason to complain.

But it’s not just outside circumstances that we complain about. We complain about about ourselves too. We complain that we don’t have enough time, we don’t have enough money (this one is huge because it’s often “true”), that we’re not smart enough, cool enough, or just enough.

I know I’ve experienced plenty of unpleasantness due to complaining about things I can’t control. I never really thought about it much until I found this website about “living in a complain free world.”

Imagine how much happier you would be if you simply stopped complaining? Much of what you complain about is outside of your control anyway. What’s the point of brooding about something you have no power to change? Not very intelligent, if you ask me.

Simply becoming conscious of how much you complain is the first step to stopping. When you recognize that you’re complaining, stop and take notice of it. Ask yourself if you would rather complain, or be happy.

Are you ready to live a complaint-free, happier life?
The two steps to stop whining so much:

Make it a priority to notice every time you complain or unnecessarily criticize. This includes judging others. Now, every time you catch yourself complaining, just stop and notice it.
After you’ve noticed yourself complaining, ask yourself this: Is there anything I can do about what I’m complaining about, or it outside of my control? If there is something you can do about it, do it. If there is nothing you can do, let it go.

Obviously, this is a little easier said than done. Complaining is an addiction and a hard habit to break. Like any other habit to break, it will take time.

Even though it may be a long time (or possibly never) before you’re living completely complaint-free, that’s still okay. The good news is this isn’t all-or-nothing. Even 10% less complaining will have an immediate positive impact on your life. Then, once you’ve decreased your whining by 10%, you can keep bootstrapping your way down to complaining less and less.
After complaints show up less and less, something awesome starts to happen. Once your mind realizes that you won’t tolerate its moaning, it will begin to give up its efforts. (Whatever you do, don’t fall into the trap of complaining that you’re complaining.)

So the question is: Would you rather complain or be happy?

(Oh and by the way, having gratitude is a great way to stop complaining.)
This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind.

Thanks for reading this... Til next time.

balancing act...

2009-07-01T05:22:00.002-05:00

I just recently read something that stopped me in my tracks. I'll share.

"There is a balancing act you are to learn between having a burning desire and having a desire that burns you."

Seems to me that having a burning desire creates the necessary mind-set that will create the thing you want. But on the other hand, if the desire is connected to "I'm miserable unless I have this thing" - then more often than not you end up chasing success and that success will always run faster than you do.

I think the objective is to attract success; not to chase it. In my experience chasing success always seems to repel success. You never get what you are chasing. (Ok, so I am thinking about all those high school almost dates) - but seriously, at the end of the month you always come up short; you always need a "quick fix". And from expeience quick fixes don't fix anything.

Just a thought....
Til next time.

My belly....

2009-06-30T09:23:00.003-05:00

Being unemployed (well nearly, that will happen in the next few weeks) gives you time to start thinking about your future.... and what you want out of life.... So after a good night of dreaming - I do some of my best thinking in dreams- I am of a firm belief that getting what you want out of life is a bit like starting a fire in your back yard.

Let me explain:

Suppose you have a magnifying glass and a backyard filled with dry grass. The sun is blazing when you walk outdoors. Your pitch a blanket and take out your magnifying glass. As you hold the magnifying glass in your hand, then you move it from one spot to the next.

Yes, you're trying to start a fire but due to lack of patience and focus, you can't stop changing the position the glass is in. After a few seconds in one spot, you move on to the next. Finally, an expert in the art of 'making fire' (in this case my uncle) comes to observe what you're doing. He tells you that you'll never make a fire the way you're trying to do it.

You then ask, 'Well, how should I do it, then?!'

The expert tells you to focus the magnifying glass in one spot and hold it there until the fire begins. You follow his advice and within a short time the back yard is blazing.

Now the disclaimer, I have to do this since I have a 13 year old son at home - the point of this story is NOT to encourage anyone to start a fire. The point is to suggest that people (me included) who set goals don't know how to start a fire.

They look at their list and try to make everything happen at once. They never stop to focus on the ONE goal that can generate so much heat that the other goals get accomplished, even with far less focus than the ONE.

Suppose your goals are represented by all the different places the magnifying glass was positioned. Yet, no fire from any of those place until the guy shined the glass in ONE place long enough to start the fire.

Then what happened.

After the fire began it quickly consumed the entire backyard (all the other goals got accomplished). This doesn't mean that you never focus on goal number 2, 3, 4, 5 and so on. What it does mean is that you MUST focus on ONE goal long enough to start the fire in your belly. And once that fire gets going, you'll be amazed at the extra energy you'll have for the other goals.

Time to go into the backyard - Til next time....

Simple? Could be...

2009-06-18T19:15:00.003-05:00

Health and fitness are usually made to seem too complex.

After being in this business for 25 plus years or If you read a lot of fitness magazines and blogs (as I often do), you’re told a confusing variety of complex advice. It makes your head spin.

You’re told that eggs, butter and meat are bad for you. Then another crowd will tell you those same things are actually good. Then you’ll hear running is good for you, and the bodybuilding and primal crowds will scoff at longer-distance running. You’ll hear that lifting weights is the best way to get into shape, and others will laugh at that. You’ll hear a million variations of the best workouts, of when to time your nutrition, of how to periodize your workouts, of how to measure fitness, of what supplements you need to take … ad naseum.

It’s enough to make you want to give up.

Fortunately, fitness doesn’t have to be that complex.

In fact, you can boil it down to two simple rules:

Get your body moving on a regular basis; and
Eat a moderate amount of real, whole foods (with occasional indulgences).

I believe if you stuck to those two rules, and stuck with them for awhile, you’d get fit. Doing one but not the other will result in an improvement in health for many people (not all), but it would be an incomplete health. Do both most days of the week and you’re on your way to health and fitness.

But what about specific macronutrient ratios (fancy way of saying the breakdown of protein, carbs and fats)? What about meal frequency and timing? What about workout frequency, splits, timing, reps, and more? You could add all these types of rules and many more, but the truth is, all the complexities are usually a way of masking some simple truths: if you want to lose fat or weight, you have to have a calorie deficit, and if you want to build muscle, you’ve got to use exercise to get stronger. The other stuff is mostly guesswork, and while these complicated programs probably work, they usually work because they promote one or more of the principles in this post, not because of their complexities.

The two rules above are all you need … however, most of us need a little more detail, so here’s a more complete set of simple fitness rules. As always, remember that 1) I only play an expert on TV but have been training people for nearly 25 years and this just seems to work for everybody and this is just stuff that’s worked for me; 2) this is for healthy adults — people with health problems should seek the advice of medical professionals.

1. Get moving. Try to do some kind of physical activity most days of the week (4 or more days if possible). If you have an aversion to exercise, don’t think of it as exercise. Just think of it as a way to get your body moving in some fun way. It can be dance, yardwork, hiking, a nature walk, a swim, basketball, rugby, cycling, even housework if you do it vigorously enough. And it doesn’t have to be the same thing each day. As a matter of fact I recommend that it isn't, just for the sake of simplicity, that you do find a regular time slot you could do your daily activity, most days of the week. I prefer mornings but others enjoy lunchtime or after work.

2. Enjoy yourself. Whatever activity you choose, it has to be fun. If you don’t like it, move on to something else. Focus on the fun part, not the hard part. Or learn, as I have, to enjoy the hard stuff! Again, make it fun, or you won’t keep it up for very long. To make sure it’s not too hard, start easy. Focus on just getting moving and enjoying the activity. Start small, and build up with baby steps.

3. Slowly add intensity. Once you’ve been doing an activity for a little while, and you’re in decent shape, it’s good to add some intensity. But slowly — if you add intensity too quickly you’ll risk injury or burnout. So let’s say you’ve been doing some walking for a couple months — you should be ready to add a little jogging or fast-paced walking, in small little intervals. If you’ve been running, try some faster-paced intervals (take it easy at first) or hill workouts. If you’ve been strength training, be sure to add weights (safely) or decrease rest time or add more reps or sets. If you’re playing a sport, really speed things up, or focus on explosive movements. Intensity is a great way to get yourself in shape and have an effective workout in only 20-30 minutes. Here’s a great way to do bodyweight exercises with intensity: do a circuit of bodyweight exercises (such as pushups, pullups, squats, burpees, Hindu pushups, lunges or others) and do as many circuits as you can in 10 or 15 minutes. Next workout, see if you can do more circuits. It’s great!

4. Minimal equipment. There are a million different exercise gadgets out there, from ab machines to elliptical trainers to a whole slew of weight machines at the gym. My rule is: keep it simple. You can do amazing things with bodyweight exercises — in fact, if you are a relative beginner, you should start with bodyweight exercises for at least 2 to 4 months before progressing to weights. You don’t need cardio machines — just go outside and walk, run, bike, do hills, climb stairs, sprint. Even if you do weights, a barbell or dumbbells are all you need — stay away from the machines that work your body at angles it’s not meant to use (although cable machines aren’t bad). Even better, get outside and do sprints, pushups, jump over things, pick up big rocks and throw them, do pullups from a tree, climb up rocks, swim, do a crabwalk or monkeywalk, take a sledgehammer or pick and slam it into the ground, flip tractor tires, and generally get a great workout with very little equipment.

5. Just a few exercises. Bodybuilding routines will have you doing 3-4 different exercises per body part. That’s too complicated for most people. Keep it simple in the weight room: squats, deadlifts, presses, chinups or pullups, rows. You can do a lot with just those lifts. Of course, you’ll want to mix it up eventually with some variations, but no need for 10 different ab exercises or things that focus on your rear deltoids or use swiss balls. If you’re doing bodyweight exercises, I love things like pushups, burpees, squats, lunges, pullups, dips, planks. Pick a few and do some circuits with little rest.

6. Eat real foods. One of the most important rules on this list, because if you don’t eat right (most of the time), it doesn’t matter how much exercise you do — you’ll get fat and unhealthy. Aim for real, whole foods that are as close to their natural state as possible. That means stay away from processed, refined, fatty, sugary foods. Veggies, fruits, lean meats, dairy, nuts, beans, whole grains, eggs, seeds. Prepare them yourself if possible — convenience foods often have added ingredients, as well as extra salt, fat, sugar and preservatives. If you follow this diet — with the plant foods making the bulk of the diet — it’s hard to go wrong.

7. Eat less. Most people eat too much, and eventually it shows up as fat. To lose that fat, we need to eat less — it’s really that simple. Of course, if you eat the real foods mentioned above, you’ll probably consume fewer calories, but even so, it’s smart to reduce how much you eat overall, at least until you reach a healthy level of body fat (and even then, you shouldn’t let it all go). One way to do that is by eating slowly and mindfully until you’re just satiated (not stuffed). Another way is to eat smaller meals and watch the portions. A third way, which I’ve been experimenting with lately, is intermittent fasting (see Brad Pilon’s Eat Stop Eat ebook for a great explanation of the science behind fasting). However you do it, be sure to consume the real food in moderate amounts, and reduce your calorie intake if you’re looking to lose fat.

8. Give it time. This is what gets many people — they expect to see results immediately, within the first month or so, because the magazines they read make it seem so instantaneous. But real fitness rarely happens this way — it’s a process and a lifestyle change. You didn’t gain the fat overnight, and you won’t lose it that way either. Learn to enjoy the process, enjoy the activities, enjoy the healthy, real food, and you’ll get healthy and fit almost as an afterthought to this new, amazing lifestyle.

Let me know if you have any questions - Til next time....

I've got the coolest job/life....

2009-06-08T15:19:00.003-05:00

Last year when I was out in California working at the pro bike tour I had the occasion of meeting an incredible man. His name was Bjorn Eikrem. At the time he was 94 and spent his twilight years, biking, hiking and learning to mountain climb. He was a spectator at the bike tour and had a certain presence that drew you in and smile that was deeply infectious.

I had a chance to meet up again with him this year a few months ago at the Tour of California and met his sons, grand children and great grandchild. - I just found out that he passed away. The only reason I bring this up is that sometime the people we meet on the road of life can have a pretty profound affect on you. Even if our contact it is for a relatively short period of time.

I'll explain. While we were in Solvang, and he recognized me as I was walking by the finish line. He called out to me - he had remembered that I had helped his grandson get across the course last year to be with granddad for the end of the race festivities. A simple gesture, but one that made a difference to him.

Anyway, we had some time to kill and struck up a much longer conversation. He was holding court with a small group of spectators waiting for the festivities to be gin and told us of an old Norse tale.

You know, he started "Thor was know as the mightiest of the Norse gods. Once, when in the land of giants he challenged the giants to a wrestling match. But none of them would accept the challenge, so their chief called an old woman, who agreed to the wrestling match. After a violent struggle, she succeeded in bringing Thor down to one knee, and the giants called a stop to the match. Later the chief of the giants told Thor that he had done remarkably well, as that he was actually wrestling with Old Age, and there never was, and never will be, a man whom Old Age will not sooner or later lay low." The story made us all smile.

He further went on to say, "I think that this story tells us that old age and its consequences are inevitable to those who are lucky enough! And that "we all had best find ways to enjoy old age while it lasts!"

Pretty smart words for a Norseman I think... and probably why he really enjoyed his life until he was 95. My thoughts are with his very loving family.

Til next time...

My relationship with....

2009-06-04T09:23:00.004-05:00

I've been doing a lot of soul searching lately. I suspect that I will need to tweak, no reinvent myself to make me more marketable in these tough economic times. All the research suggests that IF one wants to get hired more easily, one should look the part - they should look fit, comfortable in clothes and actually project themselves into the position which they are vying for. So, my guess is that middle aged, "husky" and cynical probably aren't great selling tools. The middle aged thing can be fixed with various techniques but "husky" and my "moods" can be greatly enhanced by what I eat.

That started me thinking about the relationship that I have fostered with food. Seriously, have you ever stopped to consider what relationship you have with food?

It's funny I don't think we often think we even have a relationship with food, and yet we do — and it’s pretty intimate.

Think about this: if you’re like me, you spend as much or more time with food than you do with many of the loved ones in your life — several hours a day or more.

And consider this: technically, food is just fuel for living. That’s all — nothing else. And yet … it has become so much more to most of us:

- we use food for pleasure
- we use it for comfort
- we turn to food when we’re sad, depressed, hurt
- we use food to socialize
- we use it as a reward
- we do it when we’re bored
- food can also be a chore
- we use food as gifts
- we turn to food when we’re lonely
- food can be associated with sex
- food is equated to health
- sometimes, food becomes an obsession
- it definitely can be an addiction
- food can make us hate ourselves
- food is the center of many billion-dollar industries

In fact, the huge food-related industries are at the center of much of our relationship with food: restaurants, fast-food chains, convenience foods, agribusinesses, distributors, grocery chains, snack foods, bakeries, coffee shops, dessert chains, health food, diet foods, supplements, bodybuilding food, and many others. They spend billions upon billions every year trying to get us to eat more and more food — their food in particular — and the horrifying thing is that all this advertising really, really works.

We have been convinced that the answer to almost any problem is food. You truly love someone? Buy them chocolates, or take them to a restaurant, or bake them cookies. Want to lose weight? Eat diet food. Want to get fit? Take our supplements, eat our meat, drink our milk. Want to be healthy? Eat our healthy products. Want to reward yourself? There are too many options to name here. Having a bad day? We’ve got the food for you. Don’t have time? Our food will save time. Want to save money? Buy super size and “save”.

Food is the answer to everything, apparently.

And yet, we forget that food is just fuel. We need to eat a certain amount to live and maintain our weight. If we eat more than that, we will store some of that fuel as fat (or build muscle if we’re exercising). And how do we lose weight? By eating, apparently — eat diet food, drink diet shakes, eat Zone bars, eat vegetarian products, eat meat and other protein sources, eat low-fat products, eat our cereal, drink our diet soda.

But what if we … just ate less?

Despite what the food industries have convinced us, we don’t need to eat as much as we do to survive. Sure, maybe eating that much is fun, and pleasurable, and will stave off boredom, and is fun to do with friends and family, and so on. But we don’t need to eat that much. Actually, we need to eat less.

The problem isn’t that it’s so difficult to eat less. The problem is that we have a complicated relationship with food that started when we were toddlers and has become more and more complicated through the years, through endless amounts of advertising, of eating when we’re sad and lonely and happy and bored and at parties and going out and on dates and watching TV and dieting and so on.

Our complicated relationship with food makes it hard to cut back on how much we eat.

So in my effort to be healthier I am examining the following to start building a new relationship with food:

First, I need to start recognizing exactly why I eat — is it just for sustenance or is our hunger often triggered by other things (boredom, socializing, pleasure, etc.)?

When you start to change your mindset and really start to pay attention, you begin to notice the effects that advertising and the food industries have had on how we think about food and how we eat.

My big thing is that I have to stop eating when I'm bored, out of habit, as a reward, for pleasure, or comfort, etc. I need to only eat what and how much I need for fuel.

This convenient food habit is so entrenched, but I really need to find other ways to entertain and comfort myself. The notion that you can socialize without eating large amounts of food has been a foreign concept - let alone being in a business that obsesses so much about food.

It seems that most of us have some type of addiction with certain foods — sugar, for example, or starches. I have to watch those, I can still eat them, but certainly don’t need to eat them as much.

If you think about it; life would be so much simpler IF I could end this complicated relationship with food! Just think of the possibilities that I might experience....

- I’d spend less time thinking about food.
- I'd spend less time preparing food.
- I'd spend less money on food. (A good thing for the soon to be unemployed!)
- I'd eat less.
- I'd get healthier.

