Tip #56: Let's get in an abundance frame of mind

About to burst.

You all know by now that I'm quite the optimist, who likes to look at the positives aspects of life. And that's why this is one of my favorite TED talks (although, I will admit I have many, many favorites). Here's this nice man, who sounds very intelligent, telling me that we all have plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future, even though there are several wars going on, there is poverty, we are destroying the Earth with our pollution, and we still haven't found a cure for cancer.

He tells us something very different: how extremely fortunate we are to live in this moment in history.  This talk is 18 minutes, but I still hope you watch it. The speaker is Peter Diamandis, and the talk is based on his book Abundance, the future is brighter than you think. (By the way, I like to have the subtitles in Spanish for my family in Spain who reads the blog, but as a Spanish teacher I also think it is another learning tool for those of you who took Spanish in the past, as I'm sure it can bring back words long forgotten or you may even acquire new ones, like cognates. In any case, I hope it is firing up your neurons! You can also just turn the subtitles off).

Here are some quotes I like from the talk:

Over the last hundred years, the average human lifespan has more than doubled, average per capita income adjusted for inflation around the world has tripled. Childhood mortality has come down a factor of 10. Add to that the cost of food, electricity, transportation, communication have dropped 10 to 1,000-fold. Steve Pinker has showed us that, in fact, we're living during the most peaceful time ever in human history. And Charles Kenny that global literacy has gone from 25 percent to over 80 percent in the last 130 years. We truly are living in an extraordinary time. And many people forget this.

Consider each one of those statements and pause. In just one hundred years our life span has more than doubled. Which means that if I had been born in any other time before I may have been already dead. This, alone, is extraordinary and a cause for celebration. The same for everything else in that quote.

When I think about creating abundance, it's not about creating a life of luxury for everybody on this planet; it's about creating a life of possibility. It is about taking that which was scarce and making it abundant. You see, scarcity is contextual, and technology is a resource-liberating force.

It is the part about "creating a life of possibility" that I really like. I was brought up believing you had to go though life working hard and being nice towards others, which I think it could still be a good goal, but it does not sound like a life of possibility. Now, through the things I write on my computer I can reach people I don't even know, who may find solace or learn something in what I have to say. That, to me, is just incredible. And it is so true that scarcity is contextual. We often consider life from the things we don't have: time, beauty, money, and we forget to be thankful for everything we do have: time (like the Holstee manifesto says: "if you don't have enough time, stop watching TV."), beauty (honestly, look at yourself in the mirror, will ya? Yes, you are definitely cute.), money (do you have a roof over your head? I thought so.). The scarcity point of view permeates everything we see.

And he also tells us about other miracles:

Think about it, that a Masai warrior on a cellphone in the middle of Kenya has better mobile communication than President Reagan did 25 years ago. And if they're on a smartphone on Google, they've got access to more knowledge and information than President Clinton did 15 years ago. They're living in a world of information and communication abundance that no one could have ever predicted.

Yes, scarcity is contextual, and that quote let us see how far we've come.

And this is how he ends (for those who will not watch it):

 Ladies and gentlemen, what gives me tremendous confidence in the future is the fact that we are now more empowered as individuals to take on the grand challenges of this planet. We have the tools with this exponential technology. We have the passion of the DIY innovator. We have the capital of the techno-philanthropist. And we have three billion new minds coming online to work with us to solve the grand challenges, to do that which we must do. We are living into extraordinary decades ahead. 

I see it already. I know we still do not have a cure for cancer and many of my friends are still dying from it (and I may too), but I see that finally doctors are looking at things differently, that young investigators are collaborating in innovative ways, that many new types of treatments are in the pipeline.

I'm also hoping you see it too. In fact, you can and probably will also contribute to this abundance. We are definitely lucky to live in this moment.

Let me know your thoughts. Are you in an abundant frame of mind?

Tip #55: Sometimes, we all need a pep talk

I'm still doing my walks to work, on most days.

