Change Your Life | Rock the World

Not too long ago I was reading an article by a fitness instructor named Mike Geary about energy drinks and how they work and what’s in them and if they’re really good for you or not, and you probably won’ be surprised to find out that most of them are utter garbage and in fact really bad for you, even fattening and therefore have the opposite effect that they’re supposed to have.

Here’s a link to that article: http://www.truthaboutabs.com/energy-drink-mind-body-connection.html

Like I said, it wasn’t really a surprise to read that, but at the same time, it did get me to thinking about how easily we can be convinced of something’s validity just by hearing that it’s so, and without searching for any facts on our own.

You often hear it said that people believe what they want to believe, and I agree with that idea, but it still throws me off a bit when I see it on such a large scale.  Read more...

Here in the United States, we celebrate Independence Day every year on the 4th of July, which just passed, and a lot of people here got a 3-day holiday weekend out of it this year, which was super swell.

I decided ahead of time that I was going to make the most of my weekend, come hell or high water. So I did. My wife and I attended a few different get togethers and events with our friends and family over the course of 3 1/2 days or so. And frankly, we had the best time.

Now I want to point out that we didn’t do anything that would necessarily be considered spectacular, like skydiving or riding in the space shuttle. But we don’t always need to ride the space shuttle to have a good time.

Because we have excellent friends. The best, frankly. And we can have a ton of fun just doing something as simple as spending a few hours with them at a barbecue or a restaurant or a bar, and eating and drinking and chatting.  Read more...

For the most part, people are douche bags. For the most part, they’d rather rant and complain than try learning anything new or discovering facts about whatever they’re ranting about. For the most part, they just want to bitch about things being the way they are and then at the same time ridicule anything that’s different.

What they don’t realize, and will most likely never realize, is how scared they are. Yup, that’s right, scared. Like whiny, cry baby little girls who didn’t get enough love from mommy today.

There, I said it.

What are they scared of? Well frankly, anything that doesn’t fit into their idea of how things should be.

So why should you care? Well, because what they do and how they think affects you.

We can’t really help but have the people around us influence us, at least to some degree. It’s just sort of the nature of things. So it’ll often happen that when we’re faced with someone, or more likely many people, who don’t want us to be different than what they’re used to, a lot of us will just give up and do as they say, rather than go against the group.  Read more...

I might be stating the obvious here, but from what I’ve seen, I’d say that there’s a direct correlation between how responsible and capable someone is and how giving they are towards others.

I sort of see it as a long line, kind of like a string. On one end are the people who take care of their own shit, are helpful and supportive towards the people they care about, and generally have a very positive attitude. On the other end are the people who are lazy, selfish and negative. And then, of course, there are the varying degrees in between.

What the people at the negative end don’t seem to understand is that when they selfishly hoard more stuff for themselves, they actually end up with less than they would have if they were more willing to give it away.

Let me explain. First of all, I’m not talking about some some vague theory about the universe bringing you what you want when you’re creating good energy and being in tune with the world, or something like that. I don’t know anything about that stuff.  Read more...

A few months back, I was watching an episode of The Daily Show, as I often do, and good ol’ Jon Stewart had a guest on by the name of Atul Gawande, who was there to plug his book The Checklist Manifesto.

I was really intrigued by their conversation. The Checklist Manifesto is essentially about getting things done efficiently. Atul Gawande is a surgeon, and he found that going through a specific checklist to make sure that every last detail has been taken care of before starting any given surgery works infinitely better than just trying to remember everything, and prevents a ton of possible complications. He has exact numbers for comparison. You should check it out.

Having a written checklist kept a lot of the mundane tasks from being forgotten, or just ignored. Because too often, something would go wrong, and that mundane task that wasn’t completed and prepared beforehand, just caused a huge problem. And that’s not good in a serious situation, like, I don’t know, performing surgery.

So, OK, checklists are good, and they make people more efficient and better prepared. I’m not telling you anything new. What surprised me was when I found out how many people, particularly in the medical field that Gawande describes, are resistant to using them.  Read more...