Monthly Archives: October 2015

Restaurants make “entertainment for your mouth,” designed for profit, not health. Same with packaged food.

on October 17, 2015 in Fitness, Models, Nature, Perception

The more I cook from whole vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, and so on, the more skeptically I look at companies that prepare food. Restaurants and packaged foods are designed to entertain your mouth, not to sustain you. If the people behind them have to sacrifice your health for their profit, they’ll do it. Increasingly I see them as seeking profit at the expense of my health, since what makes the[…] Keep reading →

A reader’s question on food, eating, and exercise

on October 16, 2015 in Fitness, Habits, Nature

A reader asked the following: Regarding exercise, I have been able to start with my running and I still have some questions around managing what i eat when.. evening times seem a kind of “let it all go” time.. any suggestions you have towards that would be great. She suggested adding that she’s “of Asian origin.” I’ll share what worked for me. Since there are a million books on diet[…] Keep reading →

Yoga, attention, nuance, and subtlety

on October 15, 2015 in Awareness, Exercises, Fitness, Habits, Perception, SIDCHAs

A reader wrote to ask about my August 2012 post, “Three things I learned from yoga” “With yoga you can use your body alone to create many emotions and learn how to handle them.” Have you written more about this? I can only see me creating fear, determination, calmness, anger and patience. These don’t count to many, so I wonder what other emotions could one create? I haven’t done yoga[…] Keep reading →

Someone not returning your emails? Here’s a polite tactic that gets responses.

on October 14, 2015 in Habits, Nonjudgment, Tips

Do you ever have someone not return your emails for a long time? Over the summer I had a two-person team not return several emails for a few months. The correspondence was low priority, but I didn’t want to lose the project. They said they wanted to continue, and I believed them. Usually persisting politely without losing patience works. This time it didn’t. It’s easy to get angry, feel disrespected,[…] Keep reading →

Technical solutions rarely solve social problems

on October 13, 2015 in Awareness, Models, Nature

“If we can put a man on the moon, we should be able to solve homelessness.” “New York City has sparkling glass-and-steel skyscrapers with multi-million-dollar luxury condos, yet ten yards from their entrances are homeless people who go to sleep hungry.” These observations are almost cliché. You could say them about any city or country. They show deep misunderstandings about the problems they describe, which keep us from solving them.[…] Keep reading →

Seeing my inspiration, Inside The Actors Studio, live

on October 12, 2015 in Art, Education, Entrepreneurship, Exercises, Leadership

If you’ve talked to me in the past few years, you’ve heard how watching Inside The Actors Studio inspired me to learn how actors came to excel so much at skills leaders in other areas of life work hard to achieve but rarely do. On top of that, many great actors on the show dropped out, were kicked out, or otherwise didn’t finish much school. Meanwhile, graduates of Ivy League[…] Keep reading →

Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Is My Neighbor Obliged to Report Me to Immigration?

on October 11, 2015 in Ethicist, Nonjudgment

Continuing my series of alternative responses to the New York Times column, The Ethicists, looking at the consequences of one’s actions instead of imposing values on others, here is my take on today’s post, “Is My Neighbor Obliged to Report Me to Immigration?” I have recently employed a foreign national from Ukraine as a live-in home health aide to care for my wife, who is in a wheelchair, paralyzed and[…] Keep reading →

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