How about Fasting?

I have to give credit to Brad Pilon and his excellent e-book, Eat Stop Eat, for inspiring some of this post. Brad shook up a few of my notions about eating, my assumptions about standard beliefs in the health industry, and about why we are conditioned to eat so much.

While I haven’t yet decided to try Brad’s super simple method for losing fat — fast 1-2 days a week and eat normally on other days, plus strength training — I definitely recommend his book as a way to challenge the ideas you might have read in magazines or fitness blogs.

But what’s most interesting is how he recommends 24-hour fasts as a way to transform your relationship with food. By fasting, you learn to give up your need to eat for reasons other than fuel.

You learn that hunger is often conditioned by other things, and you end that conditioning. You learn that hunger is OK, and after awhile the fasts don’t bother you at all. At least, that’s what Brad claims, and it sounds reasonable to me. I might try fasting for this reason alone.

Now, some might object to fasting on the usual grounds — it’s unhealthy, your body goes into starvation mode, it’ll slow down your metabolism, your body will start using muscle as fuel, your blood-sugar levels will drop too low, you won’t have energy. Those are the same reasons I objected. And I won’t try to refute these ideas — Brad’s book does a much better job. (Note: the links to his website aren’t affiliate links and I don’t make any money if you buy his book. Nor do I endorse his program, as I haven’t tried it. I do endorse the book for informational purposes.) Anyway, you don’t need to fast to transform your relationship with food. It’s one way, and I thought it was an interesting idea.

In the end... part of my remake is going back to and doing some simple things: food is just fuel. Most of us need to eat less. Food isn’t love or entertainment or anything else like that. It’s just fuel.

Til next time...

Judgement Day!

2009-05-22T12:35:00.003-05:00

Well it's here - Memorial Day Weekend.
The official start of Summer. The great "unveiling" - when the shirts come off, the swimsuits and shorts go on and the entire World knows exactly how good or bad your dieting and exercising was for the last 3-4 months. Especially in white!

A friend of mine has called this weekend - Judgment Day!

Are you ready? :)

If not - you have two more BIG weekends this Summer in which to dial in your physique and make a huge difference. That's right - it's not over -- you still have two more Judgment Days this year!

Goal setting is all about setting S.M.A.R.T. goals -- and T stands for "Time line". Athletes peak for National Championships, Trials and World events. Just because you're training for fat loss or to look better naked - doesn't change the fact that DEADLINES are extremely effective tools.
So we're going to set two this Summer.

Your next goal is Independence Day((for my US readers) - July 4th - only five weeks away.

With a combination of a kick start plan, a solid workout and nutritional support program and a healthy dose of motivation - you could easily be 10-15 lbs leaner by then.

Your next goal is the end of summer - the Labor Day weekend (first weekend in September). This is currently fourteen weeks away. So if you're looking a little flabby this weekend or feeling a little embarrassed about your physique -- you can still make amazing changes. It's never too late.

This is an opportunity for you to refocus look completely shredded - rock hard legs and have abs by Summer's end.

But you still need to start now.

Here's the fat loss basics:

1. You need to create a caloric deficit - no two ways about it - you must burn more than you consume.

2. The most effective way to create that deficit is to use a combination of diet and exercise

3. Your diet should consist of lean proteins, fruits and vegetables. Keep starches and refined carbs to a minimum. Keep your fluid intake high (water only), and try to eat at least 4-5 small meals per day. This will help maintain blood sugar levels and keep you from blowing your diet.

4. Exercise - interval training and metabolic resistance training will provide the most bang-for-your buck. Steady state aerobic training just doesn't burn enough calories for your goals right now, and a bodypart training split will be less effective than total body training for fat loss.

5. Try to exercise at least six days per week - three days of interval based cardio and three days of resistance training.

6. Supplements: there is almost nothing that will make a difference. Sorry. Certain supplements can boost metabolism, or increase your energy somewhat and these may be useful - but in terms of real world "pounds of fat lost" I have yet to see anything that really made a difference. A multivitamin and a fish oil supplement are vital though - but more for your overall health. A protein shake or meal replacement powder can be useful for convenience but are nothing more than high quality food.

If you need a jump start - call me- we can set some very specific goals and take care of some fat quickly in the next four weeks.

Til next time...

PS -All talk of fat loss aside - enjoy your holiday weekend. But PLEASE remember the point of this weekend - remember our fallen heroes and spare a thought for all the troops who are still fighting for us today.

My thanks to you all.

The power of thinking small

2009-05-15T10:45:00.002-05:00

I needed a diversion from my own personal job woes the other day and went to the big Red Box and rented something I hadn’t seen in several years. Funny how a movie that is more than 30 years old holds so many lessons as well as a special place in my heart. While I was watching “Star Wars”, I realized that young Luke Skywalker, the Jedi trained by Yoda, was learning something that I should be more cognizant of and start applying to my own situation today.

There is Jedi Force technique called The Art of the Small wherein the Jedi essentially narrows his focus …until he can use The Force to change things at a microscopic level.

I guess that is a geeky way of showing how focusing on less and less can, in the end, change everything. There are a lot of us who would like to make an impact on the world, in some way or another. We’d like to make a contribution, change things for the better, improve our lives and the lives of other or perhaps just leave behind something positive. And yet, with the vastness of this world, with the number of people out there who will resist change … it seems impossible at times.

How can one person make an impact on the world? Normal people — those of us who aren’t in the circle of influencers such as elected officials or influential media types — just don’t have that kind of power, right?

Not necessarily.

When we think of the world as such a vast place, it’s overwhelming. It’s like sprinkling drops of our efforts into the ocean — the overall effect is so little as to be unnoticeable. But think of those same drops of effort dripping onto one tiny spot, perhaps not in the ocean but on a rock. The drops of water, concentrated on one spot, can eventually break through that rock. And if that rock is supporting a lot of other rocks, those drops of water can cause an avalanche. The same effort, concentrated in the right place, can make an impact. But if that effort is diffused over a wide area — your not going to make too much of a dent.

I believe there are at least four lessons we can gain from the The Art of the Small

So using our little metaphor — of drops of water falling on an ocean, or on a rock I believe that:

1. One person can make an impact. Even if you feel like it is hopeless, you don’t need to be someone famous or powerful to have an impact. We all can make a difference, you can change things — if you focus on The Art of the Small.

2. Concentrate your efforts on smaller and smaller areas. When your efforts are diffused over a wide area, they won’t have much of an impact. So the trick is to focus on smaller areas and your efforts will be felt more fully. It could take time for change to happen, but keep that focus narrow.

3. Try to find an area that will cause a tipping point. You will have the biggest impact if you can change something that will in itself cause further changes — the rock that causes the avalanche. This isn’t an easy thing, buy you need to find that pressure point, that spot that will cause everything else to change. It takes practice and experience and luck and persistence, but it can be found.

4. Don’t try to beat an ocean. You’ll lose. Instead, focus on small changes that will spread.

Learning the Art of the Small isn’t something you’ll always grasp instinctively, but you’ll learn its effectiveness when you put it into practice. Not that I am a big climate change guy, but lest say you wanted to beat climate change? It’s too huge for one person to change — so focus on something smaller instead. Change your behaviors in small ways, help your children change, help other family and friends change. And teach them to help others change.

By starting in small ways — helping others, do little good things, and see what the impact of those “little” things are. Never underestimate the power of putting a smile on someone’s face. That smile could change the person’s entire day, and they could go on to do something brilliant that in turn helps thousands of people. All because you did something small that put a smile on their face.

I know it sounds corny, but it really does work! Small things can have huge effects. Over time, you’ll learn to focus your efforts more effectively, but in the beginning, it doesn’t matter. What matters is you learn to focus on smaller and smaller things, and learn to be persistent.

I think that small things can change the world.

Til next time…

I'll be darn....

2009-05-08T00:27:00.001-05:00

I was recently sent this link to an excellent article on heart health and thought it might be of interest to you. It details ways in which you might be hurting your heart without even realising it.

http://www.mastersofhealthcare.com/blog/2009/25-surprising-ways-youre-hurting-your-heart/

Til next time...

Wisdom from?

2009-05-06T04:19:00.004-05:00

Usually when I am trying to figure something out or in a pensive mood you can find me at the local library or book seller. I happened upon a book that was left behind warming up the chair I was about to plop in. It had an interesting cover - I randomly opened it to this bit of text. It's by Jim Rohn...

"What we ponder and what we think about sets the course of our life. Any day we wish; we can discipline ourselves to change it all. Any day we wish, we can open the book that will open our mind to new knowledge. Any day we wish, we can start a new activity. Any day we wish, we can start the process of life change. We can do it immediately, or next week, or next month, or next year."

We can also do nothing. We can pretend rather than perform. And if the idea of having to change ourselves makes us uncomfortable, we can remain as we are. We can choose rest over labor, entertainment over education, delusion over truth, and doubt over confidence. The choices are ours to make. But while we curse the effect, we continue to nourish the cause. As Shakespeare uniquely observed,"The fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves." We created our circumstances by our past choices. We have both the ability and the responsibility to make better choices beginning today."

Humm... made me wonder about the challenges that may be facing me on the horizon... you too?

Til next time....

Keep twisting the Rubik’s Cube

2009-05-03T20:41:00.003-05:00

Don’t give up. I know easier said than done...

Difficult tasks are there for a reason. They force our brain to invent solutions. This is what makes us human. It might be necessary to set something aside for a while, but you must never abandon a task entirely, because you feel frustrated. Every problem you solve will sharpen your confidence, enhance your intelligence, and build on the overall body of your finished work.

Everybody’s creative process is different. My family and I share few specific habits, you and I probably share even less, but this is universal. Pay attention to what you’re doing. Never be content to do something just because it’s the way you did it yesterday. We’re meant to evolve, there’s no reason we can’t do it on a daily basis.

I think this was probably a personal post for me... been that kind of week, but I thought I might share....

Til next time...

"I don't know"

2009-05-02T00:06:00.004-05:00

Every once in a while I get annoyed by a successful person. I shouldn't, but I do... not because they were more intelligent than I. Maybe it was a political figure, a leader a boss... It’s especially maddening when that person is creating rules that dictate your life. Perhaps you can relate? I’ve had my share of run ins with people making decisions that I thought were less than brilliant.

So I find myself questioning.... "What is it that makes them successful? What puts them in that position to make my life so...difficult?" It's one of the things that I’ve always wondered and sometimes bugs me. I mean, shouldn't intelligence and common sense be a prerequisite to leadership? The answer… not really.

It turns out the biggest reason people are successful is: consistent action, not intelligence.

Then the question is, are these three words ruining your life…?

The unmagical words? Those words are: I don’t know.

It’s not drive, it’s not motivation, it’s not lack of passion that keeps people from doing what they want. It’s not knowing where to start, or how to get from A to B. The single biggest reason people aren't successful is that they don’t take action to make their dreams a reality.

So how can we overcome this? How can we stop letting obscurity keep us from becoming successful? The answer is pretty simple: You have to develop the ability to stop caring about not knowing.

You have to cultivate the habit of doing before knowing. This seems like a daunting thing to do, but it’s really actually a very easy habit to create. And there are a multitude of possibilities that exist right now so that you can practice it. It really is one of the easiest things to do in the world.
For example, how many time does your spouse or partner ask you “What do you want to have for dinner?” and you respond, “I don’t know.” (This happens to me all the time, and it’s maddening.) Next time, instead of using those three dirty words, just ask yourself, “What’s something I’d like to have for dinner?” and then respond.

Now do this when someone asks where you’d like to hang out, or what you’d like to spend the evening doing. Instead of re-actively saying “I don’t know,” take the time to come up with a response. Even if you’re not 100% completely stoked about the idea, just come up with something you’d be satisfied with doing. Anything other than "I don’t know" is an improvement.

Next, try asking yourself “How could I best use my time, right now?” or “What is the highest leverage use of my time, right now?” Take a minute to brainstorm and mentally prioritize. If you’re having trouble coming up with an answer, just pick whatever you think would be the most productive use of your time. Remember, anything is better than the those three words we shall never speak of.

Just imagine all of the possibilities for you to practice actively making decisions based on your desires, rather than re-actively defaulting to unconsciousness. There are so many little ways you can practice this skill. I think you’ll be surprised at how often you’re able to rehearse it.

Who knows, this just might be the difference between living and existing.... Okay, so let's say you’ve mastered it with the little stuff. Now it’s time to use it on the things that really matter....like your passions and career.

If you’re not doing something you love or at least like for a living, you’re selling yourself short. And I bet the reason why you’re not pursuing something better is because you don’t know what you’d rather do.

Instead of allowing that "not knowing" to dwell in your psychic space, cast it out. You do not have to tolerate it anymore. If you don’t know what you’re passionate about, move from not knowing to seeking a path that will allow you to explore what you might love to do. This might mean reading a book on different career pursuits. It might mean googling your hobbies for possible career intersections. Might be having a conversation with someone who is doing what you would like to do! Whatever it is, practice that until you move into a state of knowing.

I’m passionate about this because I’ve seen many lives unfulfilled because of not knowing. It seems silly to think that such a simple phrase or mindset can have such a devastating impact.
So, when you feel stuck in a state of indecision make one little shift. Say what you want out loud.

It just might be the difference between existing or really living.

Til next time...

Finding yourself...

2009-04-26T19:22:00.003-05:00

I went to my mailbox yesterday and was greeted by an envelope from a friend. I opened it 10 minutes later, as I was waiting for my vegie burger to cook. Inside, I found the card you see above.

First thought: Yes! Awesome.

Second thought: But wait. Aren’t there parts of us so deeply ingrained that we don’t quite feel we created them? Parts that we have to find?

As I continued to devour my burger, giving me ample time to contemplate as I filled my belly. I mused and chewed, and by the time I washed it all down with a glass of iced tea I realized this completely ties in with many of the questions I have asked in this blog over the past several months.

Sure, we come with a lot of stuff. We come with talents, tendencies, desires, pet peeves… the list goes on. But life isn’t about uncovering these things — it’s about what we do with them once we know they’re there. It’s about what we nurture, what we say, who we help, what we do — in essence, what we create.

So, do you want to find yourself, or do you want to create yourself? Now’s as good a time as any to get started…

Add your comments below... til next time!

I know this thought....

2009-04-25T08:26:00.000-05:00

2009-04-25T07:00:00.001-05:00

This past week I had a lunch appointment with a local community big wig at 11:30. I told him I'd meet him at his place.

At exactly 11:30, I pulled into his parking lot. He opened his door, got in my car and off we went. We spent a couple hours together and will probably meet again in the near future.

Now, this might not sound like a big deal - and it isn't - except for the fact that both of us kept our word. Both of us said we would do something - and we did it.

Sadly, a lot of people don't operate this way. They say one thing and do another. They promise but don't deliver. And when you let them know - they don't even apologize.

They think it's perfectly acceptable to promise to meet you, to promise to have a job finished by a certain time - and not fulfill the promise.

How can you go through life with no honor? How can you say you're going to meet someone, or deliver something on time, and not do it?

Worst of all, why is it that you think other people should put up with it?

Now, have I always been perfect about managing every detail of my schedule? No.

But if I make a mistake, if I'm late for an appointment, if I have a conflict come up that causes me to miss or be late, I'm the first guy on the horn apologizing and doing what it takes to make good on my promise.

Instead of promising and under-delivering - or not delivering at all, I believe in under-promise with over-delivery. Give people more than they expected.

A few weeks back I held a 2 hour seminar at a retirement community. There was no charge. I showed up early, started on time and when it was supposed to end, I continued until every question was asked and answered. I ended up giving 40 minutes more than was expected - at a free event.

That's what I call honor. I also call it respect. For oneself and for the others who've traveled to hear and see you.

I'd absolutely hate myself and my life if I was any other way.

Til next time…

Be Quick, but don't...

2009-04-21T15:19:00.002-05:00

Often times I’ll run across a quote that speaks to me. Just the other day I read one from Coach John Wooden, "Be quick, but don't hurry."

Another one from Bob Proctor, "Don't slow down. Calm down."

When it comes to the question of being overwhelmed, it's amazing how many people feel confused or out of balance after attending a seminar or class or get a new project wherein a ton of new ideas or concepts are introduced or tossed around.

A few years back after a week long intensive training, I told the group that I was leading, "If you're feeling overwhelmed… Good! That means your getting the new stuff confused with the old.

There really is a simple reason for all of this confusion. All you have done over this past week is force fed new information into an already full brain. But you're not DOING anything with the information. It’s just bubbling around and rearranging the furniture in your head. What you need to do is strike a balance. Study - then do. Study some more - then do.

You really haven't learned anything until you start to do something with the new information. You have to test the new and see if it applies, then experience any differences (compare the old concepts vs the new) and evaluate (the most important thing) - the result."

This concept was totally foreign to many of the people I spoke to. They thought that learning and doing was the same thing.

Not in my world of the world of the creative.

Creators understand that you don't know anything until you can use it and apply it. Reciting what you supposedly know is not demonstrating that you can apply it. There’s a BIG difference.

In school you learn to memorize and recite. I don’t consider that real learning. Nor is it real thinking.

Thinking involves asking yourself questions - and coming up with answers. Now learning also involves thinking, but then doing something with what you just learned.

I'll never forget how shocked the audience I spoke to was when I explained how I read a "how to" book - or go through a "how to" course.

