Category: Makes You Think

This category covers things that relate probably require some reflection and some time to allow your brain to process more completely. It will be the largest category because the aim of this site is to get people to shift their thinking in some way and to create a new “normal” state. It is safe to say that any post that is included in this category will probably present you with a new piece of information, a new way of looking at something, or a different take on what is already considered common sense or common knowledge.

Boosting Ownership And Control – Think In Terms Of Results

“There is no such thing as failure, there are only results” – Tony Robbins

I had read this before today and it didn’t make sense. But today it hit me.

It’s no longer relevant to look at life in terms of success and failure because these terms imply a false end point. Every life has only one end point and we reach it the day we die. And even then, we won’t be successful or a failure, we’ll just be at the end of our life.

The consequence to seeing life containing arbitrary end points is that it moves us away from the sustained hard work needed to get the results you are looking for. It makes it too easy to stop trying and it can prevent us from taking actual ownership of the process needed to achieve the outcome we are looking for.

By altering our view and seeing outcomes as results and NOT as success or failures we gain a level of depth in how we can look at the world and our actions within it. When we don’t get a job we want, complete a lift we’re trying, get to continue a relationship we hold dear, win the championship game, etc…. and view the outcome as the result of our preparation, effort and strategy, we have the power to change, grow and move forward to a different result. Call the result of not getting what we want a failure closes us off from the possibility of a different future.

There are two things to keep in mind, and make no mistake about it, there are both very important.

First off, none of it matters in the grand scheme of things. Life is about the transformative journey we each take from beginning to end and the transformation is the result of consistently applying the lessons we’ve learned.

Secondly, life progresses regardless of the work you put into it. It begins and ends only once so calling anything a failure is paramount to saying “I’m giving up right now.”

The first point is liberating, the lack of any universal meaning frees us to create or uncover whatever meaning we like. Point two frees us to make the choice on whether or not we’re going to put the effort into life to get the results we are looking for and it allows us to calibrate our intentions to focus on making the best of the time between the beginning and end of life.

1 Year Ago Today

A year ago my father’s diagnosis of GBM was revealed. I’m a little sick just thinking about it.

The year has been a whirl wind of emotions, introspection and lessons. I’ve had to do a lot of growing-up and reorganize how I view my support structure. I’ve lost some friends because I can act out and because helping to manage someone through the grief process can be a challenge, and for reasons that were never revealed to me. I take solace from the lessons they taught and the support they were able to give while they could. All parties do their best in situations like these.

I’ve gained a lot of insight into how I was existing in the world, my strong traits, my development areas and what is in my core. Today I have a much better understanding of how I handle the world, my thoughts and what I plan on doing with the next portion of my life.

Through all of it, I’ve come to realize that I’m a lot more like my dad than I was able to see a year ago. And I’m grateful for this. He modeled a lot of behavior, taught me a lot of lessons and guided me towards a lot of wisdom. He once told me that you just need to do your best, and have as much fun as you can because it won’t last forever. I agree with the first part and have started to accept the second part.

Parents Doing Things For Their Adult Children

When parents do something for their adult children, the kids tend to look at it from their point of view that their parent is saying they are still dependent upon them. But it’s usually the parent saying that they are still a parent and are unsure of how to adapt to their children’s new way of being.

And it’s understandable. We are born completely dependent upon our parents / caregivers for everything, we remain this way for almost 2 decades.

Why does your mom always try to feed you when you stop by? Because she’s done it more than 20000 times before.

Why does she not cook food the way you like it? Same reason, she’s been cooking it HER way forever and there’s nothing wrong with the way she cooks it; you’ve changed.

Why does your dad ask about the car and tell you how to maintain it? Because he’s been looking after the car for years and knows how to look after the car his way.

None of what they are doing is saying that you are incompetent, they are just saying they know better (different) and because they’ve gotten you to this point they know their approach works given your comparatively short track record. After 20 years of doing it your way they’ll believe in it; and you’ll probably be fighting with your own kids about it.

