Health

Physical, mental, family, and life health are important aspects in life.  You cannot be healthy without being well in all four subject areas. This article takes a look into each section and see how you can be more healthy starting today.

Physical Health

Who doesn’t want to be physically fit?! This is a very important asset to have. So why is physical health so important? Well, for one, it lengthens life expectancy. Live longer! It might be hard to pick up at first, but it is important in the long end. Exercise also makes you feel fantastic. More confidence, and it makes you happy. It is proven to release endorphins that make you happy. So when you’re feeling glum, go exercise. Another very peculiar thing that it does is it lets you sleep better. Most people often complain about sleeping problems, and most of those people are lazy. Exercise regulates your internal clock, and it helps you sleep much better. And last but not least, let’s not forget, it makes you look more attractive! So if you are trying to impress that one special person, why not get in shape and do just that?!

Mental Health

Mental health is very important in everyday life for many reasons. Think clearly, think faster, perform tasks better, makes speech clearer, and it just, on average, makes you sound smarter. This is a type of chain; one sets off the other, and so on. Mentally helps you think of words or sentences faster, get your work or homework done A LOT quicker, and it gives you better word choice to make you sound like a pure genius! Reading, writing and mental games such as chess or checkers all help progress this process. These are all things to exercise your mind with.

Family Health

Whether it’s just your parents or your wife and three children, it’s always good to have a good relationship with your family.Although people say they are cheerful alone, they are never as happy as they are with their family. It is key to true happiness. It is a new kind of love that must be experience. A life is wasted without family, for family is a main ingredient in the hodgepodge we call “living.” They support your decision and they back you 100% on anything, even if you’re wrong. And most importantly, they are always there to cheer you up when no one else is. Family helps you up at your weakest moment.

Life Health

A well-maintained life is very important. Inside you is the spark of true happiness, and the world is your fuel. If you have a healthy life overall, there is nothing you can’t accomplish. You can control so much more than you think. YOU have the power to shape your future any way you want! All that is needed is confidence and willpower.

Conclusion

Exercise to live your life longer and feel better.

Train your mind to be more knowledgeable.

Support your family, because they’re always supporting you.

With all of this you can become everything you’ve ever dreamed of!

Expand Your Creativity. [volume 1]

Have you ever heard the term: “think outside the box”? Okay, do you know the origin of the phrase? Complete this puzzle:

Draw four straight, continuous lines that connect all 9 dots without lifting the pencil off the page (or in this case your finger off the screen):

Here is the solution: Click Here for Solution

If you couldn’t figure it out, you probably assumed you had to stay inside the box. If that’s the case, you know have the first major step in thinking outside the box. Eliminate your assumptions. The rules presented didn’t say you couldn’t draw outside the lines.

How do assumptions affect our ability to create success? Write down or type out your answer or answers, and think about what you came up with. This whole post can be applied to just about any area of your life, if you apply it properly.

This is a core element of the Blue Ocean Strategy. The Blue Ocean Strategy is geared towards business, and is spoken on and written into application towards business. But even if you’re simply drawing a design in a competition, or even just for fun, this will expand the creative processes your brain goes through. (refer to my past posts on the brain: Brain Train [part 1] and Brain Train [part 2])

Some DOs and DON’Ts are as follows:

Follow sequence in your plan – if you plot out steps, follow them step by step.

Focus on the big picture FIRST, focus on numbers SECOND. – If you have a time constraint, first take a look at what needs to be done, what your mission is, then think about the time, or the money involved, then tweak it.

Get into the field – see what other people are doing, and ask questions but listen when they answer.

Build enough time into the project – If you do have a time constraint, and you feel it’s a tight one, plan for it.

Approach field work as an anthropologist – Ask questions about the things they love and hate in the particular field you’re dealing with. If you’re drawing something for a contest, you may think of this as a no brainer, but ask what they look for, what “strikes their fancy” so to speak.

Do this work in a vacuum – Don’t do this work in an environment where the creativity is vacuumed out. If you’re drawing, like our examples are following, set yourself down in an inspiration environment.