I read the first chapter or lesson - then I stop reading and start doing.

Then I read the next lesson. Then I stop reading and start doing. This method allows me to apply the thoughts, concepts and principles. So I really do learn and change.

It really is such a simple formula. It's not hurried. But boy is it quick.

Meanwhile, those who read the whole book or course and do nothing - get nothing but get overwhelmed.

They hurried through the book - and got nothing out of it.

Now, does this mean I'm against speed reading? Not at all.

I believe learning how to read fast is one of the most important skills you can master. But even when you read fast, the key lies in being relaxed and focused. That’s where you learn to breathe deeply as you read – (Evelyn Wood has been good to me), this is just another tool of being able to go fast - even when you're not hurrying.

Frantically rushing is the enemy. Going slower can often be quicker. Being relaxed increases speed.

You can make haste slowly and get there faster, if you'll relax and breathe.

And if this message is overwhelming, get up and move. Be quick - but don't hurry.

Til next time…

Geen power foods....

2009-04-20T08:36:00.001-05:00

April is 22nd is Earth Day, and being or at least trying to be a good steward to Mother Earth I have been becoming more “green”. Well, not only am I trying to reduce my carbon foot print by doing good things for this plant, I am also trying to “green-up” my diet. (I’m sure turning 50 this year and having a major physical looming over my head would have no bearing on this at all!) So I beg the question…. Are you getting enough greens in your diet?

If not, it's time to reconsider. Dark leafy greens like spinach and those in the kale family (collard greens, for instance) are heart healthy, packed with cancer-fighting antioxidants, and excellent sources of vitamin C, vitamin K, beta-carotene, and folate (a nutrient that's especially important for pregnant women). Because of their benefits you might even consider these “power foods”, but the best part: they are tasty, refreshing, filling, and super low in calories! Seems like you can perk up your next salad with one or more of these leafy veggies:

Arugula: One cup of these lobed, peppery greens (also known as rocket) contains just 5 calories! Make them the star of a salad or toss them into a mix of baby greens and other vegetables (or try them with sliced fresh pears and goat cheese). You'll find arugula in markets from early spring through summer. Look for young, tender leaves. But be sure to finish them off within two days because they don't stay fresh for long.

Romaine: This type of lettuce is much more rich in nutrients than lighter varieties like iceberg — so if you prefer a crunchy salad, opt for romaine instead. Also known as cos lettuce, romaine is mildly flavored and has coarse leaves with a large rib down the center. While it provides a whopping 55 percent of your daily value of vitamin A, one cup of shredded leaves has only 8 calories. And because it's available year-round, it can be a salad staple! Tasty tip: Romaine makes a great salad with diced apples and walnuts.

Radicchio: Italian chicory, as it's sometimes called, comes in small, round, cabbagelike heads. While not technically "green" (the more common variety has red leaves with white veins, but it can also be white or green with red speckles), radicchio delivers an antioxidant punch (similar to that of blueberries) that helps reduce damage caused by nasty free radicals. It contains 9 calories per shredded cup and tastes mildly bitter (but mellows when it's cooked). In addition to chopping it up for a salad, you can prepare it as it's done in Italy — grilled with olive oil or cooked in risotto and pasta.

Mache: This green goes by a couple of different monikers, including corn salad and lamb's lettuce. It has narrow, spoonlike leaves that grow in clusters (or rosettes). Some varieties have a flavor resembling that of hazelnuts, but the delicate taste can become bitter as the leaves age. While higher in calories than other greens (20 per cup), mache has health benefits galore — it can improve your blood pressure, heart health, brain function, and immunity. Enjoy it with other tender-leaf lettuces or add it to omelets, soups, or grain or potato salads.

Well that is my bit for the “greening” of America

Til next time…

Laughter…

2009-04-19T12:26:00.001-05:00

In an over-medicated, quick-to-prescribe-pills world that we live in, sometimes the most simple and natural approach can be the best solution for what ails a person. We get so caught up in the numbers and stats that oversight becomes inevitable; the byproduct being side affects which lead us to believe that the next pill will somehow magically become the smoking bullet, the pill to end all pills.

And while all of this scrambling progress leaves us convinced that we are indeed moving forward, there lies an answer that is easy, free, tried and true. It's the healing power of laughter (University of Maryland Medical Center):

Laughter, along with an active sense of humor, may help protect you against a heart attack, according to a recent study by cardiologists at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. The study, which is the first to indicate that laughter may help prevent heart disease, found that people with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations compared to people of the same age without heart disease."

So what is it about laughter that seems to heal us in a way that pills simply cannot? (Web MD):

We change physiologically when we laugh. We stretch muscles throughout our face and body, our pulse and blood pressure go up, and we breathe faster, sending more oxygen to our tissues.

People who believe in the benefits of laughter say it can be like a mild workout — and may offer some of the same advantages as a workout."

Scientific studies aside, just think about how you feel when you are laughing. You feel light, healthy, care-free. And more importantly, if you're laughing you are definitely not feeling stressed out, depressed, and unhealthy. The Web MD article goes on to explain how laughing increases/improves the following:

Blood Flow
Immune Response
Blood Sugar Levels (lowered)
Relaxation and Sleep

So if you've had a bad day and you're trying to figure out what to watch on your Tivo, pick the comedy and do something good for your body!

Til next time…

My new workout shirt…

2009-04-18T17:07:00.002-05:00

One of my clients/friends came up with one of my favorite slogans of all time, when during a recent session he cried out plaintively, "F. U. Exercise!" I am so getting that on a shirt. It's my workout feeling put into words: F.U. Exercise.

In his case he was being funny while he was also doing whatever evil thing I asked him to do. But damn if I don't feel that way often. Here's what it's like for me. Exercise is hard and it hurts and it can become one of those big fat "shoulds" in your day, along with gathering stuff so you can do your taxes and eating leafy greens and putting on actual clothes. If I don't get it out of the way early, it haunts me like a ghost dog. "You still neeeeeed to work out, woooooo. You haven't worked out yet, wooooo."

And that's just getting me to do it! Once I start, damn, then I get sweaty and it's painful and some days it provides me with vivid proof that I am a weak fraud and a failure. It requires effort, and being willing to challenge yourself, and a certain willingness to suffer reasonable pain in the moment for a long-term outcome. And you have to be consistent. Damn, I don't like ANY of those things. Why can't there be some long term benefit to laziness and lolling around in bed, hmmm? How fair is that?

That does it: I quit. New blog will be solely focused on sitting in the sun on my balcony in flip flops and an old t-shirt (with FU Exercise boldly on the chest), just doing nothing. The posts will flow from that.

But then, I unfortunately remember that I'm vain and I like the way I look and feel better when I exercise. Sorry, that's part of the motivation here. Oh, and it does give me a post-workout glow-y feeling, and a sense that at least I accomplished one good thing, even if the workout was suckitude itself. (My low standards for myself are truly an asset sometimes. "Eh, you did something - you're good.") And yeah, it's all very nice to be able to carry heavy things and do push ups and see progress on occasion and accomplish things, blah blah blah. I mean, the whole "strong" thing is nice. And I like being an example of athleticism for my kid. Yeah, whatever.

So here's the thing: The other day I suddenly remembered this moment from when I was in college. I will tell you I feel a little bit uncomfortable sharing this story, for lots of reasons, but I will anyway, because that's what happens when I've had hot chocolate late at night. I had been running regularly for a couple years, and was weight training (unheard of for tennis players) and doing old time functional fitness stuff. But despite all that, and the fact that I had a consistent program and all, it still felt like I was just sort of doing my thing, it didn't mean anything really. I was still the same sort of lazy shlump I always was.

So towards the end of practice one day, our coach decided he had to punish us since we lost so badly the day before. He had that brilliant idea face on, and decided that we needed to do fifty 50 yard sprints at the end of practice – (frankly I think he just lost an argument with his wife and was ticked off at everything in life – he did that often) So after a two minute diatribe of how inept and piss poor we were we as a tennis team were summoned to the track.(We lost 6 matches to 3 against the 4^th ranked team in the country!) He and his assistant stood fifty yards apart and started blowing the whistles… This is going to be fun…and then started doing sprints in my usual zoned-out way, and when I was done, I looked around and realized I had finished first. "Did I forget to do part of it? Did I count the number of sprints wrong?" I asked my coach, a little panicked. He shrugged, and said, "Maybe you are just fast."

What the fuck? I'm not fast. Yea a little strong, maybe even quick first step, but never fast! I played sports I usually got picked last for teams because I feigned indifference, and I ran slow, and there is not ONE part of me that is at all physically good at anything remotely resembling a sprint.

Except…maybe actually doing this shit resulted in, I don't know, getting better and FASTER! I was okay at being okay at it. Being, well…good at it? Some of it. Improving Getting fit, whatever that means.

I guess what I'm saying is that moment was the beginning of me changing how I saw myself. Obviously there's plenty of people who are better athletes than me—thousands of them, and I don't like to think about them at all, those bastards. But that part is not very important. It took a little competition for me to see myself as athletic, but competition is only one avenue, and it can screw you over just as easily, if all you are is relative to how you do against other people. (I tell myself this daily sometimes, especially when I lose.) The point here is the yet-again silly realization that doing something actually changed me, and it just took a little longer for my picture of myself to catch up. But I'm glad it did, because I like feeling this way.

I've had lots of moments like this in my life: Caring for others made me realize I'm an a-hole(tough love), getting writing jobs made me realize I'm a writer, and so on. And actually exercising regularly made me realize I can do it, and get better at it. I would like to keep feeling that way, so I have to keep doing it.

Of course I can't help but be amused at the thought, "What if I did count my sprints wrong that day?" Fake epiphany!?…. Either way though, it's been a good thing.

I really hate all the rah-rah total epiphany exercise stuff out there, so I get leery of making too much of anything, especially with all the so called gurus promising your life will change if you lose ten pounds. I'm just saying, for me, this has been an accomplishment, and something that made me and makes me feel better. FU exercise still applies. But I also know that I can't quit and hope that I never do. Because I'm happier now.

Til next time….

“U inconsiderate…Jerk!”

2009-04-15T04:17:00.001-05:00

I was having a talk with my son the other day, sitting him down and talking about consideration — how to think of others, and not just yourself. It's a key concept that makes such a difference in life that it's one of the few things I really want to teach my son.

It's so sad because I see so many inconsiderate people around me every day — people, who only care about what they want and don't think of others, don't see things from the perspective of other people. People who cut you off in traffic, who cut in front of you in line, who say rude things, who take your parking spot, who hurt your feelings. I try to brush these things off, but it's unfortunate that so many people are so inconsiderate.

Thing is, they aren't trying to be mean or rude … they just aren't thinking of others. And I don't think they're aware of this. I think they think they're being perfectly fine, and don't think of themselves as inconsiderate.

I'm a good example — I think I'm fairly considerate, but there are plenty of times when I'm inconsiderate without realizing it. I realized when I was having that talk with my son, that I had been rude to someone earlier that day. Then I started to think of all the ways I'd been selfish recently. And I realized that I'm not as perfect as I think.

You probably aren't either. While you might not be the "jerk" I called you in the title of this post, there are very few of us who are considerate without fail. I have an uncle who is the most considerate person I know — he's one of my role models — and he can skip this post. The rest of us need it, I think.

What are the consequences of being more considerate? To start with, I think it feels good — we like being kind to others, doing nice things for others, making others happier. Second, it makes our lives better in so many other ways — people will treat you with more respect and kindness, will like you better, will be more likely to want to work with you and be with you. Third, it makes society better — when we all treat each other with consideration, we live better together, we work better together, we cooperate. Sure, there will always be jerks, but if we can make them a minority, society will be better off overall.

At the very least, you can say with surety that you're not one of those jerks. And that's a good thing, right? Here is a list of things that I went over with my son…

1. Admit you're not perfect. I'll be the first to say it: I'm far from perfect. I'm a jerk sometimes. I'm inconsiderate and selfish sometimes. And I don't usually realize it until later. If you think you're not a jerk, at least admit that you are inconsiderate at times. Try to recall those times. Think of how you could have acted differently. This is the first step, and it's an important one.

2. Place yourself in the shoes of others. This is the key to consideration — to consider the feelings and needs and wants of others, to see things from their perspective. Try to think of what others are going through, what you'd want if you were in their situation. This isn't always easy, but it gets easier with practice. And even if you're not correct in your assumptions about what another person wants or feels or is going through … the important thing is that you're making the effort, and it's a transformative one.

3. Act with compassion and kindness. If someone else is suffering, even a little, try to ease their suffering in some way. Treat others with kindness, respect, love. Do it in little ways — a smile, a kind word, a thank you, a hug, doing something to ease their burden, going out of your way to be courteous, holding open a door, letting another person in front of you in traffic. Little tiny acts will make a huge difference.

4. Practice, practice. Old habits die hard, especially ones like this where we rarely think about it. Keep it in the forefront of your consciousness by making every interaction with another person a chance to practice being considerate. Every time you talk to someone, email someone, see someone on the street … make this an opportunity to practice consideration. Practice, and practice some more. That's the only way you get good at anything.

5. Do 5 little things. As a way to practice, make it a goal to do 5 little things each day that are kind and considerate. It doesn't matter what those things are — cooking something for a family member, tidying up a bit, sending a nice thank-you email to a co-worker, lending a hand to a friend, being there to listen to someone's problems … I'm sure you could think of a thousand little things. Do this every day, and you'll soon be a pro.

Let me know what you think… Til next time.

How to Go From Fat To Fit For Good

2009-04-15T04:07:00.001-05:00

Editor's note: This is a guest post from Andrew of Go Healthy Go Fit.

The journey of transforming your body from out of shape to fit as a fiddle is a long one with many twists and turns. It behooves you to focus on the end result at the onset of that journey because you may lose motivation as results come slowly. But if you can't visualize the possibility of going from one extreme to another, you won't be able to stay the course.

I know from experience, having gone from being classified as obese at 245 pounds (25% body fat) to now being classified as an athlete at 175 (9.5% body fat).

So how do you stay motivated during the process?

Staying motivated during this process is arguably the most important part of the journey. If you start doubting yourself, you will fall off. So go the other way with it and get yourself pumped up! Here are a couple of tricks that can help you stay motivated:

•    Set goals to reach, like being able to do 10 pull ups
•    Use your favorite movie quotes to motivate you
•    Find a line in a song that sends shivers down your spine when you hear it
•    Write down your progress (your weight, body fat percentage, the amount of weight you can lift for a specific exercise) but only compare it on a long timeline
•    Pick someone with what you would consider to be an ideal body and aim for that
•    Write down the jean size you're going for
•    Create a fitness equation that breaks down, by percentage, what you think it's going to take to get the job done. Here's mine (15% Heart, 10% Dedication, 20% Will Power, 5% Luck, 10% Desire, 10% Reflection, 20% Consistency, 10% Humility)

Whatever you chose to motivate yourself, customize it for you and print it up. You can put it around your mirror, computer screen, in a private diary, etc. This is all about what motivates you, so don't worry about what anyone else would think about your choice or music or movie line, because what they think truly doesn't matter.

Know Which Whole Foods You Can Stick With

I'm assuming that we all know and accept that eating nutrient dense whole foods, green leafy vegetables for example, is a key factor in weight loss and sound health. But you don't hear enough people talk about picking the whole foods that you like. In order to consistently eat healthier, you have to enjoy what you are eating.

However, you can't say that you don't like vegetables! That one just isn't in the cards. So if you enjoy Spinach more than Brussels Sprouts, enjoy the Spinach! Look up recipes that you can put your favorite vegetables in. There are tons of great food blogs out there that showcase their healthy recipes.

Know Which Foods To Stay Away From

Everyone has certain foods that seem to do more damage than others when it comes to their fitness. Processed foods, candy bars, jam-packed-with-sugar-Jamba Juices (yeah, I said it) are usually some of the big culprits. So find out what food or foods seem to keep you from losing weight and only have them on the occasional cheat day, if at all.

This list of foods may change as your goals change. If your ideal look is that lean, muscular/toned Hollywood physique, than I will tell you from personal experience that staying away from carbs such as grains, potatoes and pastas may help you out.

Find Your Favorite Exercise And Own It

My buddy Rusty talks about this all the time. In the world of fitness, everyone always says you should switch it up, and it does help your progress. But if you like a classic and effective workout, such as pull ups, as much as I do, keep doing them until you are a pro! You will be proud of yourself for getting good at an exercise that you enjoy. If possible, try and chose a good compound exercise like bench press, pull ups, push ups, dead lifts, etc.

This Is A Lifestyle Change, Not A Diet

This is a whole new life, not a month long excursion into healthy eating and/or fitness. It's not important if you get it all right off the bat or if you do it gradually, but consistency is where the results reside. Counting calories is not a necessity, but understanding the cost of them is paramount. In your former lifestyle, you ate "X" amount of calories. In this new, healthy lifestyle you will be eating "Y" amount of calories. I had to understand that concept before I saw any gains (or losses for that matter). At least at first, writing down what you eat can help you begin to understand how many calories you should be eating (a.k.a. your caloric deficit).

Same goes for exercising. You've got to be consistent. I know Leo talks about this in The Power Of Less, and he's right on point. Its like the tortoise and the hare, slow and steady wins the race. So figure out how many days a week you can go to the gym and stick with it. Then adjust it as your goals change.