Well, it's been a bit of a long pause, here at the blog. I guess the idea of two posts a month did not work out that well in February. And I have started a new professional project that keeps me away from many things I should be doing, like my weekly yoga (I still do Priscilla, but just 3 days a week), even mediation, when I finally had found a program I was really enjoying (and had paid for!). I feel a bit like the picture on the left, a bit bare from the winter, with ugly piles of snow that I need to get rid of, but there is still a bright, big, beautiful sun above and I need to concentrate on that. So, this will be a brief post, but I just needed to be here again. And what I most needed was a Pep talk and, as always, one found me, for within the mostly seriousness of TED talks, this was also there. I'm sure many of you have already seen this kid and, if you haven't, you need to watch this clip (less than 3:30 minutes). He is cute, funny, clever, sweet. And, in real life, this 9 year old boy actually suffers from Osteogenesis imperfecta, or Brittle Bone disease, and has already broken his bones more than 70 times. But that doesn't stop him from doing his favorite activity, dancing, and he encourages us all to do the same, among many other awesome things, like he says.
Please, watch it and smile with me.



These are my favorite quotes from it, with my comments:

• And if life is a game aren’t we all on the same team?. Yeah, really, what's wrong with us, people.
• This is life people, you got air coming through your nose, you got a heartbeat. That means it’s time to do something. It's true, we all can do something. I can write a blog that makes me happy, can't I?
• But what if there really were two paths. I want the one that leads to awesome. Me too. Even though sometimes that's just so hard, because we don't believe that we are enough.
• If we can make everyday better for each other, if we’re all in the same team, lets start acting like it. 

And this week, I was also inspired by this blog post by Seth Godin, You already have permission.

Just saying.
You have permission to create, to speak up, and stand up.
You have permission to be generous, to fail, and to be vulnerable.
You have permission to own your words, to matter and to help.
No need to wait.

So, people, like Kid President says, you've just been pep talked. Now, go do something. :)

Let me know if you liked it. And feel free to give me a pep talk anytime. I tend to always need one.

Tip #54: Write letters (to strangers)

So, I have to say that I both miss writing a weekly post and enjoy the free time I now have on Sundays. I am then working on how to balance those two things. But it's a funny thing to observe that the deadlines I set up for myself do work, and procrastination is always at hand and thus, I said I would write two posts a month and here we are, the last day of the month, inching up to the last minutes before the (fictional / personal / why important) deadline expires.

In the meantime, I just saw this talk and I felt that it could really become a great tip. It has the added advantage that it is a short one to watch, just under 5 minutes. I found out about it in this  teaching blog (if you teach languages, that's one of my favorites). Hanna Brencher is a young woman who has battled depression in her life. When she was in college, her mother used to write her letters (not e-mails or texts) and she felt that those letters always comforted her. She decided one day to start writing nice, cheerful, kind letters to strangers and she just would leave them everywhere, in libraries, coffee shops, the subway. She wrote about it in her blog and two things happened: one, she started feeling much better, as she discovered a purpose in her life which gave her immense joy; and two, people started asking for letters, mostly for others, sometimes for themselves. From that, the wonderful webpage More Love Letters was born. In there, you can ask for requests of a letter or a bundle of letters for you or someone else, or you can volunteer to write these love letters to strangers.
Here's her talk (with subtitles for my family.-NOTE, if you get this in an e-mail you may not see the talk. Just go click on the title to go to the page).

I'm not sure whether I will actually do this tip myself or not. Maybe I will. But I was inspired by it because I think she is making connections which are so crucial to our well being. And I was also reading this week about a study which shows that giving time, gives you time.  This is what they observed:

"We compared spending time on other people with wasting time, spending time on oneself, and even gaining a windfall of “free” time, and we found that spending time on others increases one’s feeling of time affluence."