I’m not saying that as an adult you should just do what your folks tell you to do, I’m just going to say that their way did work for a long time and it may be all that they know. Remaining open and seeing their attempts to help you as being what they likely are, their way of saying “I love you” and “I’m still your parent.”

A Call To Action Becomes A Possibility When The Consequences Get Closer

Some political problems, like the impending fiscal cliff, cannot be solved until the very last moment, because the external pressure has to be so high that politicians can actually get forgiven for making the painful choice. If a Republican had acted 3 years ago and voted to increase taxes or a Democrat has voted to dramatically cut spending there would have been backlash from some of their supporters; they would have lost a lot of them and risked not getting reelected. But now, doom is so close that things have reversed – politicians face alienating their electorate by resisting tax increases or spending cuts. The notion of things falling apart in less than a month is a big motivator for creating the possibilities that become actions and solutions.

This tendency for action or different action to be taken as we get closer to the consequences is not isolated to politics because it seems to be a quality of most humans.

For example:

“The doctor told me that I needed to get into better shape.” This is usually interpreted by them as “I am going to die soon” and this is a compelling why.

“One of my friends / family had a heart attack and they are younger than me.” This too is interpreted as “I am going to die soon.”

Most drug addicts need to hit bottom before they stop using – death needs to be the next logical step in their addiction.

Many people who stop smoking do so only when they view the consequences (cancer, emphysema, etc…) as being inevitable if they continue to smoke.

Many students hold off studying until they view there to be no more time to waste.

Take a moment to think about your own behavior and that of those around you – how often are pragmatic actions tabled until they become crisis actions?

So what?

Be it your eighth cigarette or your 50000th, the threat of illness is always the reason why you should not smoke.

Being overweight or under exercised always increases your chance of dying early – this doesn’t become the reality the moment the doctor tells you to move more and eat better, or because someone you know has a heart attack.

Doing drugs always lowers your potential and does some damage to your body.

Consider the possibility that the “why” that seems to come to light as the consequences get closer is ALWAYS the why.

The Stories We Tell Are Not Reality But BECOME Reality

We are story tellers, almost all of us. The stories we tell, the really good ones, we tell not to others, but to ourselves. It is that simple. We learn to not tell them to others because they tend not to receive them very effectively. Others tend to argue with us about them, tell us that they are not a good reflection of reality or that there is another possibility that we have not considered. So, over time, we learn to keep our mouths shut and firm-up our view about what these stories mean.

The impact of these stories can be powerful, often more powerful than reality; which the stories eventually become.

Most of the migration away from objective reality occurs when we are young and these early experiences lay the foundation for one to more easily accept things that are not reflective of how others see the world.

For example, at school, an example is made out of a good student for speaking out of turn. For one reason or another the teacher decides to single them out for talking to one of their friends while other more rowdy students are also talking. This has the impact of getting the class to be quiet, but it can also create a story based on conflicting evidence within the good student that being consistently bad is an effective way to mitigate the wrath of the teacher. While this small tale seems innocuous, if the young person adapts this as a coping strategy they are well on the way to throwing academic potential out the window.

The stories that young people tell as a result of abuse are often much more damaging. When a caregiver fails to protect a child from abuse or when they do not respond quickly or decisively to it, children often create stories that have them as being less worthy of protection or love, that have them as objects for other peoples enjoyment or have them develop personality disorders that make movement into and through adulthood challenging or obnoxious.

Without proper scope or divergent opinions, abuse can be normalized and carried forward through these stories. Parents who chronically beat their children raise kids who continue this pattern – not because the children necessarily believe it is right but because they don’t know that it isn’t appropriate. Without proper guidance and role-modelling, what is common is normalized and the pattern of abuse continues.

These stories get traction in our minds and they are sticky. It can take years of therapy to identify and loosen a story to the point of it relinquishing its virulent grip. Even then, the stories may have become part of the individuals identity such that they ALWAYS pop-up and will require constant effort to hold back.