Accepting That Your Life Will Change For The Better

Most think that this is an easy part of the journey, but it's really hard… and scary for that matter. Change is always hard to deal with and transforming your physical appearance is no different. My whole life, I was always the token fat funny guy. That's who I was, it was a part of me. During my switch to a healthy lifestyle, I had to come to grips with the fact that I would be received differently by others, which brings me to my next point.

You won't believe the difference in how people listen to you. Before I lost the weight, people would of course hear what I had to say, but they were much more focused on what they were going to say after I was done. Then I lost the weight and I started to notice that people were much more invested in what I had to say. It's amazing to think that a person's appearance can change the way people interact with that person, but it's true.

Never Stop Seeking Out Good Advice

When it comes to the difference between hearing what people say and actually listening to what they're saying, it goes both ways. Being able to open your ears and listen to what others have to say will help you for the rest of your life, especially in health and fitness. Three of the main tools currently at my disposal are in direct contradiction to how I used to think. If I had shut myself off to others suggestions, I would never have experienced the benefits of Intermittent Fasting, Paleo eating, and High Intensity Interval Training.

Make It Fun!

The best thing about getting into shape is that it opens doors to fun activities. You'll get better at sports, feel more comfortable in revealing swimwear, be able to hike up higher mountains, the list goes on as high as your imagination wants it to go. I was so happy the first time I got to the top of Half Dome. I was proud when I did the entire hike in 6 and a half hours. So enjoy yourself, cause it's going to be lots of fun!

Read more great health and fitness posts from Andrew at his blog, Go Healthy Go Fit.

A (early morning) Easter Thought

2009-04-12T08:59:00.001-05:00

I generally don't get into religious discussions on this blog – probably because I think religion is a pretty personal issue and very individual – however these thoughts were spawned by something I saw on TV – really early this morning.

Those of you who know me understand that I learn via television – a lot.

I grew up as a TV baby and that has probably reinforced my tendency of being such a visual learner. The upside is that if someone were to take the time to track my viewing habits (I'm sure Comcast cable has) they would find that I have the Discovery, Science and History channel on the majority of the time. I even have those channels on the speed dials of my remote!

First thing in the morning I normally turn on TV, not only for background noise but also to see what the weather will bring – I'm a closet meteorologist – and stumbled upon a sunrise Easter church service in progress – again, I was up REALLY early!

The sermon was about happiness vs. joy. It was the tail end of the sermon but it did get me thinking about an event that happened a few years ago…. The notion that someone could be sad, yet have joy in their life. We oft times think of happiness synonymously with joy – so I went to the dictionary.

The word "happiness" was derived from the same root as the word "happening" … so I guess if you follow that line of reasoning, then happiness is probably based upon what's happening at the moment. Happy things happen … and then you're happy.

But joy is something else entirely.

If you're talking about the "joy of the Lord," then it isn't only something different, it's an entirely separate realm of experience. Joy is one of the fruits provided by the universe, God or the Holy Spirit if that is your belief. The notion or ability to grow fruit in our lives isn't dependent on happy circumstances (actually, I find it often quite the opposite).

This, "happiness vs. joy" conversation was sort of a touchy subject for me a few years back – divorce does that to a person. I had someone question whether or not I was really a Christian (this was someone that had only recently met me during that time and he didn't have the perspective of seeing my life in anything but the context of the difficulties that I was muddling though at the time). His reasoning went something like this:

"Joy is a fruit of the Spirit … so anyone who has the Holy Spirit within them will have joy because the fruit will just naturally grow. Since I don't see joy in your life, you must not have the Holy Spirit." Overly zealous Christians can be a pain – well overly zealous anything can be a pain. So his reasoning was that "you can't be a Christian if you don't have the Holy Spirit." So instead of popping him in the nose – that wouldn't have done the Golden Rule very well would it?! I stepped back and thought…

I realized at the time that this person was confusing "joy" with "happiness." It's true that I wasn't particularly happy at that moment in time in my life. But I did have joy. Joy to know that somehow, someway, somewhere God would help me work through all this horrible stuff I was living with for good. Joy to know that even if life continued on just as badly as it was right then for the rest of my earthly life, this life isn't the "end" of the story for me. I was living with that saying, "I don't know what the future holds, but I know Who holds the future," running continually through my head.

The Bible says that for the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross. I don't think Jesus was necessarily "happy" while He was tortured and endured a painful, cruel death. But did Jesus have joy in the midst of it all? I think he did … joy to know that His sacrifice would work the "ultimate good" in humankind (allowing all of us an opportunity to find forgiveness and peace with God). Joy to know that this life isn't all there is. Joy to have accomplished what he'd been sent to do.

When I told a pastor friend of mine what was said to me about how I probably wasn't a Christian because I didn't have "joy" in my life in the midst of the trials I was facing, my pastor friend said, "Oh my goodness! That person doesn't know you AT ALL! The joy of the Lord IS your strength! Your faith and the joy that brings you is the main reason you've gotten through all of this as well as you have! That man is confusing happiness with joy. And they're not the same things at all."

Exactly. It was really nice to have someone who knew me well, offer some sane perspective in the midst of that crazy time. (Plus is would have been too much of a hassle to get bailed out of jail after popping the zealot in the jaw.)

So. Happiness vs. Joy? I like to be happy (who doesn't?), but I'd rather have joy any day. Joy lasts even in the midst of the trials of life. Joy isn't dependent on circumstances. Joy is strength. Joy is internal. Joy is eternal.

Even though at the time my heart was breaking … even though I had temporarily lost my hopes, dreams, plans and material things … I can (and do!) still have joy. There might not always be a smile on my face, but on a deeper, soul-stirring level, there's joy in my heart; joy in my spirit.

Not the happiness of happenings.

Hope you have a wonderful day…

Til next time…

A deeper thought…

2009-04-11T06:23:00.005-05:00

I do my best reading and thinking early in the morning – probably why I am an early riser… Anyway, I used to keep an interesting journal (at least to me) and regret somewhat that I've gotten out of the habit. It wasn't your usual "this is what I did today" journal. It was a "Thought" journal.

Writing has always been a tool that has helped me get through several happenings in my life and something that I would strongly recommend especially if you find yourself in a particular circumstance that may be challenging – I think it helps you to keep things in perspective.

Using this technique I have found that it is interesting to look back on how I used to perceive things vs. they way I see things today. After living through the event. At times is seems that I'm a completely new person yet other times my thoughts are only reconfirmed in my mind. There's one entry in particular I've been thinking a lot about lately. I don't remember when exactly I wrote it, or why I was thinking those things at the time. But I would like to put them out here and get some outside thoughts.

I've been writing on this blog for almost a year and one half now, if there's one post I'd like people to read and comment on it's this one. It's a collaboration of thoughts that I've had and the perhaps the comments of others could help explain what I was thinking more profoundly than I. Enjoy.

Many times, people use the word "love" but do not understand what it means. They will say "I love this car" or "I love these shoes", but that isn't love. You don't love those things. You "want" them. You want to own them. True Love is a gift. Sometimes a person might say "I love this girl/boy", but in actuality they mean "I want this girl". Many of the things in this world; money, material power, people; you might want them to belong to you, but that isn't True Love. You don't love those things. You love the idea of ownership of those things. You love what you think ownership will mean to you.

Perhaps having that car means freedom ... or security ... or some other emotional state ... but ultimately it is just a desire for whatever that "thing" means to you. Do you love the girl/boy or do you love what being with that person means to you? True Love is a gift given to others. There is no sacrifice with True Love. Their happiness brings about your own happiness. It is important to be clear on the differences in True Love versus desire for ownership. It is also important to understand that True Love and Romantic Love are different things too. Sometimes they are coupled together, but you can have one without the other. When True love and material desire are against each other, True Love will always win.

For example, if you truly love someone, and they would like something that you own, you will gladly give it to them. True love has no ownership ... it has no self ... no personal desire ... it is only given as a gift. It is not something you want for yourself. There are no attachments, and with no attachments, there is no pain. If your girlfriend or boyfriend leaves you and you have True Love for them, you want only what makes them happy, even if it's not in your personal best interests. Attachments to your best interests aren't as important to you as their happiness. You are happy if they break up with you if it will make them happier. If you just have the love of attachment, or just have romantic love without True Love, then that loss hurts because you are thinking of your own personal loss of ownership or attachment with that person.

True love is obviously not as common in today's world. A person might love their clothes ... or might love an activity like singing, dancing, playing an instrument, photography, martial arts, whatever it may be ... but if their True Love says "I want you to stop those things and move with me to New York" then you will stop them and move. In essence you could have True Love for those activities. A complete dedication to something they really want to do or achieve. People will see that nothing in this world is truly ours anyway. That ownership is simply an illusion of the mind. The only things we take with us from this world are our relationships with others. In understanding the impermanence of things, they remove themselves from attachments, perspectives and position -- they can become neutral. Seeing through the illusion of ownership allows you to give, unconditionally, of yourself to others, and to demonstrate the qualities of True Love.

A Quick Story

Once a woman when having a conversation with her lover, asked:

Woman: Why do you like me..? Why do you love me?

Man: I can't tell the reason.. but I really like you..

Woman: You can't even tell me the reason… how can you say you like me? How can you say you love me?

Man: I really don't know the reason, but I can prove that I love you.

Woman: Proof? No! I want you to tell me the reason. My friend's boyfriend can tell her why he loves her but not you! I need to hear it!

Man: Ok..ok!!! Erm… because you are beautiful, because your voice is sweet, because you are caring, because you are loving, because you are thoughtful, because of your smile, because of your every movement.

The woman felt very satisfied with the man's answer. Unfortunately, a few days later, the woman met with an accident and went into a coma. The man then placed a letter by her side and this is what it said:

"Darling, Because of your sweet voice that I love you…Now can you talk? No! Therefore I cannot love you. Because of your care and concern that I like you… Now that you cannot show them, therefore I cannot love you. Because of your smile, because of your every movement that I love you… Now can you smile? Now can you move? No, therefore I cannot love you… If love needs a reason, like now, there is no reason for me to love you anymore. Does love need a reason? No! Therefore, I still love you…"

"True love never dies for it is lust that fades away. Love bonds for a lifetime but lust just pushes away."

"Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you."

I realize some of that may be extreme, but none of it was thought in an obsessive context. Let me know what you think…

Til next time…

No TIME!

2009-04-09T09:48:00.008-05:00

It's a problem that most people face: they want to work on many worthwhile, amazing things, but with all the things they have to get done in their lives, there just isn't time.

My usual response is: make the time. That is usually followed by a client's glare, expletive and then angry face….

But how can you make the time if you just have too many things to do and no time left over? Two ways: cut back on time-wasters, and simplify your commitments.

While functioning as a therapist with a treadmill (personal training) one of my clients was venting and the conversation went something like this…

"I totally commend your approach – I set aside time first thing to do what is important - I look for what is most beneficial in the long term – but I have what may be a female / mother / main career / worker problem…

I am building a new business having given up a large income in a career I didn't like. (The loss of my sister to cancer - aged 43 with 2 young children - made me re-evaluate my entire life!)There are so many things I want to, and need to do – but, when I look at my goals – I have to put them behind my two boys and the family. Let me explain – before I can even consider any plan of attack – I have to:

– Make packed lunches for my boys
– Take / pick them up, to / from school
– Walk the dog
– Feed the fish and the rabbit
– Do the accounts for my husband's business
– See my own customers
– Take my kids to their various activities – piano, guitar, drums, saxophone, Chinese, swimming…
– Do homework, music practice, bathing, reading etc.. with the boys (which don't get me wrong – I love and get great pleasure from..)

But – how am I supposed to find time to carry out what you propose? I have tried, very hard – but things that are important to me and that I put down as my goals end up being sabotaged by the list of things that HAVE TO BE DONE TODAY!"

You'd be surprised at how many times I've heard theses similar word as my clients warm up on a treadmill – this situation is pretty common — her day is loaded with commitments. I'd say she'll have a hard time finding the time to work on her goals until she simplifies things a bit.

Some ideas:

The kids might be doing too much. My son does the same thing — scouts, sports, church activities, school stuff, etc. — but sometimes it's good to scale back their schedules and have them choose just the things that matter most to them. Kids don't have to have activities every second of the week — some free time is good for them.
Consider prepping their lunches the evening before, to give you more time in the morning.
Consider outsourcing your husband's accounting work. Sure, it may initially cost a little more but she could be making a heck of a lot more closing deals with her clients as her business takes off. It's a good investment.
If the pets are taking up a lot of your time, consider not having any. Pets are another complication that might not be worth the time, for some people. Before pet owners write in with outrage, please understand that this is just something to be considered. I'm not saying people should never have pets. Some of my best friends are pets!

There are probably other ways she can simplify her commitments, but you get the idea. Nothing is set in stone. Even meeting with clients, even picking up the kids, even doing certain things with them … these are not necessarily set in stone. For example, my light bulb moment came after our son could make his own breakfast and lunch, when he could bathe, dress and clean up after himself has greatly simplified both his mom's and my life. There was a lot of teaching involved, but well worth the investment.

Your life will be filled with different commitments, but the important thing is to make a list of all of them and evaluate each and every one. Which are most important? Perhaps my client decides that spending time with the kids and clients are most important — keep those. Eliminate the others, as much as possible, over time. It's possible — I've done it and many others have as well.

Once you free up the time — use it wisely!

Another thing to consider is how you spend the rest of your time. Do you watch a lot of TV? Do you surf the Internet a lot? Spend time with different online social networking — forums, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and so on? Playing video games? You might consider cutting back on these time-wasters to make time for your goals. I know when I cut back on TV, it freed up a lot of my time.

We're all busy. We all have a lot of things to do. But if your goals are really important to you, you can make the time. Simplify your commitments, and cut back on time-wasters. You can do it!

Til next time…

Liv’n Life…

2009-04-07T20:11:00.001-05:00

WE ARE ALL, RIGHT NOW....RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT....LIVING THE LIFE WE CHOOSE.

Interestingly enough...this choice is not a single, monumental choice. No one decides, for example, "I'm going to move to L.A., and in five years I will be a trainer for the stars." Or I am going to marry a dreadful person and we will live together in a loveless marriage, staying together only for the kids." No! You must understand that choices are made on a daily, hourly, moment by moment basis.

Do we try something new, or stick to the tried-and-true? Do we take a risk or eat what's already on our dish? Do we ponder an adventure or do we stay at home? Do we indulge our heart, or cater to our fear?

SO THE QUESTION I ASK YOU IS: Do you pursue what you want or do what's comfortable?

Til' next time…

Oh… a few more thoughts.

"We act as though comfort and luxury are the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about."

- Charles Kingsley

"You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be YOURSELF!"

-Alan Alda

Festering Fears…

2009-04-05T00:43:00.003-05:00

I was reading recently and ran across a passage that struck a chord with me … the main character is avoiding thinking about increasingly urgent letters from banks and creditors, trying to push these worries out of her mind:

"I'm well aware that at the back of my mind, thumping quietly like a drumbeat, are the twin horrors of Guilt and Panic….. If I let them, they'd swoop in and take over. I'd feel completely paralyzed with misery and fear. So the trick I've learned is simply not to listen. My mind is very well trained like that."

This passage struck a chord because I've been there. I've had those horrors of guilt and panic at the back of my mind, many times.

I've done it with debt —trying to ignore it, not wanting to face it.

I've done it with my health, knowing I was growing overweight, not wanting to think about the things I was eating.

I've done it with drinking, knowing it was bad for me, but trying not to think about it, sipping away.

I've done it with projects that I knew I should be working on, but didn't want to think about them … because I was afraid, for some reason, to face them.

This may sound all too familiar, having fears lurking in the deepest, darkest corners of your mind. Fears you don't want to face and try to push back, closing your eyes so you don't have to see how horrible they are?

If it does, I highly recommend you face them now. Be bold and brave. Bring them out into the light of day. It's an amazing relief when you actually do face these fears. They actually turn out to be not so bad, not so overwhelming or intimidating. It's a huge load off your shoulders — when you're liberated from your fear!

So What Are Your Fears?

I don't mean fears like the fear of height or spiders or public speaking … although you should face these fears too … I'm talking about fears that you know you should face but just push back anyway, not wanting to deal with them. Think about it right now — what has been lurking at the back of your mind?

Is it debt or some other financial problem? Not wanting to face retirement planning, or creating a will, or getting insurance?

Is it health? Overeating? Junk food? Sweets? Smoking? Lack of exercise?

Maybe it is relationships? A bad relationship? Guilt over something you've done to someone else? Not spending time with a loved one? Not dealing with a festering relationship problem?

Is it work? Perhaps a project you've been procrastinating on. Something you've been hiding from everyone else? Something you might have lied about?

Maybe it is clutter. Do you have piles of papers and stuff all over your house? Are there things in your home you've been leaving undone?

It could be anything — something you know you should deal with but don't want to think about. If you identify it now — that's the first step, and it's an important one.

Bring the Fear Into the Light
Fears have power over us not because they're so horrible — even if some of them might be kinda bad — but because we allow them to hide in the darkness and intimidate us. We are paralyzed by these fears. As a great man once said, "we have nothing to fear … but fear itself".

The solution: shine some light on the fear.

The answer to the problem of darkness has always been light. Bring the fear into the daylight, and it won't be so powerful. Sure, the problem will still exist, and it may be a difficult problem. You'll still have that debt to deal with — but it will simply be a matter of cutting back on some expenses so you can make bi-weekly payments on your debts, until they're eliminated. That's not so terrible when you think of it that way — a series of actions that needs to be taken.

