Newsletter: Spring 2011

This is a quarterly email newsletter with ideas, cool links, book

recommendations and a personal update.

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Read time: 2 minutes

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IDEAS

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1.  Are you an Apple or PC person?  And what does it mean if you're

both?

I wonder what Leonardo da Vinci would have chosen. It's the

ultimate modern debate between design and function. What I love

most about this rivalry though is the awareness it builds about how

aesthetic and usability blend together.

I particularly like Rick Landesberg's passionate observation of how

creative imagery affects us daily: "when the functional rises above

itself, when the everyday becomes celebratory, we become more

human." Examples abound:

Here's a "map" of San Fransisco depicting local and tourist

hotspots just from pictures taken by each group.

Here's "map" of NYC laying out racial and ethnic group census data

in an easily comparable fashion.

Here's a "diploma" using a portrait of an anatomical heart made up

entirely of words from a dissertation.

2.  What's the cure for procrastination?

First, are you sure you want to cure it, considering

procrastination may be telling you that something really isn't

worth doing? We deal with task overload daily and often blame

ourselves for not doing enough. When something stays on my to-do

list for weeks though, I wonder if I'm truly too busy or if I'm

subconsciously avoiding it because it doesn't matter to me.

Curing it is a mix of setting deadlines and tackling tasks

piecemeal. "Later", an engrossing New Yorker article, comments,

"Since open-ended tasks with distant deadlines are much easier to

postpone than focussed, short-term projects, dividing projects into

smaller, more defined sections helps."

The Pomodoro technique is one of my favorites. If "work expands to

the time allotted", this is how to get work done fast!

Compact Calendar is another tool that makes project planning easier

by offering a visual of continuity across consecutive days instead

of months.

Here are 3 simple solutions offered by Marty Nemko for dealing with

the procrastination problem.

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BOOKS

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1. Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

In search of a book that would help me articulate my thoughts and

ideas better in conversation and on paper, I found Made to Stick.

The authors are natural storytellers that lead by example and keep

you turning pages. It's a book you'll come back to time and again.

It's sticky, I guess.

2. The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman

Written by my friend, Josh, this tome of business knowledge is

hefty in the topics it covers and yet somehow it's encapsulated in

a small reference-like volume that reads like a novel. I finished

it in 3 hours. Skip b-school and learn it here. It's exactly why he

wrote it.

3. I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj

I would put this in the category of philosophy that you can play

with, feel, work through. The entire book is a transcription of

various Q&A sessions with people who come to debate life issues

with Maharaj. Easy to read little bits at a time, it's experientially 

rewarding because you can easily practice the message.

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CONNECT

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LinkedIn

Twitter 

Blog

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PERSONAL UPDATE

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I recently took a trip to Istanbul that was a mix of catching up on

sleep and discovering a secular Islamic culture. Ever since Ataturk

made Turkey into a secular state in 1923, there have been major

debates about the ban of headscarves and the consumption of alcohol.

I saw a provocative video fixture at the Istanbul Modern Art

Museum, discussing the right of women to wear headscarves if they

wanted. Also, alcohol was taxed so heavily that sometimes a glass

of wine cost twice as much as the entree! 

The interplay between the two sides in daily life was remarkable to

see. I highly recommend it for history buffs.

I'd love to hear about what's going in your life, so drop me an

email when you get a chance.

All the best,

Akshay
(Click here for previous newsletters)

Knowing when to change

"When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “no” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important thing I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

-Steve Jobs

From: The Art of Non-Conformity » Opening Night

Be a pupil of myself

yourbeautifulmind:

siddhartha

I shall no longer be instructed by the Yoga Veda or the Aharva Veda, or the ascetics, or any other doctrine whatsoever. I shall learn from myself, be a pupil of myself; I shall get to know myself, the mystery of Siddhartha.” He looked around as if he were seeing the world for the first time. - Hermann Hesse in Siddartha

Make It Mean Something

They might tell the House [of Representatives] that there's a 1.5 percent failure rate, but most Americans don't understand what that means. I mean, 1.5, what is that? Is that a lot? You have to relate it to something that means something to somebody. Otherwise, people have the perception that space flight is safe, and when there's an accident, they're shocked. It's like, "We gotta stop flying." If we want to add additional safeguards because now we're feeling emotional about it, okay, we can do that. But if we're still meeting our design specs for loss, why would we stop flying?