Go too fast – Haste makes waste. Going in line with making a time plan, or some sort of schedule (preferably a time plan like a guideline rather than a strict schedule) so you aren’t rushing and lowering the quality of a specific part of the work.

Skip steps – If a baseball player skipped a step while running to home plate, the consequence to his action will be simple – he’ll trip and miss home plate. You’re going for a home run, run through all the bases without missing a step!

Too locked into current mindsets – Take time to think, without thinking about others in the field. If you’re drawing something, don’t think about other people’s drawings. Don’t think about any drawings. Just think about your own. Create a vision in your mind, visualize your completed drawing, and do it. However, you will eventually need to make some sort of comparison, but only to see what has been done, so you aren’t copying something else.

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This is all part of the Blue Ocean Strategy. I highly, highly recommend you research it, buy a book on it if you can find one, or watch some videos online. If the place or company you work for is having any seminars or speakers on Blue Ocean, GO TO IT. You will reap major benefits. It will not be like any seminar or lecture you have ever been to, and it will be fun – guaranteed!

The book “Blue Ocean Strategy” is published by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne and you can find it at any bookseller.

Another great post I stumbled across is here: http://techiteasy.org/2006/12/05/nintendos-wii-the-blue-ocean-strategy/

Please comment with feedback on your experiences or anything you know about Blue Ocean Strategy as well!

[ Source: The Change Agent Group ( changeagentgroup.com ) ]

God speed, and Best wishes.

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Brain Train. [part 2]

Briefly, I would just like to apologize for being absent last week. However, due to the events I promise you better information than what was available last week.

Also, I have two shout outs: One for all the Indy fans out there! I hope you all enjoy the movie today (or last night) as much as I’m sure I will this weekend. Secondly, a dedication to a very special someone who has loyally read my articles and grown to become one of the single most important things in my life. You know who you are. : ) Thank you for everything.

On to this week in That’s GN:

Have you ever done something, and later you realize you have no idea why? This is commonly dubbed as an “impulsive action” or usually something you do that you “didn’t think about”. How would you like to be in better control of, not only your impulses, but know how to tap into the impulses of others?

You have three brains, similar to what we discovered last week. What we’ll talk about this week is the survival part of our brain, that controls involuntary actions like breathing and our heart beat.

There are 6 stimuli, or, “attractions” that need to be understood about our “old brain”. It has been dubbed the old brain since every living creature requires it, and in fact has it, to sustain their life. The other 2 brains we as humans possess, many other mammals and creatures do not. Let’s divide these stimuli into points:

1: Self centered – To illustrate, please watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–Fwjtd_KxI

This is an example of the old brain lacking communication with your other brains, thus working on instinct rather than incorporating and reason into the decision. Thus the humor of the commercial, since anyone in their right mind would make a different decision.

2: Contrast – Our old brain easily picks out differences, or contrasts such as night and day, near and far, black and white.

3: Tangible – Things we can touch and feel whether it be physically or something we perceive to be real, despite how unrealistic it is to our minds (in other words by sight), it can appeal to us. Here’s another commercial that will give you an exaggerated idea of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67MuBNnJC60&NR=1

While we know it’s (most likely) impossible to get the strength to push a car over a cliff from an energy bar, the point is well made, that this energy bar will give you a very good dose of energy. Instead of telling the consumer it does, they make the idea tangible by appealing to your tangible senses.

4: Beginnings and Ends – Please read this passage out loud:

“Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.”

How long did it take you to read that? Surely not very long compared to if it was unscrambled. In addition to this point, YOU MAY NOTICE THAT IT’S PROBABLY EASIER TO READ NON-CAPITALIZED SENTENCES SINCE CAPITAL LETTERS ARE NON-FEATURELESS BLOCKS yet sentences with letters having more variety in ascending and descending fashion are easier to differentiate between letters.

5: Visual – Aristotle said the mind needs an image to think. This is fundamentally entirely true. You can first think of when we hear a loud crash, you might think someone is breaking into your house. You naturally visualize on impulse someone breaking into your house, so you think of that. When we see an image, a split second process occurs.

