Category Archives: life
Got a Problem? No Problem.
It’s what I call my lazy post. Instead of thinking really hard about what to say or waiting for my brain to involuntarily become active and wise during a lazy Labor Day weekend, why not spend time writing about something seen or something read? Something worthwhile, that is.
This is dedicated to all those times when you have encountered a problem, any problem. A time where you have examined it, pondered it, wondered what you should do, felt frustrated and finally defeated by it.
My recommendation is very simple, it’s for you to read a fairly recently published book called:
The Obstacle is the Way : The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumphs.
It presents a different way of looking at life and all the problems that you may face. In other words, it’s another way to look at the cards that you are dealt and how you go about making them work for instead of against you .
A few of the precepts of this book and I quote (some of my favorite bits that I highlighted as I read it), starting with the most profound one –
Impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
…individuals, like great companies, find a way to transform weakness into strength. It’s a rather amazing and even touching feat. They took what should have held them back—what in fact might be holding you back right this very second—and used it to move forward.
As it turns out, this is one thing all great men and women of history have in common. Like oxygen to a fire, obstacles became fuel for the blaze that was their ambition. Nothing could stop them, they were (and continue to be) impossible to discourage or contain. Every impediment only served to make the inferno within them burn with greater ferocity.
Turn it around. Find some benefit. Use it as fuel. It’s simple. Simple but, of course, not easy.
This book shares with you their collective wisdom in order to help you accomplish the very specific and increasingly urgent goal we all share: overcoming obstacles. Mental obstacles. Physical obstacles. Emotional obstacles. Perceived obstacles.
We face them every day and our society is collectively paralyzed by this. If all this book does is make facing and dismantling such stumbling blocks a little easier, it will be enough. But my aim is higher. I want to show you the way to turn every obstacle into an advantage.
…this will be a book of ruthless pragmatism and stories from history that illustrate the arts of relentless persistence and indefatigable ingenuity. It teaches you how to get unstuck, unf**ked, and unleashed.
To steal good fortune from misfortune.
It’s not just: How can I think this is not so bad? No, it is how to will yourself to see that this must be good—an opportunity to gain a new foothold, move forward, or go in a better direction. Not “be positive” but learn to be ceaselessly creative and opportunistic.
All great victories, be they in politics, business, art, or seduction, involved resolving vexing problems with a potent cocktail of creativity, focus, and daring. When you have a goal, obstacles are actually teaching you how to get where you want to go—carving you a path.
Our generation needs an approach for overcoming obstacles and thriving amid chaos more than ever. One that will help turn our problems on their heads, using them as canvases on which to paint master works.
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Enough said. Hopefully, just enough to get you to pick up the book. Understand that these are merely a few nuggets and that too from just the early chapters. The rest is there, just waiting to be discovered by you…
I encourage you to read it. The Obstacle Is The Way – I can see the skeptic in you saying, how is this possible?
I’m telling you, it completely altered the way I think about and approach problems and challenges! I devoured what it had to say and I’ve been putting these thoughts/ideas/beliefs to work ever since. Effectively. Meanwhile, the book is still there, waiting on my kindle to be re-read – if ever I face that daunting challenge willing me into submission and defeat where I forget the simple (not easy) teachings that I lapped up the first time I read it.
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“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
It’s Brain Time, Folks
I have a selfish reason for writing this post. I intend to send it to all my loved ones – friends, family, people I know. It saves me time having to speak about this topic repeatedly or not always articulating it the same way.
Bottom line, all it is really is a book recommendation.
But if even one out of a few people take my recommendation and read this book, I will be thrilled and they will not be sorry. Really, I shouldn’t need to promote it since it has been on virtually all the top bestseller lists in the US. But just in case you have not heard about it, I want to give it a shot here.
I just completed reading the book. While I was already kind of on the path this book talks about, I still learned quite a bit.
The notion and conventional wisdom that fat is bad for you but carbs are good has been a pervasive theme over most of my lifetime – hah, just ask the USDA and most major pharmaceutical and food companies!
About eight years ago, all in an attempt to lose weight, I started on a journey of Atkins (one of a few low-carb life style diets) and have not looked back since. People may look at me strangely but it’s a life style choice that I have never regretted. I’ve cheated a few times, most recently when I devoured those delicious baguettes in Paris…but those times have definitely been the exception.
Today, finally, mainstream media and slowly, the medical community is catching up with promoting what’s what – that carbs are like poison that invade your body, not leaving you in the same healthy place you were before, nor do they take you where you need to be.
It’s not just about losing weight. It’s about everything else that impacts your physical health. Or that’s what I thought.