From: The Wrong Stuff : Risky Business: James Bagian—NASA astronaut turned patient safety expert—on Being Wrong

Google: Creepy & Fantastic

I typed in "japan earthquake" in Google to find out more details about the location and the magnitudes of the recent earthquakes. Google had organized US Geological Survey data in way that told me exactly what I was looking for. As if the search engine were reading my mind.
It's what makes Google so creepy and fantastic.

All of my good ideas are battles

via s3.amazonaws.com

Who profits off you being unhealthy v. healthy?

Jay Parkinson, MD 16 hours ago in reply to fran

• Coca-Cola makes a direct profit off you behaving unhealthily. What are the companies that make a direct profit off your everyday behaviors that optimize health?Like Reply

Jon Christianson 13 hours ago in reply to Jay Parkinson, MD

• This is a good question - much of the US economy clearly benefits from promoting unhealthy behavior (e.g, mainstream food industry, energy, health care, retail, etc.).
  
  I suspect most facets of tourism make a direct profit off of behaviors that optimize health.

Third Space

Inspired by Ray Oldenburg’s "Third Space" concept which states that society needs a place away from home (First Space) and work (Second Space). Third Spaces are "Anchors of Community Life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction." Societies across the world have third spaces that manifest themselves as coffee houses, pubs, plazas, etc. The Summit is the ultimate Third Space.

The Summit SF

I've loved the idea of a "third space" since I learned of it only a year ago. I can't wait to go here.

There's no space for the extra space

ideasareawesome:

There’s no space for the extra space. By Farhad Manjoo on Slate.

I saw this piece earlier in the day and loved it. We don't need two spaces after the period. It's just a convention that can be changed. Although, as I typed this I found myself double-tapping the space bar after periods and corrected it after the fact. Ugh.

Also, why do people put their hats on AFTER they get outside? You lose all that heat off the top of your head and then trap cold air inside. Put it on before you get out the door and you won't even feel the transition into cold weather.

via healthpopuli.com

What a revealing graphic. Practice Fusion continues to impress.

The joy of not being sold anything

I've been thinking a lot lately about useful ads, good ads, value-filled ads that inform us and motivate us. Ads about community events, blood donation, clean sidewalks, and healthy living. Ads that communicate the variety in our culture, the foods, the music, the arts, the people and their ways of thinking.

Ads that don't have to sell.

Why are we willing to believe things that are false?

Why, despite all the evidence to the contrary, do so many people remain adamant in their belief that vaccines are responsible for harming hundreds of thousands of otherwise healthy children? Why was the media so inclined to air their views? Why were so many others so readily convinced? Why, in other words, are we willing to believe things that are, according to all available evidence, false?

What Drives Irrational Rhetoric? The Case of Childhood Vaccinations - The Atlantic(via jayparkinsonmd)

Newsletter: Winter 2011

This is a quarterly email newsletter with ideas, cool links, book

recommendations and a personal update. 

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Read time: 2 1/2 minutes

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IDEAS

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1. Are you saying what you mean or is everyone listening to what they want to hear?

What's in our heads doesn't always translate verbally. Being bilingual,

I often wish I could use Hindi words to communicate what I'm trying

to say. Hindi has the ability to invoke various emotions with a single word.

I imagine Native American languages work similarly, exhibiting an emotive

quality that requires several English sentences to explain. English is far more

analytical, which is obviously its strongest quality. It reduces the strong cultural

and historical effects subject to shift meaning and clearly connotes a message.

Interestingly though, single words in English can have a different meaning

based on context. We may not think about word choice, but it has an impact

on how well we communicate with others. George Bernard Shaw said, "The

single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

At work and with friends, I notice how much time and energy is spent on

correcting misunderstandings. Viewing language as variable and subjective

has made me much more attentive to whether I'm truly understanding what's

being said and whether I'm truly communicating what I want to say.

