This morning I wanted to try a place for breakfast that would have taken almost an hour to walk to. And then of course almost another hour walking back. So instead I decided I’d just take an Uber. When my driver arrived I hopped into the front seat and off we went.
She asked me how my day was going and I told her it was going great. We then spent the 10 minute drive having a wonderful conversation. I got out of the car and wished her a good day, with her stating she hoped I had one as well. I then went in and had a great breakfast. Of course on the way back I got another Uber, but this time it was a different driver.
He smiled politely as I entered the car but didn’t talk. I asked him how his day was and he replied “Good, you?” I said “good” and left it at that. He gave the appearance of someone not wanting to talk a lot. We drove quietly for the 10 minute ride back to the hotel. As I got out he wished me a nice day, and I wished him one in return.
The first one was very nice and sociable. Outgoing and chatty. The second one was also nice, just not chatty. And there’s nothing wrong with that. He wasn’t rude because he didn’t talk or entertain me. That isn’t his job. His job is to get me from one location to the next.
It’s easy to view one as positive and one as negative because as humans we love to rate things. But there’s another way to handle it, and that’s to accept each person as they are. No need to judge them at all, good or bad.
If someone is nice to you, be nice back. If they want to chat, enjoy the conversation. On the other hand if they don’t want to chat, just respect that enjoy the quiet.
But here’s the tough one. What if they’re mean or rude? Leave it at they’re behaving in a way you don’t want to interact with. You don’t have to rate their behavior as bad. You don’t have to rate them as bad. You just have to decide what you want to do. Which in that case may be to stop interacting with that person.
Why do it this way? Because it reminds you that you’re in charge. When you assign the label of bad to them you’re reacting to their behavior. Because they were bad you don’t wish to associate with them. Their action determined your behavior. They were in charge. When you decide to not associate with them without labeling them the decision is based off of you and your desires. You’re in control of your life as you should be.
Let me know what you think. Agree or disagree? I hope you enjoyed this quick thought. See you again soon. Peace.
So I’ve been in Orlando (well technically Lake Buena Vista) for just under a week now. I’ve spent most of the time here at the Sheraton Orlando Lake Buena Vista Resort as this is both where I’m staying and where the training is being held.
There are a lot of options for feeding myself around here and I’ve gotten to them just by walking there. The weather has been most agreeable to walking from place to place. I’ve also walked down to the local Winn Dixie to obtain stuff I’ve needed.
Now I’m still relatively new here so I’m still occasionally getting mixed up about what direction I’m headed. This morning after trying a different place to eat (the Black Angus Steakhouse nearby had a wonderful breakfast buffet I wanted to try) I needed to go to the Winn Dixie to get some heavy cream for my coffee. So I started walking and when I got to Palm Parkway I turned left and headed toward the Winn Dixie.
I was walking down the road when I realized it didn’t feel right. I stopped, looked around, and realized I had gone the wrong way. Realizing my mistake I kept going down the wrong path, farther and farther away from the my destination.
Of course that’s not really what I did. Upon realizing my mistake I turned back around and when I got back to the intersection I went the correct way. It’s only common sense. And yet when it comes to our life’s direction we seem oddly content to do what I had suggested I did.
We are creatures of habit and even when we know that the direction we are metaphorically headed is moving us away from the place we want to be in life, for some reason we just keep walking down the same path. How do we do that? We associate with the same people who led us to where we are in life. We engage in the same activities that have not gotten us the results we want. We think the same thoughts about ourselves that have led to the devaluation of worth we feel towards ourselves.
So think about this. If you’d feel silly continuing to walk down a physical path that you know doesn’t lead to the physical location you want to be, why are you content to stay on a life path taking you from the life you want?
Look at the life path you are on. Do your friends help you get to the life you want? If you answered no, maybe they aren’t the friends you need. Do you engage in activities which move you closer to the life you want? If you don’t, figure out the activities that do. You only have 24 hours a day. Fill those hours with activities that create the life you should know you deserve.
Do your thoughts move you forward on your life path? They should. If they don’t start paying attention to your self talk. When thoughts creep in that have you taking the wrong turn at an intersection, get your bearing and replace them with the thoughts that have you moving down the correct path.