So you have to start by shining some light on your fear — and do this by sitting down and thinking about the problem. Write it out. Make a list. If it's debt, write down all your debts and get the amounts owed. If it's health, write down exactly what your health problems are, in detail. It may seem silly to write down problems, but this is how you shine the light on them: by taking an honest look at them.

If you have problems even taking a look at the problem, ask yourself this question: what's the worst thing that could happen?

Often it's not that bad. If it's debt, the worst is that you'd have a large debt to pay off, and it would take a long time. Or maybe that you'd have to file for bankruptcy — which isn't as bad as you might think. I've had relatives that filed for bankruptcy, and gasp, they are living normal lives right now.

If the worst-case scenario really is bad, seek help. Talk to someone about it — a friend or family member, or someone online even. This is another good way to shine some light on the problem — share it with someone else.

Make a Plan of Action
Once, you've taken a look at the fear, make a plan to take action. You overcome the fear with action. When you take action on a problem, it's not so bad — it's just a series of steps you need to take to solve the problem. You aren't paralyzed anymore when you start to take action.

Make a simple plan, on a small sheet of paper, to solve the problem. What actions are needed? Make the steps actually actionable — instead of "cut back on spending", write "make a list of expenses that can be eliminated" or something like that. Instead of "start paying off debts" write something like "set up automatic payment for Visa card".

The plan will kill the fear. What a plan will do is to take something that is scary and unknown, and turn it into something concrete, solvable, doable. Then all you have to do is take action. Take the first step on your action plan, and do it. (start today if possible.) This action will be the final nail in the coffin of your fear. Once you're taking action on the problem, the fear stands no chance, because it's no longer something lurking in the dark that you can't conquer — it's just a few items on your to-do list that you can knock off in less than an hour each.

"You must do the things you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Festering Fears….

It's good to learn to recognize these fears and to become aware of them. They really have power over us when we allow them to fester in the dark, when we do our best not to think about them.

When you notice that you have one of these fears, shine some light on it by writing it down, talking to someone about it, writing out a plan, and taking action. It's not impossible — it's doable.

And when you've done that, you'll feel light, relieved and happy.

Til next time…

Trends…

2009-03-29T13:37:00.001-05:00

For every overrated trend, there is an underrated or otherwise under-appreciated aspect of diet and fitness. Let's take a look at some lesser-known, under-the-radar entities that may be helpful.

The Mediterranean Diet: Why this way of eating isn't the standard pyramid is beyond me. Year after year, study after study this pattern of eating comes out shining and yet still doesn't seem to catch on.

Side Planks/Tabletops:
This exercise is phenomenal for engaging the abdominal muscles and for enhancing stability. It is especially helpful for those with bad backs as this won't allow you to use your back to aid breathing.

Apples: Yup, plain old apples are loaded with flavanoids, quercetin, pectin and other flavanoids. They are not as sexy as the Goji or Acai berries but they are still an underrated food.

Foam Rolling: More and more gyms carry these fascia release devices but through my observation, people still don't use them. When used correctly, foam rolling can help reduce trigger points, improve tissue quality and enhance mobility.

Matcha Tea: This powdered form of green tea is one of the highest grade teas available - packed with antioxidants and chlorophyll. It is also versatile, making a great addition to smoothies and bars.

Wall Angels: This is an exercise that most people should do - especially if you sit at a computer most of your day. Standing up - back against a wall - head, shoulder blades and tailbone touching the wall, back of arms against wall at shoulder level, bent 90 degrees - slide arms up while keeping them in contact with the wall - without arching back or letting tailbone lose contact with the wall. Repeat for 10-20 reps daily. This will help stretch some likely tight muscles and help strengthen the deep and underused muscles in the upper back.

Vitamin D: In the news quite a bit, but again doesn't have the sex appeal that a fat burning supplement might. It is also overshadowed by fish oil supplementation. There is a compelling reason for most people to supplement with this vitamin/hormone - especially for those in northern climates.

Deadlifts: The hardcore lifters wouldn't dream of excluding this all-around gem of an exercise but it is surprising how many people eschew it - even personal trainers. It does take more practice to perfect and form is more crucial on this one than most others, but when used properly, it doesn't get much better as an overall strength builder.

What diet and exercise-related trends to you feel deserve more recognition? Now lets look at what I feel are some of the most overrated exercise and diet trends, I feel a disclaimer or two is in order:

I'm in favor of anything that helps people become healthy or fit. The word "overrated" needs to be taken into context and is certainly open to interpretation.

Just because I deem something to be overrated does not mean I don't think it has merit. I may feel something is "overrated" simply due to the amount of hype it gets or to the degree that its proponents revere it.

With those 2 things in mind, let's get going.

Balls, BOSU's, balance boards, Oh my!:
Walk into any gym facility and you are bound to see trainers and other gym goers alike performing squats, pushups and other circus-like maneuvers on balance implements. The truth is, plain old squats are far more functional and effective for the vast majority of people. These tools should really be used sparingly.

Acai Berry Juice: You may have had some salesperson tell you of the magical powers possessed by this exotic berry. When tested for polyphenol content, Acai rates below concord grapes, red wine and blueberries. Stick with a variety of fruits and veggies here and save your cash.

Yoga: I usually get ripped for this one but there is a geographical influence here. See where I live, Yoga reigns supreme and don't try and tell anyone differently. The truth is, Yoga can be helpful for many, but indiscriminate flexibility is not always the ideal prescription for everyone. If you have time left after weights, cardio and specific mobility work - or you are training for something that requires being in one spot for an hour - knock yourself out!

Antioxidants: Especially when taken as supplements, vitamins C, E and Beta Carotene have proven utterly disappointing for preventing disease. It seems the whole, nutrient dense foods win out again.

Detox and Cleansing: I can't see any justification for it - especially the more extreme ones. Eat healthily most of the time and there is no need to "cleanse" away your dietary sins. If you haven't been eating healthily, start eating healthily instead of subsisting on spiked water.

CrossFit: CrossFit is a very intense training method that combines Olympic lifting, body weight and gymnastics-type exercise with little to no rest. Barbells, boxes, gymnastics rings, big lifts, no machines...love it. Arbitrary and extreme programming, no concept of progression, flimsy certification process, inadequate screening... not so good. Go with a coach/system that addresses the aforementioned.

Nitric Oxide Supplements: When browsing a supplement store last week I noticed a lot of shelf space dedicated to Nitric Oxide and other blood flow enhancers. Many bodybuilding sites and other supplement gurus tout its benefits, but when put to clinical trials, NO has no effect compared to a placebo on body composition, insulin, carbohydrate uptake or muscle strength.

The Biggest Loser:
The fact that the reality (let's call it "unscripted") show is in its 7th season tells me that it is more popular than it should be. You could make the argument that people will be inspired by the show, but I would argue that it sets people up for unrealistic expectations. The premise of the show is completely flawed - promoting a "lose scale weight at all costs" mentality.

Do you have any exercises or trends that you think are either over or underrated? Please let me know.

Til next time…

Nag, nag, nag…

2009-03-28T05:34:00.001-05:00

"How you could you eat that junk? It's so bad for you!" (nag, nag).

"Don't you know those fries will give you a heart attack?" (nag, nag).

Your friends nag you, your family nags you, your doctor nags you, the health newsletters, websites and magazines - they all nag you, and of course, your personal trainer nags the heck out of you, to stop eating all those BAD FAST FOODS. But does all that nagging you and bad-mouthing the fast food industry really help anyone stop?

It doesn't look that way. The fast food industry is thriving, even in the bad economy. The Chicago Tribune recently said that McDonalds is "recession proof."

As one of only two companies to turn a major profit over the last year (the other being Wal Mart), McDonald's is laughing its way to the bank. In fact, McDonalds plans to open 1,000 new stores this year.

I was driving down I55 a few weeks ago and pulled over to use the rest room at McDonalds on a Saturday morning (there's a McDonalds conveniently located immediately off almost every exit up and down the full length of Interstate 55).

The parking lot was full, it was standing-room only inside and the lines snaked around into the seating area! You'd think Brad and Angelina were there signing autographs or something. Nope. Just a regular weekend at breakfast-time.

I was shopping in Wal Mart the same week and I almost passed out when I saw (smelled, actually) a McDonalds… INSIDE THE WAL MART! Also, with lines.

Yep. It looks like your friends and family's nagging you to stop eating fast food, and all the messages of the health and fitness industry to get people eating more "health food" are not working!

So what does work?

The results of a new survey from the behavior and psychology section of the journal, OBESITY (Feb 2009) provide some answers:

Researchers at the University Of Minnesota School Of Public health surveyed 530 adults about their attitudes towards fast foods.

They found that people already know fast food is unhealthy. (like, no kidding!)

The primary reasons they eat it anyway are because of the perceived convenience and a dislike for cooking! (I'd add another: they think fast food is always cheaper than healthy food).

So, said the authors of this research paper, nagging people to eat more health food and warning them that "fast food is going to make us fat and kill us" is not the best approach.

What's the right approach?

Focusing on teaching people how to make healthy eating fast, convenient and easy, because those are the reasons people are choosing fast food in the first place.

So what's holding us back from implementing or taking this advice?

Well, I think that most people can't get over the ideas that they "just cant cook" or that cooking is "too time consuming" or that healthy food "tastes like dirt" (as if McDonalds is gourmet food!)

That said I'm not going to nag you, scold you or try to scare you out of eating fast food. I'm not going to lecture you about health food (not today, anyway). Nor am I going to bad-mouth the fast food restaurants.

I'm going to lead by showing you just how easy and convenient it is to eat healthy and nutritious food and make it delicious.

Here are a few meal ideas (for starters) to prove my point.

3-MINUTE APPLE CINNAMON OATMEAL

* natural oatmeal (like Quaker old fashioned rolled oats)
* natural (unsweetened) applesauce
* cinnamon
* for protein, serve with scrambled eggs or egg whites on side or stir 1-2 scoops of vanilla protein powder into the oats

I eat this almost at least three times per week. It's faster, easier and cheaper than going to the donut place or getting sausage, cheese, bacon breakfast muffins at the fast food joint! (And, you don't have to wait in line, either!)

10-MINUTE LAZY PERSON'S CHINESE STIR FRY

* Brown rice
* frozen oriental vegetables
* chicken breast, grilled (try foreman grill)
* light/lo-sodium soy sauce

This takes 30 minutes, however, if you get a rice cooker and make a giant batch, you can have your rice on standby for instant eats and this will take less than 10 minutes.

It doesn't get much easier than that. (I like those Chinese veggies that come with the little mini-corn-on-the-cobs)

2-MINUTE BLACK BEANS AND SPICY SALSA

* black beans (15 oz can)
* Medium or hot salsa
* 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
* 2 cloves garlic or chopped garlic to taste
* salt and pepper to taste

This one takes you all of 2 minutes to make. No cooking required! And it's good! It's vegetarian as listed above, but if you're a carnivore like me, just add a chicken breast or lean ground turkey.

Best part: this is all inexpensive food! Oats, rice, beans… doesn't get much cheaper than that - buy your healthy staples in bulk and the cost per serving is probably less than Mickey D's! (yes, even the "Value" meals)

These kinds of recipes are easy to find and I'll share some more in future. (You should read~Larry is writing an eBook in the near future)

So not only can you look more muscular and leaner… fit into those clothes you were hoping to for this summer… be healthier… and save money too.

Til next time…

21st Century Workouts

2009-03-26T21:37:00.001-05:00

One of Albert Einstein's student assistants once asked him, "Professor Einstein, what test are we giving the students this week?" Einstein replied, "The same test we gave them last week."

Bewildered, the student assistant replied, "But Professor Einstein, we already gave them that test." Einstein patiently answered, "Yes, but the answers are different this week."

The one thing that I have learned being in this business and still remains true about the fitness profession is that things are constantly changing and changing fast.

Traditionally - fitness programming has been nothing but the cross-breed of a bodybuilder and an endurance athlete. We just did body part routines and steady state exercise. And it worked great because in the past, the gym members had a relatively active lifestyle and added to that lifestyle by joining a gym...

A traditional one hour program consisted of a 10 min warm up, 50 mins strength training (muscle group split) and usually 30+ mins cardio on "off-days". These people would come to the gym every single day for 90 mins or so.

But just like all businesses and services need to evolve over time - the fitness profession needs to evolve. Currently we are in the middle of an obesity epidemic (who ever thought we'd need to create FAT LOSS programs ten years ago?)

Today's client has changed – the gym may be their ONLY physical activity. Seriously we have clients that their entire physical activity is the gym a couple of hours per week.

Today's client arrives in worse shape than levels seen even 10 years ago. We have tracked the body fat of every single member that has ever joined our gym over the past nine years. The average body fat percentage of a beginner is about 6-7 percentage points higher than when we opened, and their functional movement screen score is about 4 points lower.

Today's clients lives have changed. Today's clients goals have changed (speed training programs for kids? Youth fitness? Type II Diabetic 12 year olds!).

It's essentially a new client and the fitness profession needs to evolve -- and quickly...

We can no longer offer solely strength and cardio -- the modern fitness professional focuses on seven key areas:

Mobility and Movement Preparation: activate muscles, stretch tight muscles and improve movement.
Corrective Exercise: Do you know anyone who has ever had a shoulder injury? I'm sure you do - it's one of the most common musculoskeletal problems of today. Let's start implementing some basic strategies to make the body resilient...
SPE (speed, power and elasticity): We need to develop power and speed in ALL populations. Power is lost faster than strength -- let's develop it through sound training practices.
Core Training: Despite what some writers would have you believe - direct core training is necessary- the science validates it. And today's core training is about stabilization and dynamic stabilization -- not thousands of crunches in an "ab class".
Resistance Training: Still the most important part of a program -- but we need to focus on function, linked system strength and real world strength - not necessary isolation. Science has shown that a higher frequency exposure to training each body part, and a multiple exposure to rep ranges outperforms the old-fashioned "once a week, three sets of ten" approach for today's client.
Metabolic Training: 21st Century cardio - the ability to do higher levels of work - and sustain that output over time -- not just the ability to work at a level where you can "hold a conversation"
Regeneration: If you have a training strategy - you need a recovery and regeneration strategy. Life is too demanding to just assume that not coming to the gym is optimal for your results. We have too much science available to ignore.

And by the way - you need to get this done in maybe three hours per week....

In addition - the traditional tools of weight stacks and treadmills are fast becoming obsolete. We need to embrace bodyweight training, The TRX, The X vest, the ValSlide and Sandbags alongside dumbbells and kettlebells to reinvent our training programs and provide what the modern day trainee NEEDS.

The game has changed.
The client has changed.
The goals have changed.
We need to change.

Are you ready for a really good and efficient workout?

Til next time.

Are you willing?

2009-03-24T22:22:00.001-05:00

Sometimes a 6 minute video can make life so clear - perhaps this will help you as much as it has helped me. Please let me know... Til next time.

“Friggin” Limits…

2009-03-18T22:51:00.001-05:00

I have gotten out of the habit of writing on my blog of late. I lost some of my zeal while I was working at the Tour of California - we were pretty busy with the record breaking crowds and had some pretty long days – but then I got some career altering news while working in Modesto about the community center I help to run.

You see, when you are worried about collecting a paycheck you tend to focus and prioritize differently – but I suspect the nearly 1.5 million that have lost their jobs over the last few months understand that statement better than I. For me the truth is that no matter what happens, focusing on things that are out of your control tends to derail my thoughts and what I'm open to. It's as though the thoughts create a state or mindset where you actually create what you don't want to have happen – in essence it's self fulfilling prophecy. You get so concerned about the "what if" that you don't see the real opportunities that are being unveiled before your eyes. So in an attempt to get my head on straight I thought I would go back to the basics… And you know what I realized; I have been overlooking so many new opportunities since I returned from California because I was worried that I wouldn't be employed in a few months.

Truth is that it doesn't matter where I work; it is that I do work – and do something of value that I love. By framing my work life in those terms – I've got plenty of choices – I'm very lucky and blessed.

I suspect that we can all agree to some extent that if you're truly passionate about something, productivity becomes largely irrelevant. You become naturally motivated and naturally driven, but that's not always enough, is it?

There's something else and it's keeps most of us from pursuing from what we really want. It's the same thing every time …And it all comes down to one word: Limits. I was limiting my thought process when I was thinking about my current position. What's really fascinating is how much we avoid doing what we love because of these arbitrary limits.

It really is amazing to me because it seems like we all have nicely organized boxes of preplanned excuses. We convince ourselves that the reasons for not pursuing the things we really want are actually legitimate. Most of the time, they're not. Most of the time, shrugging something off as "impractical" or "too whimsical" is really just an avoidance of the truth.

What all of these limits really come down to is the difference between surviving and living. We end up going through the motions instead of moving through life deliberately. Part of my "enlightenment" over the past week or so I would rather choose the deliberate path.

So this is one of the basic exercises that I use when I feel like I need to push myself past a plateau or road block:

First, I write down all those really important things that I want or really need to do, but have been avoiding. The key here is to leave enough space after each goal for the next step.
Second, I write down all the reasons/excuses I'm not taking action toward making those goals, needs, wants or desires a reality.

I have found that if you take a close look at all of your reasons for not taking action. That many you list are just not legitimate. This process allows you to question if they are real obstacles, or if they are imaginary. For this to work you have to be brutally honest with yourself about what you want. It doesn't matter if other people don't think it's practical; what matters is that you want it.