NYTimes Language Article

Persuasive Storytelling

Talking to Patients with Technology

2. What will the internet look like in 10 years?

Every generation feels removed from the previous one and the

internet has widened the gap even more in the last 10 years. The

rate of growth, especially in social media, seems to have surpassed

the rate of adoption, with a few obvious exceptions; Facebook,

Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

With no barrier to entry and an ubiquitous, open-source platform,

one would think the internet would allow very few people or companies

to rise to the top. The internet though is an enormous, real-time

sociological experiment that makes us either participants or observers.

Clay Shirky explains it brilliantly:

"In systems where many people are free to choose between many

options, a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate

amount of traffic (or attention, or income), even if no members of

the system actively work towards such an outcome. This has nothing

to do with moral weakness, selling out, or any other psychological

explanation. The very act of choosing, spread widely enough and

freely enough, creates a power law distribution."

Points of Control

Newsmap

Future Internet Scenarios

3. Is the economy shaping the job market or is it the other way around?

It's hard not to think about the job market right now. Unemployment

at 9% not only affects recent graduates, but also increases job lock

among current employees, shifts where we live, increases housing

prices, and diminishes productivity through long-term underemployment.

The soft side of unemployment is different though. While morale is

still low, people are finding creative ways to find work and companies

are responding with an increase in project-oriented work.

Nobel Prize in Economics

Part-time Health Insurance

Susan hires a boss

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BOOKS

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1. Daemon by Daniel Suarez

Fast-paced from the beginning, Daemon represents a whole new

thriller genre mixing technology and crime while staying out of the

sci-fi realm. Great summer/airplane/couch read.

2. F**k It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way by John C. Parkin

Existential philosophy boiled down to two words that convey a

flippant yet energized attitude. The ability to fearlessly achieve

your goals is a strong theme in this book. A little bit of a

throwback to the 70's new-age, hippie motif (Parkin runs a retreat

called The Hill That Breathes), it's still a hilarious must-read.

3. White Noise by Dan Delillo

Strange and captivating, White Noise was written in 1985 and yet

eerily speaks of societal problems we face today, especially

media-induced fear. The writing is quirky, funny, and has a

lackadaisical style that makes tough vocabulary somehow easy to

understand. I felt like a better writer having read it.

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CONNECT

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LinkedIn

Twitter

Blog

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PERSONAL UPDATE

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Hi from NYC! My last year has been a thorough exploration of

restaurants and neighborhoods in NYC. I've expanded my horizons

beyond Manhattan into Brooklyn and I'm always amazed how the city

organically changes from street to street. If you're around, give

me a buzz and we can get together for coffee or dinner.

Cheers,

Akshay

Working Hurts Less

jingc:

On procrastination and how to think about the substitute activities that we do instead of dong work:

When you procrastinate, you’re probably not procrastinating because of the pain of working, because on a moment-to-moment basis, being in the middle of doing the work is usually less painful than being in the middle of procrastinating.

That is pretty useful to remember. And another tidbit:

I’m starting to think that […] you do not regain mental energy from [procrastination. Success and happinesscause you to regain willpower; what you need to heal your mind from any damage sustained by working is not inactivity, but reliably solvable problems which reliably deliver experienced jolts of positive reinforcement.

I think this is a pretty useful insight - when compelled to procrastinate, what you choose to do can greatly affect whether you manage to get actual work done later.

In October of last year, there was a great piece in the New Yorker about procrastination that convinced me to change my working habits immediately.

I took on exactly this philosophy that procrastination is a personal signal of unhappiness. Neal Stephenson once wrote, "Boredom is a mask that frustration wears". The usual precursor to procrastination was boredom, which told me two things; I was frustrated about something that was making me unhappy, which in turn was making me avoid what I was frustrated about.

I began looking for segues that would lead me back to productivity. If I had to read a long policy paper and I was procrastinating, I would read a novel instead, which would gear the reading side of my brain and get the right word-scanning juices flowing to ease into governmental policy.

If I had to analyze a report on work RVU productivity variations for five specialty practices, I would take a break from the computer, walk, and observe in detail my surroundings, exercising my analytical brain to see things I normally wouldn't see. When I got back to the task at hand, it'd be a natural transition to sit in front of the computer for a few hours comparing numbers.

As noted above, having self-awareness about how you feel when you're in the middle of something produces direct results in your behavior. I'd rather be in the middle of a good book or walk than surfing the web. Scheduled surf time is far more rewarding.