Don’t settle for less in walking your life path than you would walking a physical path. Being on the wrong physical path just wastes your time. Being on the wrong life path wastes something a lot more valuable. Hope you have a great week walking the path taking you to the life of your dreams. Peace.
This week’s vlog is up on YouTube. It’s about worry and what you can do about it. Hope you enjoy it. Leave a Like if you do. If you agree, or even if you disagree, leave a comment here or there. Subscribe and click the bell if you want to be immediately notified every time I post a video to YouTube. Hope you’re having a great day. Peace.
Sorry about going dark the last few days. I was getting ready for my trip here to Orlando, FL where I’m at training for my new job. As such I don’t have the scale with me so no numbers for this week, just a quick check in. Now that I’m situated here at the hotel I’ll try to be better about posting daily. If I miss a day I hope you’ll understand as the priority has to be the training right now. Hope you’re having a great day. I know I am. It’s always fun being to a new city with new things and places to explore. Peace.
I was at home earlier today, all comfy cozy. Just having gotten done watching a movie (The Martian, which was rather good if you’re looking for something to watch), I was thinking about what to do next when I had the sudden urge to go to Starbucks and get a coffee and do some reading.
The idea of going there and reading with a hot coffee certainly wasn’t new to me. Nor unique. I go there quite regularly as a matter of fact. It’s a nice atmosphere and a relaxing place to get some reading done. What was weird, though, was how late in the day it was for me to do that. You see when I normally go it’s right after my regular weekend breakfast at Mia’s Cafe. So I’m heading there around 9 am or so. And here it was about 1:30 pm. But the urge was there so I decided to follow it.
I got there and it was a little more crowded than the 9 am crowd generally is. A little noisier than it would usually be for me as well. But I had driven there so I might as well make a go of it. I got my coffee and sat down to read and got a few pages in when two older gentleman sat down in the chairs beside me and started talking. It wasn’t too distracting so I kept reading when I heard one of them say “yeah, I’ve always wondered what Alaska is like.”
Mind you I wasn’t listening in. In fact I had been doing my best to tune them out. But the statement had caught my attention because I’ve lived most of my life in Alaska. So I put my iPad down (all my books are on the Kindle app) and said, “excuse me for interrupting, but what did you want to know about Alaska?” This started a wonderful conversation that lasted over an hour. And by the end I had two new friends, Mark and Fred. It was wonderful.
And all because I listened to the little voice inside my head. If I had argued with the little voice and said “it’s not the right time”, I wouldn’t have had the situation. Same results if I had just ignored it altogether. But instead I listened. Instead, I took the advice it offered. And now I’m two friends richer and quite a bit happier. A little happier still realizing right now how much Mark and Fred enjoyed the information (they learned a lot about Moose).
Sometimes things just pop into your head and you don’t know why. Maybe every now and again you should just listen, too. If you can’t think of a good reason why you shouldn’t, just do what the little voice suggests and see what happens. Maybe you’ll be two friends richer, too. Maybe you’ll be straight up richer. Who knows. But unless it’ll actually hurt to try, why not do it? I hope you’re having a great day today. I know I did. Peace.
This week’s vlog is up and running. It’s on fasting. It covers the different ways to fast and the different time frames for a fast. Let me know what you think. If you enjoyed the video please leave a Like on YouTube for me. If you have an agreement, or disagreement, with the video, please leave a comment here or there. Subscribe and click the bell on YouTube if you want to be immediately notified every time I post a video to YouTube. Have a great week. Peace.
Here is my weekly weigh in video. Very happy with this week’s results. Also happy with a new product I’m trying. Watch the video to get the low down on how things went this past week. If you enjoy the video please leave a Like. Subscribe and click the notification bell on YouTube if you’re interested in being immediately notified every time I upload a video to YouTube. Hope you’re having a great day and a great week. Peace.