Once you have that down in print the third step is to give yourself permission to completely abolish these imaginary ceilings. There are no ceilings; the limits of your imagination are the only boundaries.

Okay so that's the first part. The second part is moving beyond those limiting patterns. I believe that most if not all limitations are based on patterns. For example, when I write, I have a pattern of thinking that an article should be written a certain way. I know that when I've written an article that had a good response – I become conditioned to write that way in the future. If I see something become so popular on a social media site; I start to think that I should try to emulate that format now. I also have a pattern of thinking that in order for an article to be worth reading, it needs to be a certain length. That if an article or one of my blogs is beyond that certain length, people won't read it, because it's too long or too time consuming. But when I take a step away from all this I find that what all of these patterns come down to are limits.

There is no question that patterns may be necessary for noticing trends and seeing what's desirable and undesirable. And that recognizing patterns in popular pieces of writing, while studying other successful writers, may help one to become a better scribe. And that by seeing the patterns of greatness that we can emulate, may help us to better our own style. Copying patterns is one of the greatest reasons we've succeeded as a species.

But like most great things, patterns have their limitations. If you become too conditioned, you become fixed and immovable. (I need to stay in the Recreation business –that is all I know how to do) You become conditioned to having a certain reaction to a certain stimulus. You see that you failed in the past, so you fear failure in the future. You notice that that failure happened while trying to pursue something impractical. Now you've developed a pattern of seeing "impractical" endeavors as doomed for failure.

Can you see where all this is headed?

It's easy to get yourself stuck in following patterns because you're afraid of unknown responses. You've seen things go wrong before (or you just have some social conditioning that it's not a good idea), so you hold yourself back from doing what you really want to do. You sell yourself out because you're stuck thinking the loop is an accurate representation of reality.

Well, guess what? That loop is just a tiny figment of your imagination. A minute fragment of an event stuck on repeat that has long been extinct (hello, it happened in the past). Life, on the other hand, is more than just a pattern. It's dynamic. It's alive. It changing and it's constantly in flux.

If there is any enemy, it is the groundless divisions of the possible and probable. If there is anything we should limit, it is how many limits we let seep into our lives.

Its sad thinking that some people keep doing what they've been doing, never really living, because they're afraid that they might be wrong. They're afraid that their pattern, their idea of what's real, might actually be broken. Their limits might be mentally conjured specters. And the lives they lived might have been a lie.

So the question is … What patterns are you unconsciously repeating that are holding you back?

I know that no matter what decisions are made and how they might affect my career at the JCC, I know that looking at my skills and abilities in a broader light and not limiting myself to any specific industry - there seem to be many more opportunities that may just fulfill or trickle my inner Buda.

Let me know what you think…. Til' next time.

What happened?

2009-03-08T18:17:00.003-05:00

Greetings... I've got a story for you to read from the Wall Street Journal - Peggy Noonan reported on a tragic event last year from San Diego and the Marines investigation.

http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html#printMode

Humm... when are we going to hold our politicians and american businesses to the same standard? Accountability? Responsibility? Change? I remember those words during the campaign... What happened, or were we just hopeful.

Til next time.

My trainer kicked my a…

2009-03-01T04:21:00.001-06:00

The other morning my son and I were sitting around waiting for me to take him back home for his week of school - he spent the weekend at my house. We had about an hour, and I was itching to work out. I turned to him and said, "Do you wanna to train me?" (I've got some fitness equipment at the house and unfortunately for me it is conveniently located near the TV.)

"Uh, sure!" he said. As he put on his hiking boots.

I jumped rope to warm up while he pondered the workout. "Wow, it's hard to think of stuff to do," he said. "Yeah, my job isn't so easy a monkey could do it," I replied grinning. "Okay, put down the rope," he commanded.

"Do two push ups, two punches on the heavy bag, and two squats with this kettlebell," he told me. "How cute," I thought. "Two reps. Guess, it won't be a tough workout." I did my push ups, ran to the bag, hit it, and did my squats. "What's next?" I asked.

"Now do four of each thing," he said. "Ruh roh," I thought, realizing evil might just be genetic. We did six reps, eight, ten, then eight, six, four, and back to two. By the time we finished I was sweaty, happy, and totally gonna make my clients do the exact same thing. Maybe a monkey couldn't do it, but my nearly teenage kid came up with a kickass program. "Now let's do a lap around the block," he said. (Shit! I thought)

He ran alongside me in his size 10 hiking boots, managing to both keep up a good pace and talk without stopping the entire time. I was impressed by that alone. "Phew! I'm getting tired!" he said. "Yeah, it's hard…" I started to explain, but then he instructed me to run with high knees, then kicking my heels towards my butt, in the process also buying himself a break. "Brilliant," I thought.

We went back into the home gym, and he told me to do overhead presses with the 25lb Kettlebells. "It's so funny, you are suffering and I'm just standing here," he said. I welled up a little. "You are a real trainer now," I told him.

He had me do two more exercises he made up that I will totally use—one thing with bicep curls and squats, and a sit up with the medicine ball that is really good—and he encouraged me to go faster. He even friggin' giggled a little. "You get such a funny face when you lift weights," he laughed. "Shhhh. You can't laugh at the weightlifting face," I said, even though everyone else does. Then he stretched me out ("okay, your fingers are little ants, and the food is right there, just out of reach. Run towards the food, ants!"), then I suggested we end the session with Queen and Aerosmith blasting from his I-Pod. He concurred, and then it was time to take him home. It was one of the few workouts of my life that was over much too soon.

I don't know if this is one of those stories that is cute to me because I love my son more than anything. But when I got into fitness, I thought maybe it would help him feel athletically capable in a way I never was as a kid, because he'd see me exercising and feel like he could do it too. Fast-forward, and I guess I now know it has less to do with him observing me and more to do with this all being part of his life. He's drawing program design from his sports experiences, time spent playing with me in the gym, and the little bit of P.E. he gets at school and scouts. I ought to put him on the payroll. Heck he only charged me three dollars! Hope word doesn't get out about that, he's totally undercutting me there, and he's a good trainer.

The other day he told me he was going to teach himself volleyball and practice until he gets good so he can beat the guys that say he can't play. He said it matter-of-factly, not angrily. He is starting to get complete confidence in his athletic abilities. Last week we found out that he made the school team!

Near the end of our session, I told him that he had designed an awesome workout, and I wanted to use it with the people I train. "Would it be okay if I credit you?" I asked with a serious face. He looked up proudly, flushed, and looked down. "Well, sure, it would be great," he said shyly. His grin was huge.

Funny, I miss him and I can't wait for our next session.

Til next time…

Change...

2009-02-27T17:31:00.002-06:00

This week has been "interesting" - especially with my clients - seems everyone has a new goal in mind... This can be a very good and productive thing but sometimes we need to gain insite and motivation from those who walked before us.

"You can't change your life or your business this year with the same mindset, habits and ideas that you had last year. " Stop doing what took you to the level you're at, and start doing the things that will take you to the next level"--James Malinchak

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”--Maria Robinson

The same thinking that has led you to where you are is not going to lead you to where you want to go"--Albert Einstein"

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek".--Barack Obama

Just a few thoughts, til next time....

Amgen Tour Of California-stage 4 Snow Footage

2009-02-24T22:53:00.001-06:00

People ask me what it is like to work the aTOC - figured I'd give you a different view - it snowed the day before the stage was too start - they actually had staff on the hill the night before plowing some parts of the road - by the time the athletes got their it was in th 50's speeds down the mountains topped out at 58 mph!

Is it time to value growth???

2009-02-08T17:29:00.003-06:00

Here's a hypothetical for you...

What would happen if we realize and understood that in order to be happy, we made a conscious decision to value growth?

It would require us to change our mindset and see life as a giant experiment in learning, and no matter what befalls us, we would have to ask ourselves what kind of growth is being called for.

It seems to me that if we were to value emotional and spiritual growth, life's ups and downs have would have more meaning; instead of bemoaning our fate, we could use every opportunity to become more of who we were meant to be.

For you, that might mean becoming more assertive; for me, trusting more. But for both of us, whatever hardship we're facing can become an occasion for growth.

Can you look at your life and see if you are being called on to stretch beyond your current limits? And more importantly can you see the challenge as a chance for growth?

Til next time....

2009-02-07T15:34:00.004-06:00

Jeeze... It's been a great day here in the Midwest, at last look the red line in my thermometer was just under 60 degrees. Not bad for a February in Chicago - plus there is a southwestern warm(ish)breeze. The thirty plus days of snow cover is almost a slushy grey memory and the lines to my neighborhood car wash is over a block long....life IS good.

But alas I made an error and turned on one of the cable network newscasts.. argh.... If you listen to the talking heads on the flat screen, one might be tempted to just hide under the covers and not venture out until mid summer. There is no question that things are uncertain about today's economy, but so much of it is out of our control and I see so many people walking around scared and not smiling instead of taking a deep breath and enjoying the day.

I heard a phrase the other day "living in the lake of lack" It was in reference to folks who are so afraid of what might be that they stop living... they start hording - they hoard their time, their money even their thoughts just in case.....

Now I'm not going to sit here and suggest that you should be foolish with your time, energy, ideas and or money, but to live like the other shoe is about to drop squarely on your head doesn't seem to be that wise choice either.

So I am going to tempt fate - I am going to change my mindset - as a matter a fact I've been implementing the principles I've out lined below for the last year or so - and sure enough it seems to work. It's changed how I look at life - So, if you are feeling the pressures of the day I suggest you try one, two, all or any combination of these and see if your life goes in the direction you want it to go. I know it these principles seem to work for me...maybe it will help you too.

Are you short on time?

If that’s the case, give away some of your time. Take time to give to others. You don’t have to dedicate 90% of your day to serving others - that’s not what I’m saying. Just find that balance between giving and receiving. Find an organization or a person that you really love and volunteer some of your time. Give your time away.

Don’t feel loved?

You’ve got to give some before you get some. Give away some hugs. Go out right now and give 5 people you know a big hug. I guarantee right after you do this, you’ll feel great. You’ll feel like a million bucks! Why? Because you feel loved. And you can only feel loved when you give that love to others. Go out right now and hug 5 people! Besides, people will think you are crazy and sometimes that IS fun!

Short on Cash?

Give some away. Yes, you heard me right. I’m not saying you should sell the farm, far from it. But you may consider giving money to a charity, giving money to a friend who needs it, or even giving money to a panhandler in the street. Givers gain.

Are you stuck?

Do you want to get unstuck? Help others first. Think of someone you know that is having a similar problem. And think of a way that you could help them based on what you know. Write down what you plan to do to help this person and then go out and do it. I’m telling you this works! When you help others wholeheartedly, help will always come back to you.

Lacking self-belief?

Yup, you know it. You’ve got to give it away! If you lack self-belief, then give away that belief to others. What do I mean? Find someone you know who is lacking in self-confidence or in self-belief and give them a boost. Spend some time with this person and feed their mind. Tell them how much you believe in them. Tell them how successful you see them becoming; how you always knew they could make it. Tell them how proud you are of them. Fill their mind with positive ideas. Instill belief in others and belief will come flowing abundantly to you.

Short on ideas?

This happens all the time at work and maybe why this just might be my favorite - well other than hugs of course! If you’re short on creative ideas, give them away! Give others creative ways to increase business, find a new stimulating career or improve their health. Give ideas away and ideas will flood right back to you.

With all of these tips, you have to start with where you are. You can’t give what you don’t have. But be willing to give what you got from where you are and I promise you - abundance will flow into your life and all of the sudden the world doesn't seem like such a scary place.

Til next time.... Now, I've got to go dust off my grill and stink up the neighborhood with the smell of BBQ!

Breaking Unhealthy Habits

2009-02-05T04:31:00.001-06:00

At this time of year, people tend to be losing track of their New Years resolutions. The reason is most likely due to a person’s everyday habits. Some work well, like making sure you brush your teeth when you get up and before you go to bed. Others are not so good, like missing a meal and then binge eating later in the day.

No matter what your bad habits are, the only way to achieve true success is to make sure you break those habits permanently.

Here are some of the most common bad habits I see my clients making on a daily basis, just to name a few:
Can’t stay away from fast food
Can’t stay away from alcohol
Watch too much TV
Spend too much time on the web
Most people don’t realize the true damage they inflict upon themselves. A research study from the University of Alberta shows that while people know about the obvious bad habits, such as smoking, they don’t truly understand the problems associated with binge eating, for example.

Unfortunately, there is virtually no information being publicly announced regarding the true detriments of something like overeating. Sure cigarettes have warnings and we see commercials everyday that stress the downfall of not kicking the habit, but think about it.

Many smokers smoke because they are truly stressed out from being workaholics. In America this is considered to be an honorable trait. AND many people smoke because they think it will keep their weight in check. So they rationalize by claiming that by doing so they are adding at least a little benefit to their lifestyle.

Let’s take another thing we all know to be true but completely ignore. How many times have you heard, “I am just getting a base tan so I don’t get a sunburn.” Like we all don’t know that ANY long term exposure to the sun is bad. SO we make it sound good by saying we are preventing the ultimate poor choice of getting sunburned?!

The bottom line is that many times the rationale is socially acceptable. But that still doesn’t make it right.

So, WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO?

Many times adding a positive change will truly take care of ridding yourself from the negative. For example, if you cut down on TV… you probably will cut down on snacking. If you start a running program, then if you smoke, you will probably quit or at least cut down. They simply go hand in hand, right?

The bottom line is that you need to recognize what the bad habit is that is causing you to not succeed. Now pick something that will replace the bad habit or at least make the bad habit more
challenging to be appeased.

Then and only then can you eliminate the things that sabotage you. When that happens… the skies the limit!

Til next time....

There's NO weight loss problem....

2009-01-29T06:29:00.005-06:00

Okay, so I think most of us would agree that there is an obesity problem in America and many other countries across our planet. No brainer right? Right.

But I think we need to look at this in a completely different way. I want to propose that we do not have a weight loss problem today. In case you’re confused at this apparent contradiction, consider these statistics:

According to a study from Oxford University published in the International Journal of Obesity, within 3 to 5 years, about 80 percent of all ‘weight losers’ have regained the lost weight, and often gained back a little extra.

According to research by the National Weight Control Registry, that relapse rate may be as high as 95 percent. 95 percent?!

For comparison, relapse rates for drug, alcohol and tobacco dependency have been reported in the range of 50-90%. Huh? Really?

So what this really means is that lots and lots of people have “successfully” lost weight. But not many have kept it off. Therefore, we don’t have a weight loss problem, we have a weight-relapse problem; we have a “not sticking with it” problem, at least that is what the statistic suggest.

In fact, the fall and subsequent weight-regain usually doesn’t take years. Many people have abandoned their new year’s resolutions within weeks. By the time the Super Bowl party rolls around, their diet is history! (Hay, where's the plate with dates rolled in deep fried bacon - can I have some dip with that? Oh...Sorry I digress.)

If this is true, then shouldn’t we put more of our attention into figuring out why people don't stick with their programs.... Sometimes fitness folks don't think things through. And better yet shouldn't fitness "gurus" inform and prepare their clientele where there might be some bumps in the road? And then help them form strategies to stick with their programs rather than try to allure into the newest plan guarenteed to make you an Ambacombie swim suit model.

Below is a list of the top 8 reasons why you fall off the wagon. I think your time, energy and efforts are far better spent on figureing how to stay on track rather than worrying about the minutiae of the newest diet and exercise plan. If we focus on staying on track will be far more important than spending all of your energy debating whether you should be on low carb or high carb, Mediterranean or Okinawan, vegetarian or meat eater meal plans.

No, my suggestion to you is that if you simply focus on the 8 issues listed below you’ll start getting more lasting results. How? By being able to stick with whichever plan you decided was best for you! After all, even if you have the best nutrition program in the world - on paper - it doesn’t do you much good if you can’t stick with it in practice!

THE 8 REASONS
1. No focus: you didn’t set goals, you didn’t put your goals in writing, and or you didn’t stay focused on your goals daily (by reading them, affirming them, looking at a vision board, etc.)

2. No priorities: you may have set a goal, but you didn’t put it on or near the top of your priorities list. For example, your goal is six pack abs, but drinking beer and eating fast food on the weekend is higher on your priorities list than having a flat stomach.

3. No support system: you tried to go at it alone; no buddy system, training partners, family, spouse, friends, mentors or coaches to turn to for information and emotional support when the going got tough.

4. No Accountability: you didn’t keep score for your own accountability – with a progress chart, weight record, measurements, food journal, training journal, and you didn’t set up external accountability (ie, report to someone else or show your results to someone else)

5. No patience: you were only thinking short term and had unrealistic expectations. You expected 10 pounds a week or 5 pounds a week or 3 pounds a week, so the first week you lost “only” 1 or 2 pounds or hit a plateau, you gave up.

6. No planning: you winged it. You walked into the gym without having a workout in hand, on paper, you didn’t plan your workouts into your weekly schedule; you didn’t have a menu on paper, you didn’t make time (so instead you made excuses, like “I’m too busy”)

7. No balance: your diet or training program was too extreme. You went the all or nothing, “I want it now” route instead of the moderate, slow-and-steady wins the race route.

8. No personalization: your nutrition or training program was the wrong one for you. It might have worked for someone else, but it didn’t suit your schedule, personality, lifestyle, disposition or body type.