To explain, there are actually two reactions that occur, and each follow a separate path through your brain. Both paths start at the thalamus where they split. The faster reaction path goes to the amygdala which specializes in reacting and triggering what you would consider the emotional fear. The second path travels to the cortex first, where the information received is analyzed using information from the other parts of the brain, then to the amygdala. The first, faster path produces an immediate “instinct” like reaction 250 times faster than the second path, which determines whether or not the reaction is actually needed. In this example, the loud crash could be a harmless cat, instead of a robber as our immediate reaction might tell us.

Even though the reaction differences are so fast, 250 times is still much faster. Coupled with that reaction speed, once an emotion is turned on, it’s difficult for the cortex and your reasoning to turn it off, so fishing for this sense makes your “hook” difficult to unhook.

6: Emotion – Do you remember where you were and what you were doing on 9/11? For the more experienced audience, what about Apollo 13 or Kennedy’s assassination? I remember where I was and what my family said exactly during the morning of 9/11. Our old brain makes associations with emotion. Very few of us weren’t heavily impacted by 9/11, and most of us probably remember exactly what was happening when we actually heard the news, not necessarily when it actually happened.

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Whether your talking to someone, giving a sales pitch, or even picking someone up, keeping in mind these 6 stimuli will give your message more attraction to that instinctual part of your brain. Why is that such a big deal? When something appeals to your involuntary senses, it makes more sense to your voluntary senses to move forward or progress in that direction; it makes it more reasonable to come to an acceptance of it.

[ Sources: http://www.neuromarketing.com ; Entrepreneur.com – Is there a buy button? Inside the brain. ; Serendip.BrynMawr.edu – The Role of the Amygdala (paragraph 4) ]

God speed, and Best wishes.

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Save money on gas.

In this day and age gas is on just about everyone’s minds, especially with consistent rising prices. I personally have a few ways of saving on gas, but nothing concrete or enough to actually save me some decent money. Here are 13 ways to significantly reduce your gas costs, brought to you by the great folks at About.com:

1: Choice of car. Granted this is very limited for people, 4 door sedans are usually the best bet, and cheaper than the popular SUV pick.

2: Upkeep. Believe it or not, if your car is in bad condition it can increase the gas use by up to 25%.

3: Steel-belted radial tires. They can actually pay for themselves in short time and decrease gas consumption by 10%

4: Gas tier. From the horses mouth itself, having a good friend with several Mobil franchises, I know now that unless your manual specifically states you need a certain level of gas, for example premium or unleaded, get the cheapest one. They’re all the same, save for differences most cars won’t notice.

5: Tire pressure. Every pound of under inflation causes up to 6% more gas usage.

6: Don’t top of your gas tank when pumping gas. Stop when it tells you to.

7: Don’t idle your car to warm it up. Running the engine makes it warm up faster, I also can confirm this. It works wonders on the way to work! I just bundle up before opening the garage door. 🙂

8: Combine your errands. Take the time it takes to drive between destinations each time you come and go from your home, and plan your trips out to save the gas of traveling from home often. This is probably the one you’ll remember and use the most.

9: Accelerate gently. Putting the pedal to the medal will burn your tires, and a hole in your pocket.

10: Watch traffic jams carefully. Plan your stop-and-goes.

11: Coast to stopped traffic ahead of you and apply brakes gradually. Don’t speed up and slam on the brakes.

12: Speed limits are there for more than you think! Driving faster, i.e.: 70 MPH takes more gas than 50 MPH.

13: Maintain a steady speed on the highway. Avoid slowing down and speeding up to match other cars. Cruise control is your friend! Careful not to fall asleep though.

[ Source: http://financialplan.about.com/cs/cars/a/SaveGas.htm ]

God speed and Best wishes.

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For the Ladies.

I stumbled upon an article with a link to this site yesterday:

http://www.uPumpItUp.com/

Mandy Moore has always seemed to be quite the sweetheart. Her goal for this site “…is aimed at helping women balance their “wellness” by sharing such stories to challenge and inspire each other to better their lives.” Having just launched it I felt it was perfect for the weekly Life post. For you lovely, loyal ladies visiting us at The Underground, this post goes out to you. Keep making the world run as well as you do.