Have you ever been driving down the road and all of a sudden you realize you’re way farther down the road than you expected? Perhaps you’ve been “working” in your office when you notice an hour has gone by and your cursor is still in the same spot on your monitor as the last time you looked. Or here’s an embarrassing one. You’re talking with someone when you realize they’re looking at you, waiting for your to respond. Problem is you have no idea what they just said. The bottom line in all three cases is that your mind wandered. It happens to most people, so nothing to feel bad about. We all lose focus from time to time. The funny part is that we often don’t even recall our train of thought when we have these lapses in awareness. So here’s a fun little suggestion for figuring out what you spend your time thinking about when your mind wanders and you don’t know where it’s been.
Either on your phone or watch set a timer for a random amount of time. By random I mean avoid times like 15 minutes or 2 hours. Times when you’ll see the alarm coming, like on the hour or half hour. You want the alarm to be a surprise, out of the blue. It’s even better if you can find an app that will alert you at random times during the day.
Every time the alarm goes off, jot down what you were thinking right then. Don’t analyze or critique it, just write it down. If the alarm goes off and you were wondering if Darth Maul could take Darth Vader in a fight, write that down. If you were wondering where all those extra socks you lose in the dryer go, write that down. Do this over the course of a few days. After a few days logging go back and review what you’ve written down.
Now go an extra step. Would you classify the majority of thoughts as happy, sad, or random? While random thoughts, like is it better to put the toilet paper on the roller overhanded or underhanded in orientation, don’t hurt you, they don’t really help you either. If your thoughts are predominantly sad or angry, why? Is life really that bad? Maybe you should police your thoughts better. Focus more on happy thoughts.
Were the majority of the thoughts positive, happy, or uplifting? Then good for you. If you’re writing these down at random and it’s coming up mostly happy that means your mind spends a lot of time in your happy place. Be proud of that.
Either way you get a good glimpse into what’s going on upstairs when you don’t even realize it. Do this exercise from time to time to get a gauge of where you are. Because whether you know your thoughts or not, what you keep your mind on you attract into your life. Best to keep it positive then. Have a happy day. A happy week. And hopefully a happy life. Peace.
We’re all familiar with the phrase “nobody likes a quitter.” It’s said like it’s an absolute. Under no situations should you quit otherwise you’ll risk alienating yourself from others. Of course we understand there are exceptions. You won’t be looked down upon if you quit smoking. In that case being a quitter is fine. Mainly it refers to tasks you start that you should, in “nobody”s opinion be able to complete.
Well I’m not a big believer in “nobody likes a quitter.” I’m more inclined to side with another common phrase “know when to say when.” You see there are many occasions when knowing when to quit is actually a good thing for you.
Anybody who has watched Wheel of Fortune should get this. How many times have you seen a contestant with a decent amount of money spin the wheel again because there is still money to be made. And how many times has that decision ended in ruin when they hit the bankrupt wedge on the wheel. That person didn’t know when to say when.
Now I’m assuming in most people’s lives the Wheel of Fortune example won’t be particularly relevant consider the very small percentage of the population that winds up on the show. So what would be a more relevant example for the average person? I’ll give two that happened to me in the last week.
First, I was doing a jump rope workout and it was going pretty well. And then I tweaked my left ankle. And that’s my “bad ankle.” I was born club footed there and the surgery to correct it has left it a little weak. That makes it easy to tweak. Now the “nobody likes a quitter” group would tell me to cowboy up. No pain, no gain. But in reality I was feeling pain for a reason. Now sometimes I feel the pain and it goes right away, so I kept going for a little longer. But the pain didn’t go away. So I knew it was time to stop. I quit because I listened to my body. It was telling me enough. If I kept going, which I could have done, I risked making it worse. And then I might be affecting other areas of my life if I couldn’t walk because I injured my ankle. I knew it was time to say when.
Second, I fast regularly. It isn’t a problem for me. Usually it isn’t, anyway. But the other day I felt something I don’t usually feel anymore. Hunger. Being keto adapted my body can generally find all the energy it needs from my onboard fat storage. So fasting is pretty easy for a day or two. This time I hadn’t even reached a day and I was struggling. Now I didn’t just give in the moment I felt hunger. I gave it some time. Drank a glass of water to fill my stomach. Played a video game to take my mind off of it for a little while. The hunger didn’t go away. So having done what should have gotten me past a psychological craving for food I knew my body was telling me a fast was a bad idea. So I quit. I don’t know why this one was difficult, but my body was telling me it was.