So there you have it – 8 reasons why most people fall off the wagon! Have you been making these mistakes? If so, the solutions are clear and simple: focus, prioritize, get support, be accountable, be patient, plan, balance and personalize.

Humm sounds like a plan to overcome most problems... wish Congress would listen.

Til next time...

X-Box and Fat Loss?

2009-01-25T09:22:00.001-06:00

There are many generational differences between my son and me, but probably one of the most glaring differences is his manual dexterity when it comes to playing with his X-box. So during one of my practice sessions of the game street racing game Carbon (sans son), made me realize that keeping my car drifting on course is similar to fat loss.

It's not a stretch keep reading!

I thought about the delicate way that he used his controller buttons to navigate his $500,000.00 car around the course dodging police cruisers while racing against the clock. I came to the realization that on every single run of the course he captained, he was constantly making these very fine subtle adjustments to his exotic ride. His feel for the game allowed him to keep his ride on course ensuring a safe run while arriving at his destination regardless of the hazards, minutes before me and my classic muscle car.

Fat loss is really no different. (As testimony to my big slow thumbs on the controllers.) Sometimes when you start on a new healthy eating or exercise regime, the initial progress can be very slow. It may feel like you are never going to get to your destination and you crash and burn easily. But deep down you know that if you just sit tight and keep practicing you will eventually make your destination. Sure, you might get a bit frustrated and want to take it out on that smug child in the seat next to you, but if you just keep going, before long you'll stay on course and avoid more and more of the obstacles placed in your path. You then realize that it's just a case of making little adjustments. Maneuvering around a hairpin turn at 60 miles per hour is no big deal as long as you have it in perspective.

Each of my attempts down our virtual towns' Main Street dodging obstacles and police cruisers had varied success. Each run educated my thumbs so that they came to understand that, amongst other things, obstacles combined with speed in this virtual world is just part of the game, it's not dangerous if you don't overreact. So the next time that I challenge him or have a little wobble on my diet or exercise regime, I won't panic, over steer or jam on the breaks. I'll just press a few buttons, readjust and get back on course. Pretty soon, I'll be arriving at my destination far easier than I ever thought possible.

Til next time…

“80/20”

2009-01-24T18:32:00.001-06:00

There are a few topics that pop up in this blog over and over again. The reason I do that is because it's those topics that will make or break a fitness and nutrition program. Just like in business, your social life, and most anything else, the old "80/20″ rule seems to apply to fitness. That means that you'll get about 80% of your progress from 20% of the things you do. So obviously those are the real keys and what you should focus on.

One of my favorite keys to harp on is consistency. Even a poor program (not that you should follow one) will achieve far more success if it is done day in and day out than a great program that is rarely followed will. That's one of the big reasons that I decided to start logging my workouts. My own training exploded when I started consistently logging my results and examining them. The more consistent I was in my logging, the more consistent I became in my training, and the greater my results were.

When I've slipped in my training and not seen the results that I'm looking for, I can almost always trace that back to times when I wasn't keeping a good log. There are times when I've been busy or injured or just taking a break and I got lazy about the log book. Sure enough, those times always seemed to stretch just a little further than they should, or I'd have a hard time getting restarted.

So learn to embrace consistency when it comes to getting in the best shape of your life. Not every workout has to put you on your ass, and not every meal has to be a chicken breast with celery. However, every workout and every meal should have some quality that is going to make you better than you were before. THAT is consistency, and that will build progress.

Til next time…

What could you achieve?

2009-01-23T21:42:00.002-06:00

A friend of mine shared a verse that he was sending in a card to a seriously ill family member. He had gone through a similar medical event and thought that this would help them in their recovery.

As I read the quotation I started to day dream about how wonderful the world would be and how much each of us could achieve if we made this same promise to ourselves.

Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on the greater achievements of the future. Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others. Live in the faith that the whole world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you!

- Christian D. Larson

Til next time….

That’s not going to fly!

2009-01-21T18:31:00.001-06:00

OK, we have a new President; we've celebrated the New Year, and I think people are walking around in a semi optimistic mood. But now it's time to get working… (I think that is more a note to me than anyone else!) You see, I had the privilege of speaking to a group of office professionals today about exercises that they can do at their work stations to help stay fit, as well as maintain their energy levels and focus through out the day. If they are willing to do things at work to stay fit, surely we can figure out strategies to get more fit throughout 2009.

So, through my conversations today I have developed "5 Excuses That Won't Fly in 2009". We are in a new year, and your old excuses for not getting in shape won't work. As Dr. Evil (Austin Powers) said, ZIP IT! I don't want to hear them anymore! Read em', then haul your excuseless butt to the gym!

1. I have no time.

According to a story in a recent issue of Men's Health magazine, Barack Obama works out for 45 minutes a day, 6 days a week. Obama doesn't just play basketball either. Our new president stays fit to lead with cardio and weight lifting. He also says he wishes he could train 90 minutes a day. Have you ever seen what the daily schedule of a U.S. president looks like? If the busiest man in the world can train every day for 45 minutes a day, then what's your excuse? ZIP IT! You ain't got one!

2. it's too expensive.

Getting in shape certainly is expensive… if you keep wasting hundreds of dollars, month after month on worthless "miracle" weight loss pills, internal cleansing gimmicks and "magic" potions that all claim to make you slim. Deceptive advertising and slick marketing for bogus diet aids is more rampant than ever. 2008 was the year of the wu-long tea scam, the acai berry scam, and, of course, the ubiquitous "cleansing" and "detox" gimmicks. Unless you put on your critical thinking cap and learn to investigate before you invest, then you'll get scammed by 2009's flavor of the year as well. Your quest for those elusive "6-pack" abs will not only continue to be expensive, you'll go broke. Walking, jogging, calisthenics and body weight exercises are FREE. If you want to know what's really expensive, tally up the cost of legitimate expenses like natural food, gym memberships, fitness education, dumbbells and so on, and compare that to your doctor's bill when you're sick.

3. No one will support me.

Experts on social influence say your income will be approximately equal to the average of your 5 closest friends. Not only do I think that's pretty darn accurate, I also believe that your health is your greatest wealth, and your physical condition will be about equal to the average of your 5 closest friends. It's a real challenge to stay positive, focused and active when you're surrounded by critical people and negative influences. However, in 2009, lack of support is no longer a valid excuse. Online social networking is exploding (check out Twitter and Facebook ) and more IN PERSON friendships and associations are being made from an internet connection than ever before. Training buddies can be found online. Connect with them. Mentors and coaches are easily found online. Hire them. Support forums have been around for years. Use them. No support from your current friends? Stop whining, start reaching out and go make new ones. In 2009, support partners and new friends are just a click away.

4. I can't lose weight because of my genetics.

The marvels of modern medical and biological research are astonishing. Our top scientists have mapped the human genome! In the past few years, numerous genes linked to obesity have been discovered. However, the obesity epidemic we're facing today has only developed over the past 50 years and genetic mutations that lead to serious obesity are extremely rare. Genetic predisposition only means that you have a tendency. It's when the genetics meet lifestyle and environment that the genes express themselves. If you have a family history of heart disease, is it smart to smoke, eat junk, be a stressed-out, type-A maniac and a couch potato? Well of course not, and it's the same with obesity. If you have a tendency predisposing you towards obesity, you'd better be the person doing the MOST exercise, not the least. You'd better be the person paying the MOST attention to your nutrition. You'd better be the person with the healthiest lifestyle. But unfortunately, it's usually the opposite. Most people throw up their arms in frustration saying, "what's the use, I was dealt a bad hand." Sorry. That won't fly in 2009. The latest research says genetics are a factor, but a tendency is not a destiny!

5. I don't know how.

The lamest excuse of them all in 2009 is "I don't know how." NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO DO ANYTHING UNTIL AFTER THEY HAVE ACTUALLY DONE IT! Ponder that for a while. You don't need to know how at first. To get started, you only need to know WHAT… what is the goal? Setting well-formed goals is the master skill of success. Not wishy-washy resolutions that have no resolve behind them, but real goals. In writing. With emotional ooompf! As you continue to affirm, visualize and focus on your goal with clarity, belief, and expectation, your new goal or intention will be received by your subconscious. Once a goal is accepted into your subconscious mind, your brain, being a goal-seeking mechanism, will turn on your attention filters to seek out all the information you will ever need to reach your goal. It will also turn on an infallible navigation system to guide you to your goal like a torpedo to its target. As your brain guides your attention, your direction and your behavior, you will discover that today, in 2009, there is more good information, coaching and instruction available than ever before. And when you've activated that "success radar" in your brain by setting goals effectively, it's not as hard to find honest, accurate and helpful HOW-TO advice as you might think. In fact, you found this webpage, so you're doing pretty good right now, aren't you?

No more excuses. In 2009, remember: You can either make excuses or get results, but you can't do both!

Til next time….

Loss…

2009-01-18T07:33:00.001-06:00

There are a few of you out there that are going to be mad at me after this post.

Coping with a loss and fitness.

No doubt this can be one of the most difficult experiences in a person's life. The toughest part about it is that it makes us question who we are as a person. Don't get me wrong, I think this type of questioning is a good thing. But the problem occurs when we start to determine our self worth with the way we look.

Being healthy and having a perfect body do not go hand in hand. OK, I'm going to write that again, being healthy and having a perfect body DO NOT go hand in hand. Come on repeat after me… Being healthy and having a perfect body do not go hand in hand!

Getting in shape is the result of a healthy and active lifestyle that has been tuned and refined through careful consideration. Just because you don't have the body that you want yet, that doesn't mean you should ever give up that healthy and fit lifestyle.

So when you're coping with loss (perhaps of a loved one, a relationship, or a career) make sure to allow yourself time to grieve, but also realize that you do that person (and/or yourself ) a disservice if you do not live your life to the fullest for their sake, not just your own.

Til next time…

I was reminded....

2009-01-14T16:29:00.004-06:00

I was reminded of an English saying this past weekend…“Death always comes too early or too late.”

I’ve never known it to come at the right time – This past weekend was bitter sweet for our family, we had to lay to rest one of our favorites – I know that you are not supposed to have favorites – but in this case she just was.

I think death is always hardest on those left to mourn. But what struck me this past weekend was the many people she touched throughout her time spent here on this planet and in this place.

I found myself thinking often that I was sorry that I am meeting you… No offense but I’d rather had been meeting these wonderful people under much different circumstances.

But yet it was right, and for some reason at this particular time and in this place we were brought together because of something my Aunt gave each of us. It didn’t matter if it was her friendship or counsel and for those of us who were lucky her love. This past weekend we are all there as part of her extended family.

I couldn’t help but hear so many stories and so many wonderful memories about my Aunt and how she helped so many people. For sure we were there to share moments… those moments, those brief encounters in time that affected each of us so profoundly.

I had one of those special moments with my Aunt a few years back and I wanted to share a bit of her wisdom with you today. It’s amazing that it still sticks with me today.

Being the oldest grandchild in the Espinoza clan as well as an only child, you become a great observer of human behavior. And for whatever reason there were several wakes that I had to attend that particular year… After the wake I was standing outside waiting for my uncle to pull up the car. As a young adult – at least in my mind, I felt it was necessary to do something profound.

So I took Aunt Nancy’s hand and said, “I’m sure this has been very difficult day – and I’m sure you are sad – I’m very sorry that you’re Aunt died – my condolences”

Now I was eight at the time, and I’m sure I stuttered or mispronounced some words as all eight year old boys do – No, I’m sure I stuttered out the word condolences.

My Aunt stood up straight – tilted her head to the side, as all good teachers do when they are thinking of the right thing to say, somewhat smiled and replied “That’s a big word for you!"

She continued, "Yes, I am sad and thank you."
"But you know.", and then she did that special teachers pause – and then she flashed those kind eyes… “no one really ever dies as long as you remember them”

Really!? I said. Then she nodded in the affirmative…

That was probably forty years ago… and that simple yet straight forward message has helped me get through many a loss. Even during this past weekend.

I can’t begin to imagine what it feels like to lose a spouse – Nor do I want to ever know what it is to lose a child – but I do know what it feels like to loose a parent and sometimes it’s those words, those memories… those scenes that flash in the theater of your mind – those brief moments in time.. that help to get you through and provide an answer – Those remembrances can help change our lives – even if that person is no longer with us.

Our family has been blessed that she has given all of us some of those moments. We may not have realized it at the time, but those moments were very special gifts. She had a wonderful ability to enhanced each our lives in a very personal - and I’ll bet - positive way.

Yes we all gathered together in the Land of Enchantment because of my aunt, but because of those special moments in time, we were all bonded together - we all became family - and sometimes just knowing you have family helps you through these times of sadness and great loss. I know on that day she shared with me a very special gift. A gift of hope and of love – and for that I will always be grateful.

Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. ~Albert Einstein~

I know that she would not want us to be TOO sad, and that she would expect us to live life to the fullest – just as she tried to live hers – especially just as she did this past year. I will miss her dearly, but she will continue to warm my heart and make me smile. And I hope through our memories she will continue to help us with the answers.

My Resolution…

2009-01-05T22:42:00.005-06:00

With everyone out there talking about all their top strategies on how to make New Years Resolutions for weight loss, better career moves, or more daily happiness….I'm going to just give you one for all of them, do more of "nothing". Make a resolution to do less this year….but make it count more!

Am I Nuts?

Nope, you heard me correctly; I am challenging all of you this year to do more of……nothing! Now you are probably scratching your head or wondering if I have truly lost my mind…..but hear me out. This is not about lack of productivity, lack of accomplishing goals, procrastination, putting off what you want to do….in fact it is quite the opposite of that.

Most people are running around just keeping busy. Ask anyone around you and they have "stuff to do" today or this weekend. Come back a month later and see if most of these people have really even accomplished anything bigger than keeping busy and killing time, most often probably not. We need to get out of the rut of needing to "stay busy". Do the hardest thing for most people….sit around and do nothing! I don't mean watch TV, read a book, play video games….those are distractions, you are still doing something. Nope I want you to find more time to do absolutely nothing. Stare at the sky, go for a quiet walk in nature, look at the ceiling….it's your call where you want to do nothing.

But won't that just be a waste of time?
Really? As if watching TV was a productive use of time? Time is the most valuable resource we have and how we use it should be of vital importance. We only have a limited amount of time, so use it wisely before it's all gone. Doing nothing will help the mind to quiet down, all the distractions to side, all the less important things in life to just go away quietly…and then you will find true inspiration and focus on what is important in your life. In those moments of quietness you can find out really what you really want to spend your time on. Spending 30min a day in complete silence somewhere could be the most productive thing you ever do if it leads you to a more focused and enjoyable lifestyle.

This is not about being Unproductive; it's about learning to be More Productive.

Don't feel guilty because you are not running around staying busy all day long. Today's world is so fast paced that people almost think they are lazy if they are not doing something every second of the day (heck some even say sleeping too much is being lazy). But being busy is really not the goal. If you want to accomplish something in life, then doing that takes center stage. And if you want to get somewhere isn't it better to stop and realize what actually matters, or would you rather just do random things and hope you get there?

Doing nothing isn't about being lazy or unproductive; it's about not being swept up with the things that really don't matter to your goals and outcomes. Like I see people just jump on treadmills and put in hours of work, then go off and eat the same…..and wonder why they lost no pounds in 3 months.

Live the 80/20 rule…Don't just Read it, Live it!

I'm sure many have heard me say this before, but the 80/20 rule (also known as the Pareto principle, named after an economist named Vilfredo Pareto) is essential to remember when it comes to anything from business, marketing, sales, personal development, health, fitness or life in general.

What 80/20 means is that 80% of your results/accomplishments/income/weight-loss/happiness will come from 20% of your efforts/customers/surroundings/relationships. Just imagine if you could take 100% of your busy time right now….free up 80% of it and still be able to get the same amount (if not more) done because you are focusing on what the really important things are. Let go of the rest that bring little to no results and happiness into your life. That is liberating.

So many people are caught up in all the little things that give very little in return. Use your quiet time (while you are doing nothing) to think about all that goes on in your life. Doing nothing will actually start to make clear to you what really matters….and what really does not. The only way you will know what brings the most into your life is if you take time out to step back and take a look.

Do nothing but just observe yourself from a distance, like you were on a television show. See what is really going on with you. Find out what is vital to reaching your goals….and then master that 20% (that gives you 80%+ of the results). Life is not a race, so enjoy the time you have while living the life you want.

Inspiration Comes when You Don't Force it

I've read all about inspiration and how people make it work for them, but never really understood it until I started to do less….and then had more insights because of it. Starting this blog, writing certain posts, knowing how to take my career, and many other things have come from me being able to just shut off all distractions and go sit and do nothing for a while.

I used to try and force myself into productivity long ago, and then wondered why I really never progressed. Now I know I was just trying to swim against the current and get so much more insight/vision when I learn how to float with the current, not swim against it.

It's really funny how once you can see what matters, what excites you, what is important….how all that just opens up in front of you and life presents the opportunities or people that you need to make it happen. Go somewhere quiet, can be in your house or at the local park, with no MP3 player….no cell phone….and just sit and let the mind do the rest (tip you can bring a piece of paper and pen if you want…to record all the insights and clarity you are having). It may not all happen at once and usually won't come if you try and force it, but like anything in life….the more you do it, the better you get at it.

What the Heck does this have to do with Health and Fitness?