[ Source: Mandy Moore aims to inspire life balance online @ Reuters ]

God Speed, and Best wishes.

¥

Stapling a photocopy of your butt to your boss’ head is wrong.

While most of us have thought of it or something similar, it’s not always best course of action. Instead, today in That’s GN, learn methods of venting your boss blunders and ways of deciding whether or not you’re at the right job.

Do you find yourself picking up other people’s slack? Constant sexual harassment, poor work environment, witnessing crimes taking place, etc.? What about when the only place to go is the boss, supervisor or manager, and they deal back to you the same thing?

Well, take a few short minutes to looks over these great articles as well as the linked articles on things like violence in the workplace. You’ll find possibilities you would never think of, for example your boss being totally oblivious to his craziness. In the meantime, I leave you with some professional energy venting tools:

Five Minutes

Seven Ways

[ Sources : Dealing with a Bad Boss @ About.com ; Do you hate your boss? @ careers iafrica ]

God speed, and Best wishes.

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Top 10 of top 10s: Ways to de-stress, progress and relax.

The holiday season is here and the rush has started. Working overtime, speed shopping early, winter driving, among many other things has grasped the majority of America and it’s no secret the extra stress that comes this time of year. Of course, this list isn’t bound my season and is invaluable to everyone no matter the season. Here is compiled list of the top 10 ways from top 10 lists to having a more relaxed time day by day:

#10: Organize. By far this is the most difficult hurdle to jump. Compile your diet, job, hobbies and anything else you find necessary in your life. Make a list, set your priorities and stick to them. Create a flexible schedule just as if you were making a budget on your time.

#9: Remember the important things. It’s easy for any of us to become focused on the negative and other things we really don’t need to focus on. Get involved in helping people, there’s always someone who has it worse. One common viewpoint is “how can I help someone else if I can’t help myself?” when in fact, helping other people is helping yourself.

#8: Accept others. What someone says, the person they are and what they do are as important to them as who you are is important to you. Accept others for who they are, as well as accepting what someone does for you. There’s never any harm (except to pride) in accepting help or consolation from someone else, especially those who have been in a similar situation.

#7: Communicate. Keeping certain things bottled inside is not healthy. Some things need to come out, whether it be something as simple as wanting to share a new interest, a favored song or a deep issue you’re dealing with. Communication is the foundation of love. Tell your family and friend you love them, tell your employees and employer you appreciate what they’ve done to help you in your career and so forth. Just remember the classic phrase “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”. Also, don’t let things sit. Time is of essence!

#6: Take care of your physical health. Maintain a diet catered to your needs; avoid high sugar foods for breakfast, high calorie foods for lunch and high fats for dinner. Upkeep your hygiene. Wash your hands when appropriate, make your showers enjoyable or take baths when you have time. Even a 30 minute work out a day, jogging around your block, 15 minutes on a bike or a few sets of push ups can boost your daily energy more than you might think. It’s a good time to reflect, listen to music (refer to this guide) or turn on the TiVo and kill two birds with one stone. Don’t spend most of your time vegging out.

#5: Take care of your mental health. Have a good laugh regularly. Humor and comedy is everywhere, television, newspapers, internet; your daily body pains can actually be healed by a good dose of laughter. Write down your thoughts and read them; with retrospective you may be reminded of things from your recent past you had opinion or feeling on that you otherwise may have forgotten and perhaps may now view as unnecessary or more valuable than you did at the time. Most importantly, be good to yourself, fight your mind to be confident about who you are. If you’re struggling, restart steps 10-6 and continue to try your best.

#4: Have a place to go to and escape. Your faith, someone to be with or a special exclusive location you can call your own, are all ways to distract yourself from daily stresses. Be careful not to become dependent. Remember you’ll have to face a lot of that stress eventually.

#3: Keep your family and friends close. Being there for them will make them want to be there for you. Do your best to tolerate the little things, we all know family can be irritating. Accept your friends’ differences without falling into peer pressure. They’ll have respect for you and you’ll feel much better about standing or yourself and your values.