As people age or their loved ones do, they worry about their health more than anything else, including wealth. Increasingly, I find people worrying not just about their physical health but about their mental health – about potential health scares such as dementia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s which are more alarming and chilling than most anything else. Who knows what may strike? And when?
Little did I know how badly carbs impact the brain too! Until I read this book.
Sure, it’s your choice on whether to read it. But I simply cannot over-emphasize how important the contents of this book are to help you understand and protect your brain’s health.
Read it to learn some of these counter-intuitive facts each of which is backed by compelling research and references. [All quoted text below is taken directly from the book and is copyrighted material; it is used here to showcase the contents and motivate people to read the book]:
- “…the fate of your brain is not in your genes. It’s not inevitable. And if you’re someone who suffers from another type of brain disorder, such as chronic headaches, depression, epilepsy or extreme moodiness, the culprit may not be encoded in your DNA. It’s in the food you eat“.
- “The origin of brain disease is in many cases dietary”.
- “To a large extent numerous neurological afflictions often reflect the mistake of consuming too many carbs and too few healthy fats“.
- “The studies describing Alzheimer’s as a third type of diabetes began to emerge in 2005, but the link between poor diet and Alzheimer’s has only recently been brought to light…”
- “These studies are both convincingly horrifying and empowering at the same time. To think we can prevent Alzheimer’s just be changing the food we eat is, well, astonishing”.
- “I’m going to show you how to control your genetic destiny…”
- “This will require that you free yourself from a few myths so many people continue to cling to. The two biggest ones: (1) a low- fat, high-carb diet is good, and (2) cholesterol is bad”.
- “…you’ll soon understand why cholesterol is one of the most important players in maintaining brain health and function. Study after study shows that high cholesterol reduces your risk for brain disease and increases longevity“.
- “By the same token, high levels of dietary fat (the good kind, no trans fats here) have proven to be key to health and peak brain function.”
- “…we tend to get mentally wedded to ideas that are no longer valid“.
- “I watch people devour gluten-laden carbohydrates, it’s like watching then pour themselves a cocktail of gasoline. Gluten is our generation’s tobacco“.
- “…look at how carbs in general raise risk factors for neurological disorders, often at the expense of our brain’s real lover: fat. When we consume too many carbs, we eat less fat – the very ingredient our brain demands for health“.
- “No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat“.
- “Unfortunately, most of us equate the idea of eating fat to being fat, when in reality, obesity – and its metabolic consequences- has almost nothing to do with dietary fat consumption and everything to do with our addiction to carbs“.
- “The same is true about cholesterol: Eating high-cholesterol foods has no impact on our actual cholesterol levels, and the alleged correlation between higher cholesterol and higher cardiac risk is an absolute fallacy“.
- “Respect your genome. Fat-not carbohydrate- is the preferred fuel of human metabolism and has been for all of human evolution”.
- “…the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease published research from the Mayo Clinic revealing that older people who fill their plates with carbohydrates have nearly four times the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment (MCI), generally considered the precursor to Alzheimer’s“.
- “…those whose diets were highest in healthy fats were 42 percent less likely to experience cognitive impairment;”
- “…researchers in Netherlands found that the Alzheimer’s patients had significantly reduced amounts of fats, notably cholesterol and free fatty acids, in their cerebrospinal fluid than did the controls”.
- “High cholesterol is associated with better memory function”.
- “…showed that people with the lowest LDL cholesterol (the so-called bad cholesterol) were at increased risk for Parkinson’s disease by approximately 350 percent!”
and finally, my last quote from the book (although I have so many more highlights throughout this book!) –
- “The diet heart hypothesis that suggests that a high intake of fat or cholesterol causes heart disease has been repeatedly shown to be wrong, and yet, for complicated reasons of pride, profit, and prejudice, the hypothesis continues to be exploited by scientists, fund-raising enterprise, food companies, and even governmental agencies. The public is being deceived by the greatest health scam of the century“.
Healthy? Think again.
By the way, I am in no way affiliated with the author, the publisher or anyone having anything to do with this book. After reading the book, I have merely become one more (very grateful) fan.
Do me a favor. No, actually do yourself and your loved ones a favor – go get this book and read it! Unless you read this book in its entirely, this is just a list of claims that you read somewhere on a blog and that you will quickly forget. You need to make the investment of time to read it all – not just the hypotheses but the strong back-up to each that is provided. Only then will you get closer to believing.
More than anyone, I wish that current and aspiring medical professionals who touch so many lives every day would read it. Even if its just to have a healthy debate about the conclusions.
This is one of those rare books that has been an absolute game changer for me, and I guarantee the same for any one else who reads it.
Health, especially that of your most important organ is too pivotal to ignore. This has taught me one other thing – that you would be wise to question conventional “wisdom”. All the time.
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The Yin and Yang of Life Anywhere 