The key is a reality check when things start to look or feel off with the young people in your life. Ask lots of questions and provide lots of information about your experience of objective reality. Ask about their stories and listen closely to their answers, there will be a wealth of information contained within them that will light-up parts of their minds that may be destined to become their future reality.

Motivated Reasoning – How To Dissipate Cognitive Dissonance

At dinner the other night, Leeno brought-up the concept of Motivated Reasoning in the context of addressing feelings of cognitive dissonance. I had previously thought about the mechanism by which someone moves forward with an illogical assumption or belief in-spite of their level of intelligence or ability to collect information and draw objective conclusions.

An example would be the belief that you can have a cheat meal because you spent 20 minutes on the treadmill. If you want to avoid gaining weight, generally you need to exercise or burn off more calories than you eat. 20 minutes on a treadmill will burning off about 150 calories which isn’t enough for a meal.

Motivated reasoning comes into play when we are seeking evidence to support or refute our preexisting beliefs. In fact, holding a particular point of view will very often determine where we look and what we are open to accept as “truth”. It can make us very subjective, judgmental and wrong. The decisions it can lead us to can shorten the length and lower the quality of life.

We seek out view points or evidence that supports our way of thinking because we tend to dislike being wrong or having to face and consider evidence that isn’t compatible. Other than being motivated to avoid the pain associated with the feelings of discomfort associated with opposing points of view, we are also motivated to experience pleasure, pleasure that tends to accompany being “right” about things – remember, the human brain is constantly searching for patterns that match past experience, and with every match there is a release of reward chemicals.

It is for these reason why intelligent people will hold onto ideas / beliefs that are false and run against their better judgment. To combat this tendency, it is important to maintain an open mind when faced with any information, particularly that which confirms what we believe. Given that we seek-out information that supports our point of view and that this information will cause the release of reward chemicals, it is almost impossible to remain spontaneously objective.

This creates a dangerous situation in that an individual can easily be manipulated by those who put forward information that goes along with their existing belief – blinded by the chemical high, their ability to process facts is severely diminished. A group of people can be wiped into a frenzy if they share a belief and someone is able to massage this belief.

When faced with evidence that goes along with your point of view, take a moment to consider it with the same scrutiny you would consider any information. Remain focused and aware of the fact that those sharing the information have the same tendency to lose objectivity when faced with information that confirms their belief. What appears to be evidence may simply be opinion shared by one person to another.

Working At It For Years – Disease Or Health

We are born as perfect as we will ever be. With rare exception, we have our greatest potential the instant we arrive into the world. From there, our environment begins to chip away at our possibilities and over time we suffer from the outcome of our decisions or the decisions that were made on our behalf. With each breath, we either maintain our potential or it is reduced slightly.

I have trained a couple of people who had suffered heart attacks and then subsequently made the decision to correct as many of their bad habits as they could. They eat better, exercise more, reduce their stress and stop over indulging in alcohol. They, like many people who have suffered a heart attack, make reference to their heart attack as both an ending point and a place of new beginnings; “my health was fine up until that day” is something that I have heard which reflects their understanding of what was going on. But it doesn’t reflect what actually happened. Their health had been suffering for years BEFORE the heart attack and the heart attack was only the latest in a series of escalating symptoms; even if it was the first symptom that registered that there was a problem.

You have been making yourself sick for years – everyone has been. At best, you are doing everything you can to achieve your potential – eating appropriate amounts of whole food, getting an appropriate amount of sleep and exercise, etc…. but in a world as polluted as ours, the chances of you not consuming toxins is very low. The clean life that you may be living likely isn’t as pure as is needed to reach the highest level of health. In all probability you aren’t getting enough exercise, eating the right amounts of food or getting sufficient rest to recover your vitality and enhance your constitution for health.

This doesn’t mean that you are going to die of a heart attack at 50 or cancer at 55. But it does mean that you are damaging you body and diminishing your ability to recover from this damage with each non-ideal choice you make. It also means that if you do end-up with a disease, there is a very good chance that you have been working at it for the last 20-50 years and not just during the few weeks preceding the diagnosis.