Bill Maher - Anti-Pharma Rant

“New rule, if you believe you need to take all the pills the pharmaceutical industry says you do, than you are already on drugs …” - Bill Maher

The Great College-Degree Scam

Here it is: approximately 60 percent of the increase in the number of college graduates from 1992 to 2008 worked in jobs that the BLS considers relatively low skilled—occupations where many participants have only high school diplomas and often even less.

From: The Great College-Degree Scam - Innovations - The Chronicle of Higher Education

How to land a job

"Here's how career changers are most likely to land a job: Make a list of 100 people who know you. They don't even have to love you. Let's take the worst case: a boss who fired you. He might be willing to give you a lead on a better-suited job. And that's the worst case. Chances are that if your list includes your relatives, your parent's and wife's relatives, your friends, your wife's and parents' friends, your past and present coworkers, bosses, customers, and vendors, your haircutter, accountant, lawyer, doctor, church members, co-volunteers, etc., you'll likely get leads to people willing to consider you for a project manager job outside of defense or refer you to someone who might. And you might hear about career areas you never would have thought of in a million years. Last week, I got a call from a client who got a job at a toy company monitoring plush stuffed-animal factories in China."

From: Marty Nemko: Lessons from a Career Counseling Session

Japanese t-shirt folding technique

We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already

“If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”

From: J.K. Rowling on Failure And Imagination

Hans Rosling: Visual Statistics

ideasareawesome:

The health & wealth of 200 countries over 200 years, in less than 5 minutes. Wait for the post-colonial explosion.

Via WaPo’s Ezra Klein.

Hans Rosling is amazing. If you like this, don't miss his TED talks.

livingasana:

my thoughts exactly. and by the way….shit happens.

Doubts can find no foothold

Doubts can find no foothold in our minds as we seldom concern ourselves with fleeting visions of failure.

Know what you eat

“Yet Americans watch 35 hours of television a week, according to a Nielsen survey. (Increasing amounts of that time are spent watching other people cook). And although there certainly are urban and rural pockets where people have little access to fresh food, about 90 percent of American households own cars, and anyone who can drive to McDonald’s can drive to a supermarket. But perhaps most important, a cooking repertoire of three basic recipes can get anyone into the kitchen and beyond the realm of takeout food, microwaved popcorn and bologna sandwiches in a few days.”

Cut-and-dry advice from Mark Bittman that seems sensible enough. The staple stir-fry, salad and rice/lentil combo are basically how I got started cooking again. In NYC, fighting the urge to eat out is difficult. It’s too easy to get great restaurant food and on top of that, grocery trips seem outrageously expensive and you wonder about the cost/benefit.

Bottomline: You know what you put in your food. Salt, oil, fat, and a clean kitchen is up for grabs at a restaurant. The peace of mind you get cooking at home is worth it.

Steve Pavlina On Leaving Facebook

"So I’ve crossed the threshold where Facebook’s value isn’t worth the hassle to use it. I concluded that the best choice was to simply drop the service altogether and invest my time elsewhere....

...From a subjective perspective, I’m not particularly disappointed. I’ve been wanting to spend less time online and more time connecting with people in person, so these problems may simply be part of the way that desire manifested."

-Steve Pavlina on Leaving Facebook

Steve's eloquent reasoning for leaving Facebook echoes my sentiments exactly. It's a clunky time-suck that doesn't add to the strong friendships I already have and creates an awkward resentment towards prior friends who I believe should have called when they got married, had a baby, moved and so on.

Snowpocalypse 2010

I'm sad to say I missed Snowpocalypse 2009 completely. But I still got some good shots. The city was a mess on Thursday so I can only imagine what Monday was like. That last shot truly is a burnt-out car, most likely set on fire from skidding its wheels too much.

Heat Source Matters

Having successfully weened myself off the microwave over the last 7 months, I'm now sensitive to the taste of heat when I do use the microwave. Microwave hot is sharp and sudden, as opposed to say stove hot, which has an even distribution and stays warm for much longer. Sensing the different quality of heat is most apparent in liquids, especially tea. If not for any other health benefits, gaining the ability to note the difference was worth it.