I think I may start by writing love letters to people I know, like the suggestion of "Charge your battery" in Tip #52. I have to say, I've been getting some of those lately and it does feel amazing to be on the recipient side. On a silly note, I have found a  "machine" version of the love letters. It's an app for the iPhone called At-a-boy, which was developed by Dan Ariely, a researcher in behavioral economics. The app gives you a compliment (which has been submitted by people - so it's not totally machine-like) every time you open it. Ariely says that we humans are not only affected by negative comments, but also by positive ones, and I have to say it is true. It's one of my favorite apps. I love to get those compliments, every single time.

Have you ever thought about writing to strangers? Would you do it? Let me know!

Is there scientific proof that we can heal ourselves? Lissa Rankin

So, as it tends to happen, life got in the way this past week and I decided to change the topic for this post. I will leave Shawn Achor and his positive ideas for the next one.

Lissa Rankin is a doctor (gynecologist) who is now researching the topic of spontaneous remissions. Next May her book Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof You Can Heal Yourself will be published and I, personally, cannot wait. In this TEDx Talk she gives us a preview of what that book will be. She talks about the placebo effect, which we are all familiar with. How is it possible that a percentage of people do get better with just a placebo pill? But she also talks about the "nocebo" effect, which is getting worse when you expect something will hurt you in some way. In this article from the NYT (Beware the Nocebo Effect) we see how when patients expect side effects, sometimes they do get them, even in the cases in which they are not taking the actual pill, but the placebo. But this nocebo effect can also happen to patients taking the real medications, particularly if the doctor points those side effects to you. In the talk, Lissa Rankin does end up by mentioning that patients do believe their doctors, so doctors have to be very mindful of how they present the news to them.

I think it is not only what doctors tell us, but the stories we tell ourselves, which are important to our recovery (or our health in general, or even our happiness). There is one experiment in which a teacher (Jane Elliot) in order to teach how discrimination felt, separated her class into blue-eyed kids (who were treated as superior) and brown-eyed kids (or inferior) (She later also reversed them). Many (awful) things happened during the event, but one of them was that the "superior" kids performed much better than expected for their age in academic task, while the "inferior" group did the opposite. If we tell ourselves (or society tells us) that we are dumb, we will be dumb and vice versa.

And this week I got another reminder of the importance of what we tell ourselves. In the online group to which I belong (I've talked about them before) which is made up of incredible brave and wonderful women, we lost two members recently. And this what follows is just my opinion, but, with one them, I do feel that maybe her life was cut a bit short because of what she said to herself. She had the BRCA gene, which predisposes you to have breast cancer. And, in one conversation we had many months before she passed, she mentioned how other women in her family who had died from the disease had never lived more than 63 years. I never thought anything about this comment, until her death. I actually thought she was already older than that, but then I read that she had just turned 63.
The other story I think is the opposite effect. This young, beautiful woman who just left us last week, had a very aggressive form of cancer, but she was really dedicated to her young boys. This summer she decided to do a cross country trip with them but had to cut it short as she was rushed to the hospital a couple of times. She commented to the group how one of the doctors that saw her (who didn't know her) was shocked she was traveling at all. This doctor was brutal and almost mean and told her basically you should just go home to die. But she didn't listen. As she kept getting worse, she mentioned to us around November (maybe even October), that she wanted to spend one more Christmas with her family and also see The Hobbit with them (she was a Lord of the Rings follower). She had her Christmas and went to the movie theater, in a lot of pain, December 28th. She died 10 days later. She died when she said she was going to die.

And, as I'm crying now remembering these two friends that are now angels, let me leave you with this very hopeful talk.

Just remember that what you say to yourself really makes a difference.

Do you have any other examples?