#2: Channel your stress. Stress can be your biggest untapped source of energy. Use your stress to push you to exercise a little longer, to motivate you to finish that project. Try to avoid making your stress the topic of conversation in a social setting, stress is contagious. It’s very important to tell someone about the things you’re dealing with, however, passing it on to others at an unfitting time keeps the focus in everyone’s mind including your own further preventing you and others to having a good time.

#1: Stay consistent. Stick to your guns, work at keeping what you’ve done for yourself steady and constant. Leave plenty of room for spontaneity but maintain some sort of routine and make sure to write it down somewhere! Go through this list again, ask the people around you what works for them. Experiment! Try different things if something isn’t working – Einstein described insanity as doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.

I hope you find this collective list to be useful to you in your endeavors. Feel more than free to leave a comment or e-mail me with whatever stresses you may be dealing with, whether it be a personal issue, social issue, even technology issues. You can reach me at theweeklygn@hushmail.com and expect a response in 24 hours!

Best wishes and God speed.

¥

[ Sources: WebMD top 10 ways to de-stress; About.com Effects on Stress; EzineArticles.com Stress and Your Immune System; Associate Content : College Essentials 101 Ten ways to relax this semester; EzineArticles.com Phew! 10 Quick Ways to Relax and De-Stress ]

Fully Alive.

This week in Life, I will give relay some steps that will help you get on track to being the leader in situations both in your everyday life and at work or school, when everyone else is slacking off. It will not only give you leadership skill, but it will contribute to getting yourself in motivation to do the things you’ve wanted to complete before you die; to fulfill some things you’ve always wanted to do in your life.

First, a simple list of 8 things you will have to realize and set in motion:

#1: Set expectations. The owner of Hewlett Packard would walk by everyone’s desk in the morning and ask each person “what’s new?” so eventually, everyone everyday would want to come into work saying “I have something good to tell the boss today.” which is why HP is leader in innovation when it comes to the personal pre-built computer.

#2: Focus on what’s important. Do you have kids? Family that’s very dear to you? Friends you would take a bullet for? Your employees or customers or any fellow workmates? There have been many interviews with top CEOs, executives, business owners, that all say they had worked for wealth and fame their whole lives, and when they reach it, they feel like something’s missing, that there’s an emptiness unfilled.

#3: Make room for new leaders. George Lucas did not have the means to make the first Star Wars movie, so he needed the help of Steven Spielberg. Even a coach of a football team has a team of advisers. Don’t try to be the lone wolf. Accept help and collaboration, brainstorming is a required daily exercise with top Japanese executives in a lot of electronics companies. I’ll let their international success speak for itself.

#4: Listen. “…the very essence of leadership has to do with meeting deep human needs on the part of followers. When these needs are met, the leader-follower connection is made and followers will walk the ninth mile for their leaders. When these needs are ignored…followers will do the minimum that is required or actually work against the goals of the leader.” – Mardy Grothe. I’ll let you search his name. Have you ever been in a painful part of life, or faced an extremely tough decision and someone just listened to you talk and you sort of just figured out what to do on your own? I have, and there’s no feeling better than knowing someone helped you help yourself, by not even talking. Granted, not everyone has or can experience this, so it’s vital those people practice it as well. Listening is the core component of any relationship. Casual, business, etc.

Now, name a great leader you’ve followed.

This we look for in a leader include:

One who is fully present – right here, right now.

Provides clarity of vision – “True North”

Someone who validates us and sees our greatness.

Now describe a WOW! experience in your life, a time when you felt fully alive.

#5: You’re always here. The time is always now. What would your life look like if you lived right here, right now and did it consistently? If you haven’t seen the movie “Miracle on Ice”, I highly recommend it. For conversation sake, take a scan over the wiki of the story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_on_Ice Back in the 70’s and 80’s times were tough for America politically especially. The USA prided in our sports teams. At the time, the Soviets had the absolute best hockey team. Well, the US invited them over here, and they beat 9 our of our 10 best NHL teams. The US had assembled a team of the best amateur and collegiate players for the 1980 Olympic Games, and in the locker room before the game, Coach Brooks said something very important: “We’ll play them 10 times. They may win 9. But not tonight. Tonight, we win.” The American team beat the Soviets 4-3 in one of the most memorable games to date.