Similarly, another experiment I've been running in the winter is heating myself through exercise instead of turning up the thermostat. Coming in from the cold, blistery weather, my natural instinct used to be to turn on the external heater or crank up the dial on the thermostat. Over the next half hour, I warmed up, but the room felt like a sauna. You could smell the nutty odor of the heat. The rest of the time became a battle trying to find a balance between the ups and downs of fake heat.

Instead, I began doing 10 minutes of jumping jacks, high knees, butt kicks, and pushups. My muscles needed to move and no external heat source was going to make them truly heat up the way exercise did. At the end, I felt great thanks to the endorphins, and the feeling of warmth lasted for hours. If I did need to use the heater, I was more attuned to when I should turn it off.

Discovering alternatives to the usual wasn't planned. It truly just happened as a result of following my instincts or trying something new. Planning helps tremendously with a clear, task-based objective. I'm amazed though at the power of long-term experimentation and the unexpected benefits it can offer.

Is the process fun?

A serious approach to an endeavor doesn’t indicate a successful outcome, whereas, a lighthearted approach does, regardless of outcome, guarantee a positive process.

I jotted that down during an intense meeting about nothing. The air was really heavy and everyone was into making their point. Outside of that, there was no real value being produced.

Sitting there, I thought, “what if we paused and acknowledged that we obviously don’t care about a successful outcome”? Would everyone still be serious or would they lighten up a bit?

Because if we all decided to have fun in the making, even if we didn’t get anything done, guess what? We still had fun!

The Golden Rule

What's the Golden Rule and how does it apply to real life? That's how I started down this road and ended up at the Golden Ratio.

Turns out the Rule is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." A classic quote and philosophy found in almost every religion.

The Ratio, described in the picture above, appears geometrically in nature, music, architecture, art, and places you don't expect, like your face. It throws you for a curve just thinking about it, but look at any straight edge in front of you (a coffee table perhaps?) and start breaking it down with your hands the way the picture describes.

The idea has been around for centuries! Fascinating stuff.

Why Can't We Walk Straight?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2010/11/03/131050832/a-mystery-why-can-t-we-walk-straight

Click on the link for a fun video about why we turn in circles when blindfolded and told to walk straight. We still don't know!

They didn't mention testing blind people though, which is curious. The blind are known to strengthen their other senses, so they'd probably do better.

If we can see, so be it. If we can't, we train our other senses. So it's a conundrum why we'd study this at all. Still, the style of the video is worth watching.

What to do when you're feeling stuck

Try to let go of your resistance because whenever there is something we can’t see ourselves, it’s because we don’t want to see it. Try to listen with an open mind, and remember that you are always the final judge of what you need. Anything offered to us from an outside source will need to be processed within before its wisdom can take hold.

In all this, be kind to yourself and remember that we all get stuck sometimes. Think of it as a part of your process, a necessary step on your journey, rather than as a problem that shouldn’t be happening. This can help to keep your frustration at bay and give you the space you need to take a deep breath and really figure out what’s going on.

From: http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2010/26110.html

Flash Mob

Gut-wrenching but too astonishing to tear your eyes away.

I’m constantly amazed at what people enjoy and what they can do when they work together. I’ve been on top and been the base of several two man towers before when doing bhangra. Human instinct kicks in and your legs start shaking, not because of the weight, but because of the fear. It’s exhilarating working with a group of people to do a stunt like that.

What a thrill to see group work at this scale.

Casteller from Mike Randolph on Vimeo.

The Bucket List Lie

But, then make a List Of One.

A single, meaningful action you’re going to take before the end of the day to move you one step closer to a single, deeply meaningful quest.

From: http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/the-bucket-list-lie/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JonathanFields+%28Jonathan+Fields+%7C+Awake+At+The+Wheel%29

The idea of focusing on just one thing is popular for

• Presentations - one word/image/sentence/idea per page (think Steve Jobs, Garr Reynolds)
• Agendas - discuss one topic that everyone can get their head around (think GTD)
• Companies - one consistent theme that every employee echoes (think customer service, bottomline, efficiency, quality, etc.)

In all the above, concentrating on one has been shown to be a measure of progress, of eventual success.

Over the years, my daily to-do list has whittled down from 10 to 5 to 3 to just 1 thing. It’s easy to think of, easy to track, easy to accomplish and functions as a self-fulfilling reward.