In both cases I made an effort to continue. I’m certainly not arguing you should stop at the first sign of trouble in whatever you’re trying to accomplish. But if you’ve given it a good faith effort and you’re still getting the signs that you need to stop doing what you’re doing, then quit. It’s ok. There’s a reason you keep getting the sign. Not quitting and soldiering on might seem courageous, but your mental “check engine” light comes on for a reason. And just like ignoring the one on your dash, you do so at the risk of making things worse.
So know when to say when. Even if you think people will be disappointed in that decision. Because in the end it doesn’t matter what they think. You’re the one who has to live with the consequences of your decision. So make the right choice and quit when you need to. Waiting until you’re forced to just isn’t the right when. Have a great day. Peace.
When you start a diet, any diet, and begin making progress you’ll generate a bit of interest in what you’re doing to lose the weight. I’m always happy to discuss the ketogenic lifestyle with the people who ask, and what benefits I think it can have in their life as well. After discussing the basics I get two frequent responses. One response I get, the other I don’t.
The first response is “I don’t know if I can give up the things I like to follow the keto diet as you just explained it.” That I totally get. It’s a total rework of your diet. And most of the foods you love the most are probably not going to make the cut. It isn’t like the glucose based diets where you can slowly wean yourself off of them. You have to give them all up right when you go keto. You might find keto friendly alternatives to help you along but the reality is as tasty as some of them are, most are just not the same thing as you’re giving up. Again, I totally understand that response.
The one I don’t get is “I don’t know if I can afford to go on the keto diet.” That one makes no sense to me. One of the bonus effects of the keto diet, at least for me, has been the cost savings. Let me break them down for you.
The first is the cost of food. The higher fat meats are generally the cheaper cuts of meat. The vegetables you buy can be pricey if you get it pre-cut or frozen, but on the whole the cost of the vegetables is much cheaper than the cost of sides at a fast food place.
Oh, and while we’re on fast food, the money you save cutting that out of your budget is amazing. I’ll occasionally go to McDonald’s and get a couple of sausage and egg McMuffins no muffin and a black coffee, but for the most part I cook for myself at home. Keto is done most easily when you cook for yourself which means lower price per meal. Now if you have the budget and want to get grass-fed beef and cage free eggs that’s awesome, and yes it will cost more than the regular fare. But you can keto with regular beef and regular eggs and you’ll still be better off than you were eating the glucose based diet you were on. And even going with the grass fed foods you’ll still be ahead of the game compared to buying tons of processed foods like chips and pre-made dinners.
Second, there’s nothing else to buy. There are keto friendly supplements and prepackaged foods, but none of them are required to be successful on keto. Having said that I will make one caveat. In the beginning it does make transitioning to keto easier if you buy some exogenous ketones to fuel yourself with when you start out. The key here is that it makes it easier. It isn’t necessary. Supplementing with electrolytes is also helpful and can make you feel better but if you’re eating a well-rounded keto friendly diet it isn’t necessary. I do know that this can be true of many diets. But it seems especially true of the keto diet.
Finally, and this is the biggest cost saver, when you switch to a ketogenic lifestyle your body becomes very agreeable to fasting. Fasting becomes a cinch when you’ve fully keto adapted. And that’s the biggest cost savings of all. Fasting requires $0.00 to do. Even if you cook for yourself and have your per meal cost down to say $10 per a day, you’re still saving $40 a month if you fast one day a week. If you fast two you just doubled your bank account gains. And I can easily do 48 hours of fasting now that I’ve been living the ketogenic lifestyle for over a year. Of course the more you spend per meal the bigger the savings this becomes.
So from a “I’m not ready to make the transition” perspective I totally understand the hesitancy to go keto. But from the “I can’t afford to go keto” perspective, I just scratch my head. I think it’s actually cheaper to eat keto, especially figuring in fasting periods. And that doesn’t even begin to cover the cost savings from being overall healthier and happier. Or the cheaper clothing for me now that I don’t shop at the big and tall store. So from that perspective can you really afford not to live the ketogenic lifestyle? I’m thinking the savings speak for themselves. Hope you’re having a great day today. Peace.
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