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...

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...

Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.

 
When I was a kid, my mother would tell me sometimes that I had a defeatist attitude. That’s the word she used, “defeatist”.

She would tell me that in response to my regular comments about how I was no good at something or that I couldn’t do something, before I had even tried. Yes, I was one of those kids.

So she’d say something like, “What’s with this defeatist attitude? You haven’t even tried.” That’s not an exact quote.

And so there were a lot of things that I never did because I already knew that I would be no good at them. And at the same time, I’d sabotage the things I did try because I went in knowing I would fail.

I’m not exactly sure how I ever developed that attitude, or how I eventually got rid of it, but I do know that it can be an overwhelming and devastating personality trait.

I’ve seen the same thing more recently from some of my fellow kung fu students. Every 3 or 4 months we have advancement tests. Pass the test, move up to the next level. Naturally, it takes time and effort to prepare for the test, and it isn’t particularly easy.

I know I’ve told you this before, but sometimes it bears repeating: you’re not perfect.

You make mistakes just like the rest of us, and you have certain parts of your personality that are, shall we say, unfavorable, just like the rest of us. That’s just human nature, my friend.

And that’s OK. It’s normal. It’s natural. It’s understandable. So you might as well own up to your imperfections, because without a firm knowledge of what they are, how can you ever take any steps to improve on them?

And therein lies the crux of this article. Kapow!

We all have faults. We all have things about ourselves that we want to improve, but some of us aren’t really willing to look them straight in the eye for fear of what we might see. Wow, that almost sounds poetic.

What happens too much of the time is that we see ourselves in direct competition with everyone else, and we don’t want to admit that the other person is just simply better than we are at whatever it is. Our egos get in the way, and prevent us from being honest with ourselves.  Read more...