Great example: working out. You go in knowing you’re going to do X exercise for a certain amount of time. Once you’ve achieved it, you’re done. It’s incredibly satisfying and motivating. You want to do it again because you know you can.

Jonathan Fields’ idea of a List of One works off the same mechanism. Start with one and take it from there. Great advice.

Social Entrepreneurship

It's great to see companies like AWeber helping to keep the internet community fun and social. I assume companies at their outset are more local and friendly, and simply due to size eventually become unreachable.

Few, like Zappos, Bungie and 37signals though have kept up their customer-centric attitude throughout.

Regardless of marketing strategy, I can't help but like this Thanks-giving attitude. October till New Years is such a beautiful time of the year.

Breathing thought into existence

When we hold a thought in our mind without being distracted, we have achieved pure thought. When we have a positive emotional response to that thought, we enable it to dance and move and breathe itself into existence.

From: http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2010/26028.html

Just because...

Just because that’s how it’s always been done doesn’t mean that’s how it should be done.

From: http://blog.jayparkinsonmd.com/post/1526239350/dont-drive-when-youre-tired-especially-in-new#disqus_thread

A Final Cocoon - Dying at Home - NYTimes.com

“He said: ‘It’s O.K., everybody has to die. I’m here with you, let’s just focus on the now,’ ” she recalled. “He also said one of the things he had to do was finish this house, to put the windows in. We talked about going to Hawaii. He said, ‘Let’s go to Hawaii and be with God.’ In Bernd’s eye, God was beauty, God was nature, God was the flowers, the mountains, the moon and the stars, so he wanted to be outside all the time. He was not one who was going to lie in bed and die, that’s for sure.”

Fascinating and articulate read. We carry a sense of home imprinted since childhood with us from apartment to studio to house, wherever we go.

How we externalize it through design is up to us, our unique touch on an old recipe that will continue to be passed on.

Home doesn't have to be filled with just material reminders. The FEEL of a place, the essence that only we can know, is much more important. Nature, buildings, colors, woodwork, noise levels, the general hum we hear when we close our eyes. These are the elements that matter.

We reproduce in more ways than through the genes perpetuating our lineage. A sense of self carries on simply because of our presence.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/garden/11dying.html?pagewanted=3&_r=2

Calvin & Hobbes on Life

via www.existentialbuddhist.com

Freedom from desire...

Freedom from desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.

-Krishnamurti (via blogosophia)

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.

Having realized that we can depend on no outside authority … there is the immensely greater difficulty of rejecting our own inward authority, the authority of our own particular little experiences and accumulated opinions, knowledge, ideas and ideals.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krishnamurti

I was completely unaware that such a thorough biography of Krishnamurti was available on Wikipedia.

It’s absorbing.

Having read most of his works, I’m curious about the process that caused him to estrange himself from the people who found him. Maharshi, Nisargadatta, and so many other gurus-who-don’t-want-followers went through something similar, resulting in a series of talks and writing that lasted a lifetime.

Their message; focusing on the now, self as teacher, and lifelong curiosity is also extremely similar.

My sense, when thinking of them together, is people who served as conduits for a powerful message. Did they have personality? Only in so much as their message would be heard. It’s hard to call it devotion. It feels more like a need when you read them. They would not be without their mission to build awareness.

Impersonal Understanding

Understanding that people are driven by innumerable motivations can help you learn to see their actions as a product of their inner selves rather than taking their behavior personally. Not taking people’s words and actions personally frees you from the need to react to them. You no longer have to perceive any negativity on their part as ill treatment, nor do you have to see their responses to you as a reflection of whether or not you said or did something wrong. Other people’s behavior and reactions cease to be a benchmark of your worth. When you choose not to take the words and actions of others personally, you can feel positive today even when surrounded by negativity.

From: DailyOM - Impersonal Understanding

Blogging Continues!

I now blog at Just Be And You Are.

I also publish a newsletter specific to health care at Pulse of Care.

To be continued...

Blogging will resume. When and where even I don't know yet. Thanks to all who followed along. I've learned a lot through blogging and hope to learn a whole lot more and contribute back in the future.

Will the financial crisis make you more or less healthy?