I've been around long enough in the health and fitness industry to know that there is so much hype and focus put on all the wrong things. For most getting involved it can be confusing and overwhelming. This is when you really need to step back and find out what is important to focus on. Once you can realize those key points you can easily ignore the rest. For example:

Realizing that 85% of your weight loss efforts come from eating right

Knowing that full body compound movements give you the most bang for your buck

Shorter but more intense exercise can get you weight loss without always doing long & boring cardio

Eating foods that are made from nature (and not man) provide most all what you need

Getting sleep and having a stress free life is key to health (and your body will look and feel better too)

Knowing you have control over your health, and all it takes is focusing on what you really need to do right now.

So Tell Everyone Your Resolution this year is to do more of Nothing!

You have all the tools you will ever need to succeed in life (at whatever you choose). All the info that you need is out there. The only thing left to do is take the CORRECT action. Don't be like everyone else running around from little thing to little thing. Focus your time on the big things. Get more done in less time and then sit back and relax. People will think you are nuts….until a couple months down the road you look better, feel better, maybe increase the success of your career (or have insights into changing it). At that point everyone will want to know your secret…and then you can sit them down in a quiet room and when they ask "well what is it?" you can confidently say "you are doing it right now".

Til next time….

It’s that time of year again….

2009-01-05T22:31:00.001-06:00

No, I'm not talking about New Years, Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, and Kwanzaa. I'm talking about "Cold and Flu Season". Of course, the aforementioned holidays play a part in this. The month of December typically brings lots of holiday parties, which means lots of people, lots of handshaking, and lots of interaction with their germs.

So while we're being bombarded with the message to get our flu shots, how can we make sure we keep our immunity high without the need to get ourselves injected (with who knows what)?

Watch Your Sugar And Processed Carbs
Being the nice guy that I am, I'm starting things off by taking away your cookies, cakes, and pies. Aren't I sweet, no pun intended? Why though? Well, sugar and processed carbs cause an inordinate rise in insulin production, which causes a suppression of growth hormones. Unfortunately, there's also a suppression of the immune system when these growth hormones are suppressed. Further, a high level of sugar in the blood reduces the ability of white blood cells to engulf bacteria and other infections.

But just how bad can it be?

These studies show that in adults, cell mediated immunity is significantly depressed after sugar ingestion (75 grams). A 100g portion of sugar can significantly reduce the capacity of white blood cells to engulf bacteria. Maximum immune suppression occurs one to two hours after ingestion and remains suppressed for up to five hours after feeding.

A 12oz Coke contains 40g of sugar. Add a cookie or two on top of that and you're already up there around 75g. And of course, it's unlikely that we're dealing with a binary variable here (that's an "on/off" variable in non-geek speak). More sugar is going to suppress the immune system more, but that doesn't mean that the 40g from a Coke leaves you in the clear.

How delightful is that piece of fudge now?

Keep Your Stress Levels Low
The holidays are a stressful time. In years past, I've had four different families to visit on Thanksgiving Day alone. Christmas was often two or three different houses to go to, with Christmas Eve pulling in another one or two. Talk about stress! And I'm not just talking about all that time with all the people around. That's a lot of driving and a lot of time planning to make sure you're here on time and there on time.

Unfortunately, stress is a potent immune suppressor.

Acute stressors (lasting minutes) were associated with potentially adaptive upregulation of some parameters of natural immunity and downregulation of some functions of specific immunity. Brief naturalistic stressors (such as exams) tended to suppress cellular immunity while preserving humoral immunity. Chronic stressors were associated with suppression of both cellular and humoral measures.

So limit the number of trips you have to make. It's your holiday also and you should be able to enjoy it without running all over the place. If your family situation is stressful, try to put aside differences for the few hours you're together, enjoy the company, then move along.

Limit Your Drinking
Alcohol packs a double whammy on your immune system when you over-imbibe.

First, it produces an overall nutritional deficiency, depriving the body of valuable immune- boosting nutrients. Second, alcohol, like sugar, consumed in excess can reduce the ability of white cells to kill germs. High doses of alcohol suppress the ability of the white blood cells to multiply, inhibit the action of killer white cells on cancer cells, and lessen the ability of macrophages to produce tumour necrosis factors.

So how much can you drink without ill effects?

One drink (the equivalent of 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1 ounces of hard liquor) does not appear to bother the immune system, but three or more drinks do. Damage to the immune system increases in proportion to the quantity of alcohol consumed. Amounts of alcohol that are enough to cause intoxication are also enough to suppress immunity.

For Pete's Sake, Go To Bed!
If you haven't gotten the message about why you need to sleep yet, this probably isn't going to do it. But I'll just keep repeating myself until it gets through or I pass out. You need at least 7 and preferably 8-9 hours of sleep each night, especially during the winter. Turn off Leno, turn off the internet, and go to bed. Why? Well, here's one way that sleep deprivation may directly suppress the immune system.

To make a long and fascinating story short, it turns out that when animals are sleep deprived, a protein known as di-muramyl peptide accumulates in their spinal fluid. The peptides do not originate in the brain. Instead, they come from bacteria in the body, suggesting that sleep deprivation may enable bacterial growth and that sufficient sleep impedes bacterial growth.

What's even more interesting is that these di-muramyl peptides enhance non-REM sleep (but not REM sleep). [REM=rapid eye movements] The peptides also cause fever. The two effects are dissociable, however; the sleep effect is independent of the fever. More interesting still is the fact that the peptides stimulate cells in the brain and the body to produce interleukin-1, a powerful immune-system molecule that promotes the destruction of both bacteria and tumor cells. Highly significant and desirable health effects are mediated by interleukin's ability to encourage the B lymphocytes to produce antibodies, which kill viruses, and to trigger the proliferation of T lymphocytes, which attack microbial invaders. The net effect is to mobilize the body's defensive forces.

Hit A Brief Workout
Exercise boosts your immune system, at least in its "moderate" form.

During moderate exercise immune cells circulate through the body more quickly and are better able to kill bacteria and viruses. After exercise ends, the immune system generally returns to normal within a few hours, but consistent, regular exercise seems to make these changes a bit more long-lasting.

Just remember that you don't need to overdo it. Too much training is detrimental to immunity. Marathoners take note:

However, there is also evidence that too much intense exercise can reduce immunity. This research is showing that more than 90 minutes of high-intensity endurance exercise can make athletes susceptible to illness for up to 72 hours after the exercise session.

Even intense exercise sessions can produce short-term immune suppression, an effect that I've noticed once or twice after a record-setting Fran (CrossFit workout):

Intense exercise seems to cause a temporary decrease in immune system function. Research has found that during intense physical exertion, the body produces certain hormones that temporarily lower immunity.

A Few Supplements Wouldn't Hurt
There are a few vitamins that are noted to improve immune system function. For starters, vitamins C and E increase production of immune system cells and interferon. And then there's zinc, also important for immune function.

Zinc affects multiple aspects of the immune system, from the barrier of the skin to gene regulation within lymphocytes.

Magnesium has a role as well (hmm…ZMA anyone?):

Particularly, Mg has a strong relation with the immune system, in both nonspecific and specific immune response, also known as innate and acquired immune response.

But the most important vitamin for your immune system may be vitamin D. This article was posted recently on Performance Menu and sheds some light on how vitamin D works to improve immunity.

The UCLA group confirmed two other recent studies, showing that a naturally occurring steroid hormone - a hormone most of us take for granted - was, in effect, a potent antibiotic. Instead of directly killing bacteria and viruses, the steroid hormone under question increases the body's production of a remarkable class of proteins, called antimicrobial peptides. The 200 known antimicrobial peptides directly and rapidly destroy the cell walls of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, including the influenza virus, and play a key role in keeping the lungs free of infection. The steroid hormone that showed these remarkable antibiotic properties was plain old vitamin D.
….
We have only recently learned how vitamin D increases production of antimicrobial peptides while simultaneously preventing the immune system from releasing too many inflammatory cells, called chemokines and cytokines, into infected lung tissue.

Of course you need vitamins A and K to make good use of vitamin D, so just keep eating your liver.

How The Holidays Conspire Against Us
So look back at the list above and think about the holidays. They are typically marked by tons of sugary sweet and processed carbs, alcohol flows freely, sleep takes a backseat to socializing, and the stress to find the perfect gift and visit everyone is high. What happens when you come across sick Uncle Al? Is it any wonder that 10-20% of us catch the flu yearly or that the average adult gets 2-4 colds per year, typically in fall and winter?

And Why I Avoid The Flu Shot?
Every year, I hear someone say something like:

I get the flu shot every year and I don't get the flu. It obviously works.

And of course, I reply:

I never get the flu shot and yet, I also don't get the flu.

The fact of the matter is that there's no need for a flu shot to avoid getting the flu. As our pal Mark pointed out, the flu shot is often mismatched on the particular strain circulating that year anyway.

Strong Immunity Is Better Than Iffy Vaccinations
So in the end, it's your decision: build a strong, healthy immune system that can identify and fight off the cold and flu viruses or rely on a vaccine that may or may not get the job done. I know which way I'm leaning. It seems to me that continuing my diet of Real Food, getting my usual 8-9 hours of sleep, and throwing in a bit of exercise should keep me humming along nicely, just like in years past.

What other tips do you have for keeping the immune system strong? Do you get a flu shot?

16 things I wish I had known when I was 18

2009-01-02T23:11:00.001-06:00

"Everything has been figured out, except how to live." - Jean-Paul Sartre

I'm nearly 50 years old, and I've made my share of mistakes in my life. I'm not a big believer in regrets … and I have learned tremendously from every single mistake … and my life is pretty great.

However, there are a few things I wish I had known when I was graduating from high school and starting out as an adult in life.

Would I change things? I'm not so sure. I might never have gotten into a mountain of debt, but then I wouldn't have learned the amazing satisfaction of getting out of it. I might have made better career choices, but then I wouldn't have all the work experience that makes me the person and manager that I am today.

I might not have gotten married that first time, so that I would never have gotten divorced … but then I wouldn't have this wonderful, incredible child that I've had the privilege of watching grow into a young man.

No, I don't think I would change any of that. However, looking back, there are some lessons I've learned that I would probably tell my 18-year-old self. Do I share them now to share my regrets? No, I share them in hopes that younger men and women, just starting out in life, can benefit from my mistakes and my lessons.

What follows isn't an exhaustive list, but it's one that I hope proves useful to at least a few people.

"I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it." - Jack Handey

How to control impulse spending. If there's anything that got me in trouble financially, it has been impulse spending. Buying stuff when I really didn't need it. Buying gadgets because I gotta have them cause everyone else has them. Ordering stuff online because it's so easy. Buying that new shiny SUV because … well, because it was going to improve my status. I'm not proud of any of that. I've learned to control my impulses, at least a little better. Now, I give myself some time to breathe. I think over my purchases, see if I've got the money, think about whether it's a need or a want. That would have been a useful tool 25 years ago.
You gotta stay active. I participated in organized sports in high school and college, but once I started working for a living, the conditioning began to slowly fade away. Not right away — I played in tennis tournaments for years after school. But even that went away, until I became sedentary. Playing with my son outdoors winded me. And I began to get fatter and fatter. I'm reversing that trend, and am more active now, but I'm still trying to burn the fat I gained in those inactive years.
How to plan finances. I always knew that I was supposed to budget and track my spending, when I became an adult. I just was too lazy to do it. And I didn't have a good idea of how to actually do it. Now, I've learned how to plan, and how to stick to that plan. Sure, I deviate from my plan, but I've learned how to handle that too. Maybe that's not a skill you can learn from book reading. You just gotta practice. Well, I hope to teach it to my son before he goes out on his own.
Junk food will come back to bite you in the butt. Yeah, it wasn't just the sedentary lifestyle that got me fat. It was all the damn junk food too. I would eat pizza and burgers and Twinkies and sugar cereal and desserts and donuts and … well, you get the picture. As someone used to being able to eat whatever I wanted, it never seemed like it would be a problem. Bad health was something to worry about when you got old. Well, my jeans began to get way too tight, and to my horror, I climbed several pants sizes and developed a gut that only now is going away. I wish someone had shown me an "after" picture when I was young and downing the Big Gulps and brownies.
Fund your retirement, son. And don't withdraw it. This piece of wisdom, and probably all the ones above, might seem blisteringly obvious. And they are. Don't think I didn't know this when I was 18. I did. I just didn't pay it serious attention. Retirement was something I could worry about when I was in my 30s. Well, I'm in my late 40's now and I wish I could slap that little 18-year-old around a bit. What money I could have invested by now! I had a retirement plan, but on the 3 occasions when I had major changes in my life, I took the easy route and I withdrew those dollars and spent it (in retrospect) frivolously.
All the stuff you're doing that seems hard — it will be of use. This is the first one that might not be as obvious. There were times in my life when work was hard, and I did it anyway, but hated it. I did it because I had to, but boy did it stress me out and leave me exhausted. Hard work isn't as easy as I wanted it to be. But you know what? Every bit of hard work I did without knowing why I was doing it … it's paid off for me in the long run. Maybe not right away, but I'm using skills and habits I learned during those times of high stress and long hours and tedious work — I use them all the time, and they've made me into the person I am today. Sometimes things really DO work out!
Don't buy that used car without checking it out closely. I thought I was being smart by buying used, but I didn't check it out carefully enough. That friggin car had loads of transmission problems, a door that nearly fell off when I was driving, a side mirror that fell off, windows that didn't roll up, rattling noises, an eventual blown radiator … I could go on and on, but let's just say that it wasn't my best purchase. I still think buying used is smart, but check things out closely first.
Make time to pursue your passion, no matter how busy you are. I've always wanted to get my Masters Degree, be a writer, and get a book published. I just never seem to have had the time. With a family and school and a full-time job, there just weren't enough hours in the day. Well, I've learned that you have to make those hours. Set aside a block of time to do what you love, cut out other stuff from your life that take up your time, and don't let anything interfere with that work. If I had done that 20 years ago, I could have 10 books written by now. Not all would be great, but still. I did finally get my Masters Degree completed last year - and who knows, maybe the book is next – let you know next year! (smile)
All that stuff that's stressing you out — it won't matter in 5 years, let alone 15. When things are happening to you right now, they mean everything in the world. I had deadlines and projects and people breathing down my neck, and my stress levels went through the roof. I don't regret the hard work (see above) but I think I would have been less stressed if I could have just realized that it wouldn't matter a single bit just a few years down the road. Perspective is a good thing to learn.
The people you make friends with are so much more important than your job or the things you buy. I've had quite a few jobs in fitness industry, I've bought a lot of things, and I've made a few friends over these last 30+ years. And lost track of a lot more – career you know (not!) Of those, the only thing that still matter to me are the friends. And I wish I could have spent more time with friends (and family) than on the other things.
All that time you spend watching TV is a huge, huge waste of time. I don't know how much TV I've watched over the years, but it's a crap load. Hours and days and weeks I'll never have back. Who cares what happens on reality TV, when reality is slipping by outside? Time is something you'll never get back — don't waste it on TV. Spend it improving yourself, or your children.
Your kids are going to grow up way faster than you think. Don't waste a minute. I just had an Oh My God moment recently. My son Phil, is turning 13 in a few weeks. I have a few years left with him before he starts driving and doesn't need his chuffer. In about 6 years he leaves for college and becomes an adult. Six years! I am floored by that single fact, because it really doesn't seem anywhere near enough time. I want to find a time lord go back to my younger self and whack me upside the head and say Stop working so hard! Stop watching TV! Spend more time with your son! These last 13 years with Phil (and the few years I spent with my Ex's kids) have gone by much, much too fast.
Forget the drama. Focus on being happy. There have been many things that have happened to me, professionally and personally, that at the time could have seemed like the end of the world. And while these things were bad, they would get blown up in our heads so that they became major drama. They caused me to be depressed from time to time. What a waste of time! If I realized that it was all in my head and that I could be happy instead if I had only focused on the positive, on what I did have, and what I could be doing … I could have skipped all the moping about.
Pay more attention to blogs when you first hear about them. They're more than just journals. I first read about blogs 6-7years ago, but when I took a look at them they didn't seem like anything of interest. Just some people's journals about stuff they read on the web. Why would I want to read those? I have my own thoughts about the web, but I don't need to share them with the world. I spent a lot of time on the Internet, on various sites and forums, but every time I happened upon a blog I would brush past it without interest. It wasn't until a couple years ago that I discovered what wonderful things they could be If I had gotten into blogging years ago … well, I wouldn't have been wasting all that time.
Speaking of which, keep a journal. Seriously. Your memory is extremely faulty. I forget things really easily. Not short-term stuff, but long-term. I don't remember things about my son's early years as clearly as I could because I didn't record any of it. I don't remember things about my life. It's like a lot of foggy memories that I'll never have access to. I wish I had kept a journal.
Tequila is seriously evil. I won't go into details, but it should suffice to say that I have felt like the worm on the bottom of the bottle, and I'm not sure I learned very much from that or benefited in any way except to learn that tequila is the drink of Satin.

All these mistakes you're going to make, despite this advice? They're worth it. My 18-year-old self would probably have read this post and said, "Good advice!" And then he would have proceeded to make the same mistakes, despite good intentions. I was a good kid, but I wasn't good at following advice. I had to make my own mistakes, and live my own life. And that's what I did, and I don't regret a minute of it. Every experience I've had (even the tequila ones) have led me down the path of life to where I am today. I love where I am today, and wouldn't trade it for another life for the entire world. The pain, the stress, the drama, the hard work, the mistakes, the depression, the hangovers, the debt, the fat … it was all worth it.

Til next time….

"Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." - Mark Twain