The human body has a remarkable ability to recover. There is ample redundancy so a lot of stuff can break down before their is critical malfunction. But there are limits and one needs to be mindful of them as they move through life. With each less than ideal decision that is made, you move one step closer to the cumulative consequences of these choices.

It’s About Changing State

In talking to more than a 1000 people over the last 10 years a few facts about nutrition have become clear.

First off, the education system is doing a good job at teaching people what they should be eating. I’ll fill-in some blanks about how the remarkably adaptive way the body operates, but I’ve yet to talk to someone who doesn’t know that eating more vegetables, less sugar, fewer processed products and drinking more water and less pop is a more effective way to eat. People know what they should be eating in order to improve their health and functioning so they suffer from obesity and reduced vitality for reasons other than education.

Next, many people comment that it is hard to eat correctly. On one level this is true, given that living things benefit from eating unprocessed food that rots quickly. Shopping twice a week is a necessity if you are going to eat real food because you will not have the “luxury” of buying food that doesn’t spoil because it is loaded with preservatives. And you need to prepare that food which is going to take time – peeling vegetables, cutting meat and removing bones or fat/skin and then cooking the meal requires time. But this only seems like it takes more time when compared with opening a box and heating something in a microwave or ordering a meal and waiting for it to arrive.

The other comment I hear consistently after an optimal nutrition conversation is that eating for health and vitality is boring. My thoughts about this one is that this is the biggest reason why people do not live optimal lives with an abundance of energy, clarity of thought and emotional contentment. Good quality food doesn’t provide the instant state-changing experience that the high sugar, high fat, high chemical food-like stuff delivers. Good quality food doesn’t do very much to your immediate state; it really shouldn’t because there isn’t anything in it that will have a quick impact on the brain or body. Real food impacts the body slowly, over time and in many ways by doing nothing at all.

People like or become addicted to food-like stuff because it has a very quick impact on the brain – it changes their state almost immediately and in a predictable way. Feeling sad? Eat some sugar, get a release of dopamine and feel better. Feeling some pain somewhere? Eat some ice cream and get a release of opioids to numb the pain. Eat fat and sugar together and feel good immediately. The happy / feel-good chemicals will be released and you will get a little high from it.

You don’t get this state change from eating salad, beef, chicken or fish. Eating these things may not even make you feel full. They have been shown to be better for you, but their immediate impact is low and almost perceivable, and given the distance from the consequences of a poor diet the instant reward is what many choose.

But as time passes, and the consequences begin to take hold on a person – addiction, obesity, disease, loss of energy, loss of circulation, impaired thinking, etc…. the state change is all that remains in terms of any conceivable positives. But then it’s too late to do very much about it. A 40 year sugar habit is tough to break. Dropping 100 lbs is close to impossible and only successfully undertaken by the most remarkable of individuals. Once cancer takes hold, the body has a very tough time fighting it without medical intervention. Clogged blood vessels don’t suddenly clear-up simply because the person stops eating crappy food. Make no mistake about it, the consequences arrive and they usually stay forever.

Real food does very little to our immediate state and it does very little to our bodies; which is what one should look for in their food because the body has a remarkable way of repairing itself.

Being Your Past Again – Don’t Create New Behaviors

“You have a tendency to act emotionally at times like this. Just don’t do anything until you know what you feel. To me there’s nothing going on but maybe there is. If it doesn’t hurt to wait, wait. What is actually occurring will become obvious quickly.”

I was on the phone with my brother having asked him for advice, and that is close to what he said.

I thanked him, hung-up and felt better.

One of the many things I admire about my brother is his ability to not respond emotionally to anything. Des and I have chatted in length about it and he’s very clear that it is a skill he has worked hard at and one that is still working to perfect as there are times when he finds himself beginning to feel stuff that isn’t based on the immediate reality.