Almost every issue has two sides to it. Its enlightening when you see both at the same time and get to figure out which side you fall on. For example, you would assume that the financial crisis is negatively affecting our health. Jane Sarasohn-Kahn agrees and just yesterday posted stats on the key sources of stress and how to manage them.

Opening up my RSS reader this morning, one of the the first articles I saw was by Jason Shafrin talking about how the bad economy may be good for our health. This is mainly because people eat out less, drink less and go to the doctor more. There are more interesting details in the post.

Overall, I believe what the source of the financial crisis argues for is more real value. Building on equity not debt, growing our savings acccounts, holding others more accountable for their actions. Just as there was a free-riding debt-laden groupthink surrounding the nation prior to the crisis, now there's more agreement around growing a solid foundation for the country.

Bottomline: Recognizing we're stressed and why lets us handle it better. Realizing the benefits of stepping back from the rat race and taking time out for ourselves and our families is equally as beneficial. Perspective will make all the difference in the coming years.

A Scraped Knee

The scenario is you go into your doctor to get a scrape on your knee looked at, cleaned and bandaged. The nurse sees you and sends you on your way. Your visit is over. The doctor's office submits a bill to the insurance company, gets paid for the procedure and care under the nurse's ID and everybody's happy. Perhaps.

What if the nurse probes further into how you scraped your knee (assuming a simple fall)? Maybe you tell her you've been having back problems lately or haven't been getting much sleep at night. Maybe you offhandedly mention an ear infection or she smells a hint of alcohol on your breath. There's a multitude of possibilities. The above could result in a referral to the orthopedist, a sleep specialist, an ears/nose/throat doc (ENT), or a social worker, respectively.

The way care is delivered right now though is very incidental. Patients are rarely looked at from a holistic sense of "what else is going on in their lives?" A lot of it has to do with how doctors are paid (fee for service) and the medical home model is one effort to correct that by getting insurance companies to pay additionally for coordination of care. This is what PCPs have been doing pro bono till now. Paying for a central model though builds in many other benefits:

• Pooled resources
• Central point of contact
• Change in perception
• Enhanced communication
• Better monitoring
• Standardized Best Practices

I'm a big fan of the shift in thought processes around care, incorporating both allopathic and holistic approaches and figuring out what works long-term as opposed to what gets the patient out the door. Other externalities that will emerge with this and other similar models are support services becoming involved, increased patient education and advocacy and assistance on the financial end. Its a mission statement that a whole lot of parties can converge around. A scraped knee is not always what it seems. Health and well-being has many layers. Exposing them is the first step to making them work for the person, not necessarily the patient.

Are You Your Job Title?

Titles mean little.  When you meet a professional in a casual context, a simple "doctor", "lawyer", "mechanic" suffices.  It seems to explain who they are at once.  Someone in sales, management or consulting doesn't get the same benefit.  Both parties though are liable for describing their life project.  One just has to think about it harder than the other.

For example, doctor A may seek to maximize the number of patients seen to improve income potential and doctor B may seek to maximize the number of patient seen to improve the health of the community.  Both have the same potential end result; increase in income as well as an improvement in community health, but their reasons are remarkably different and provide a much better insight into their psychosocial persona.  

Bottomline: I doubt professionals with definitive titles put as much thought into their life project as people with generic job titles.  With accountablity comes transparency of one's passions, ideas and thought processes.  That can be scary and the fear only goes away if others open up in the same way.  I've certainly pored over it quite a bit myself and while its still being tweaked, my own personal life project is to find the happy medium.

See What's Behind the Curtain

In America, we tend to hear about work in the form of results.  I started a company, I fought x number of cases, I fundraised x amount of money and so on.  Well-rehearsed 30-second spiels touting one-sided stats. The process in the background is rarely shelled out; leaving the listener in the dark about the "how?".  

These achievements could be weighted by multiple factors such as how much time was spent on the project or on a different judgment level, how much time was spent with one's family during the project.  By not weighting and thereby standardizing such accomplishments, we lose the real perspective.  And I wager we also lose a sense of the person's values, priorities, and overall purpose.  The same goes for companies and nations as well.  