#6: Make it your time. “Many men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” – Henry David Thoreau. Don’t die without singing your song.

So how come you’re not doing this stuff all the time? Hint: It’s all about dealing with reality.

#7: Deal with reality. The man where this material originates gave a good story about his experience on vacation. He noticed a middle aged woman laying on the beach in with one leg over the chair, just looking very lovely to him. He wanted to go over to her and tell her that, with no other intention, but he felt she might get a little weird about it, and after walking past her, 20 seconds later he said you know what, enough of this and walked back to her and said, “I just had to say, you look very lovely laying there the way you are” and she pushed her sunglasses up, looked at him and said “I can’t believe it. Here I am at 40 feeling old and unattractive, and you come along and tell me something like that. You must be my guardian angel.” In dealing with the reality that he really had no idea what was going to happen, he fought off his “I can’t” attitude and it turned out to be a very good thing.

What is your “I can’t” story that limits you? That is, a self-imposed limitation. Write it out.

“Horn Broken, Watch For Finger” is an actual bumper sticker people have. When someone cuts you off, you have a choice. To waste time getting mad about it, or making the best of the situation. Easier said than done, I know, believe me, I know. But it’s an example, is that part of your “I can’t” story? Part of fighting the “I can’t” attitude is self control. And fighting the urge to be mad at someone who’s totally in the wrong is an excellent exercise for doing so.

Accountability: A person choice to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results.

You can only take your people where you have already been. That means you have to go first. How can you be more accountable? Write it out.

If you always do

what you’ve always done,

you’ll always get

what you always got.

Einstein defined insanity as doing something over and over again in the same way, expecting the different results.

#8: If you want something different or better, YOU will have to change.

What is your One Thing?

or

What do you want to Expand?

To summarize:

#1: Set expectations

#2: Focus on what’s important | Provide clarity of vision – True North – Talk about your One Thing

#3: Make room for new leaders

#4: Listen

#5: You’re always here. The time is always now. | Be fully present – right here, right now

#6: Make it your time. | Validate – See greatness in others

#7: Deal with reality | Abandon “I can’t” | Take full responsibility

#8: If you want something different or better, YOU will have to change.

ACTION STEPS:

1. Write your Personal Vision Statement

2. Write your Personal Mission Statement

3. Be clear about your Higher Purpose

4. Be clear about your Values

5. Define success

6. Write your Stump Speech

(Where you’re going, Why you’re going there & Who’s going with you)

What will you do…

…so that you’ll create the success you want and live the Fully Alive life you were born to live?

#9: CHANGE THE WORLD! Yes I know, we said 8. But, come home to the you that you haven’t yet fully realized. Come home to who you really are.

Source: [Copyright 2005 – 2007 by Jack Altschuler. All rights reserved]

Deciding Your College Major

This is just something totally irrelevant to just about everything on this blog, but I figured, whatever. I received this email a couple weeks ago.

In my school, girls are on the endangered species list, and I’d rather look at a naked man’s hairy ass than look at their faces.
So, if you are thinking of a career in Engineering, turn around now. Well, unless you’re gay, or if you take pleasure in fighting over ugly chicks. On the other hand, if you are a hot girl, come to engineering (especially if you like gangbang).

Oh, btw, if you know any girls in grades 7-10, send them this way.

Does Your Resume Have to be 1 Page Long?

“Dear Annie: I’ve been a manager in the training and development field for almost 30 years and, without bragging, I can honestly say that I’ve tackled many complex challenges and produced exceptional results. Now I’m looking for a new job, since my company recently merged with a competitor and there isn’t really room for two people in my current position.

Here’s my problem: I’ve been dealing with a recruiter who insists I have to fit my resume onto one page. I’m trying, but find that I have to leave out a lot. What do you (and your readers) think about this one-page rule? -Stymied”

In, short, no it doesn’t. More and more recruiters these days are taking the extra minutes to fully go over your resume, to make sure you are indeed the right fit for their company. To read the rest of the article, go here.