It’s based on the past, and in particular, an old way of responding to a stimuli or situation that is similar. Some of these things will trigger reflexive responses that are years old and learned from a single event. As is the case with relatively young people, unfamiliar events may only have happened when we were incapable determining a logical response. Rage, anger and destruction based on fear may have been the conditioned response to stimuli and the unconscious expression of this behavior is what flows our when faced with a situation that seems to match.

This way of being is unworkable and Des knows that I have a tendency to act without much rational thought when faced with these moments.

At the time, I wasn’t sure what to do, which is why I called him. I felt a particular way, but couldn’t find a reason for it. By taking the time to think the thing through, it became very apparent what was going on and I was able to see a past action being triggered. It wasn’t right or wrong, it was just outdated and unworkable. Taking the time to realize what was happening created a clearing and the possibility for logical action.

The up-side is that the new logical behavior will begin to become the new response to that particular stimuli. Which is what you need to happen in order to learn and advance your life. Without creating new behaviors, we’ll continue to be exactly what we were in the past.

Their Lies Will Kill You, Your Lie IS

You have been lied to and the quality of your life is lower because of it. So is your life expectancy. As is your vitality and in many ways your constitution for health is also diminished. Some of the lies were not malicious at the time, but they are now, and you really should start to pay attention to them and how they impact your spending habits.

What am I talking about?

The crappy food you eat, the reason you give for eating it and commercialization of “Food” and “Health”.

You eat a lot of really low quality food. It’s loaded with sugar, it has a lot of the fat processed out of it and it last forever on the shelf because almost everything else that made it food has been removed. It’s created and perfected in a lab, then manufactured and distributed to the masses in much the same way a smart phone finds its way into your life. And you buy this food, week after week, feed it to yourself and your children, and move forward telling yourself that it isn’t harmful because Health Canada wouldn’t allow big companies to sell poison and because big companies wouldn’t sell something dangerous to their customers.

Before you pull your head out of the sand, you may want to eat a few mouth fulls because it’s a lot healthier than what you have been eating.

Food in this country is, for the most part, about profit. It is about creating more wealth through increased market share and decreased production costs. The people who sell you the food had nothing to do with its production. Most food sellers work for corporations, not farmers. They are part of the massive industry that maximizes profit by selling the most food possible at the cheapest possible rate. It is in the interest of profit to create foods that people will eat, that won’t spoil and that can be shipped anywhere in the world cheaply.

Health Canada doesn’t care about food being harmful, they care about it being safe and big corporations will sell you anything you’ll buy that they are allowed to sell – tobacco, highly addictive pain killers, and untested chemical creations that “enhance” flavor and sell-ability. So long as the products don’t make you sick immediately and there is enough time between consumption and illness, Health Canada won’t get involved. They’ll rightfully shutdown a meat plant and recall tons of beef because of E. coli that sickened 17 people, but they’ll give high sugar foods a green light because the illnesses they cause take years to develop and are in many ways the result of personal choices.

It’s daft. Vexingly stupid actually. Obesity crushes the life out of people and the stats tell a sad tale about wasted potential. Sugar causes heart disease and fat gain. It causes cardiovascular disease because the inflammation associated with sugar consumption destroys the blood vessels. Omega 3 fatty acids, when taken in the right amount, improve health; yet they are being removed from food because of an antiquated notion that cholesterol is the cause of heart disease.

But the food is “safe” and it is keeping you from dying from starvation; although you likely suffer from a strange kind of malnutrition never before seen in the history of our species. I encourage you to notice how you feel after eating a boxed meal, a bowl of cereal, or a meal replacement bar. Notice how much different you feel when you eat a fresh salad. Pay attention to the different levels of enjoyment you get from the “food” and the food. Notice which one creates more cravings and be aware just who benefits from this need to eat more.

You’ve felt it for a long time, that what makes up most of your diet isn’t food at all. It’s a Frankenstein creation of things that seem real but would never spontaneously exist in nature. And when you eat it, it’s shortening your life. To believe otherwise is to continue to lie to yourself.