Bottomline: The means and ends debate is never-ending.  In the midst of major financial institutions collapsing, you have to wonder just how all this happened.  What was the process behind all this acquisition of wealth and why wasn't it protected better?  Making a million dollars sounds fantastic.  Asking provocative questions as to how one go to that million will really lets you know if their priorities jive with yours.  Don't hesitate to get a perspective.  

A Tribute to Patience

Patience is a practiced skill.  It deserves particular mention because it serves as the backbone and precursor to many other positive character traits - kindness, compassion, respect, honesty, etc.  When you're on the road and get cut off, or waiting in a long line to check out, or in the midst of an argument, patience provides a balanced perspective from which to take further action.  

Prioritizing respect (towards others), for example, isn't going to do much when you feel disrespected in a heated argument.  Your view of respect is totally subjective.  So when someone disrespects you, how are they to know you'd feel that way?  Knowing this puts you on shaky ground to begin with.  You end up fighting back with what you for a fact know will be disrespectful to the other person.  All of a sudden you've lost your original priority.  And on top of that, you eventually feel guilty about your actions.  Same goes with kindness, compassion or even honesty.  They're all subject to, well, subjectivenes.

Not so with patience.  It's independent of one's idea of it.  Why?  Because there's no real beginning or end point, no benchmark for comparison, no real action that can be taken to refute it.  To be exact, impatience isn't disturbing to those who are patient.  They're willing to wait it out.  

My Project Is To...

American Express has a wonderful ad out (see below) with various celebrities such as Robert DeNiro, Martin Scorsese, Jim Henson, Ellen DeGeneres and others boiling their life achievements down into one sentence. The sentence always starts with, "My project was to". For example, for Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese, the sentence is "My project was to...tell unforgettable stories".

While this is an after-the-fact statement, I bet each of these celebrities would've stated something siimilar even prior to their success. They had a very clear idea that encompassed and drove their personal philosophy, career goals and family values all in one.

This project statement can serve as a great personal tool for anyone; as a daily reminder of why you wake up in the morning, when in doubt of your ability, and when someone asks you, "what do you do?" Take a little time out to figure out what your goals are and narrow them down into one or two sentences, starting with "My project is to...". It can't hurt and I bet it'll make you think differently about what your life focus is.

You think you know, but you don't

Even for a second, if you tune your ear to the radio these days you'll hear something about the upcoming elections. Inexperience, age, gender, family values are all up for debate and personal opinion has amazingly transformed into experiential wisdom.  We all seem to have an idea of "what it takes" to be the next president/vice president of the U.S.  But in fact, we don't.

Ability is measured in layers.  Its the same old "peeling an onion" analogy, where the complexity of a job and candidate's matching skill set lie deep beneath the folds.  From our own daily work/leisure perspective, we only see the superficial; the face, the job description, the relative difference from the last 8 years.  We don't see the inhuman stamina necessary to function at peak levels through all hours of the day, the sacrifice of personal time and family life on a campaign trail, the burden and responsibility of knowing how every decision you make may change the lives of millions of people.  Our day-to-day lives are nothing like that of the candidates.  We can't possibly understand the layers beneath such a career choice.  Just by getting to this stage of the game, the candidate has revealed their ability.  

Bottomline: On a more grounded level, think of how you felt right out of college coming into the work world.  The language of business, science, technology, or whatever career you chose to venture into was the same then as it is now with very minor modifications.  Five, ten, twenty years later, you simply understand that language on a much deeper level.  

Think of any concept you were familiar with in your 20s, say "community".  The mental connections you've made over time, through effort and in seeking knowledge give that word a lot more intrinsic meaning now than they did before.  You have layers of personal growth associated with your vocabulary.  Translate that to the presidency and you get the smallest hint of "what it takes" to be at that level.   

A Visual Web Stroll

NYTimes graphic on risks associated with 10 different causes of death:























Google's venture into the browser business; Chrome:




















Be a teacher, find a teacher - The eBay of teaching:

A Ubiquitously Useful App

Scobleizer recommends a lot of apps. Recently, Robert's had somewhat of an epiphany on why he started blogging and what PR really means to him. I love his passionates v. non-passionates debate. He drives home some really great points about the influence of early adopters on advancing new technology.

His most recent recommendation, a Firefox add-on called Ubiquity, is universally useful and deserves mention. Check out the video below.


Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.