My plan for 2013

So, this is my first post for 2013 and here's my plan for the year. Instead of tips, I would like to write about TED Talks that I have found inspiring in some way. Last year I wanted to watch one every day (that was one of my resolutions for 2012), but that didn't last too long. Still, I was able to see many talks that I really felt were important and should be shared. I know that actually, TED Talks have become so popular that now you can find them in many, many other spaces, where you can also discuss them. Here are some:

• Five TEDtalks recommended by The New Yorker
• Huffington Post TED Weekends
• Playlists by famous people (including Bill Gates, Bono, Ben Affleck and many others)
• The official list of most viewed talks

One of the things I definitely learned last year with my series of tips is that you become a more positive person if you are surrounded by positive experiences. Writing the tips was very positive and beneficial for me. Watching these talks has the same effect, and by writing about them I can compound the effect, particularly with the addition of your feedback. I tend to find interesting talks through Twitter and also in my iPad or iPhone app, as it has a menu for recent talks as well as one for popular ones.

Of course, I will center myself on talks that have to do mostly with health or happiness, to follow the theme of my blog. I find that these topics are of interest to a majority of people, so not surprisingly, many talks do touch on those topics.

Here's a list of talks I have already covered in previous posts:

• Ron Gutman: The hidden power of smiling. (Tip #3: Smile)
• Ramona Pierson: An unexpected place of healing. (Tip #10: Always have hope)
• Laura Carstensen: Older people are happier (Tip #17: Change your perception)
• Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter. (Tip #20: Add a bit of poetry) 
• Angela Maiers: The you matter manifesto. (Tip #35: Remember that YOU MATTER)
• Paul Stamets: Is the world ready for a medical mushroom mystery tour? (Tip #49: Eat more mushrooms)

This year, I will write every other Sunday. I do feel I need to spend a bit more time with my family and doing other things (my other blog, the one I'm supposed to really be working on, is really not thriving). And 26 Ted Talks is probably more than enough! For next week, I would like to talk about Shawn Achor's talk "The happy secret to better work," as I have also mentioned him recently in my tips (and it is truly one of my favorites).

I still may write more tips too, as there are some that I certainly think I need to investigate for myself, like the role of nature on our well being, or acceptance (and resistance), and definitely would love to write one tip titled "be yourself" but I want to practice that one myself first :)

Well, what do you think? Would you like to come on board with this adventure? Do you have any talks that you would like to discuss?

As always, I love to hear your comments.

Tip #53: Write a blog!

Well, here we are. I did get to a year of tips! I know it's such a cliche, time flies, but it's true. I'm amazed a whole year has gone by so extremely fast, but I'm even more surprised by the fact that I have been able to keep up with my weekly tips. It's been an incredible experience in many ways, much more fulfilling than I expected, and thus, for my final blog post of the year, I'm encouraging you to also write your own blogs as a mean to achieve happiness. From this experience, and the things I have read, I do think this makes a lot of sense. 

As I have already said in previous tips, a blog is a way to leave something behind. You can make a private blog at first, which can be like a journal, but later, with time, you may see that other people can benefit from it and it's all ready to go. 

It can also be a part of a healthy challenge, which is what it was for me with the weekly deadline that I imposed on myself. I have to say, sometimes this deadline was hard. I remember one week when I just felt a bit stressed with everything and decided to not post something. As I was talking about it, my 15 year old son said in a shocked tone: "What? You HAVE to write the tip!" That really was enough motivation for me! And the thing is, you don't know how absolutely excited I am today for so many reasons (of course, number one being that I have been able to stay healthy the whole year), but having being able to meet my own imposed challenge is amazingly rewarding.

It is definitely a way to connect and learn from others. I have heard from friends far away (as far a Indonesia!) and friends very close by, who I feel are much more connected to me now because of the blog. I have enjoyed their comments, their suggestions and I have also learned immensely from them. And, mostly, I have felt their love. This is kind of strange, but some Mondays I would feel a curious wave of love inside me and I always thought that it just meant that someone was reading my blog. It doesn't even matter if it's true, as I derived a great benefit from it. But, what it is definitely a fact is that social connections are the number one mark for longevity (people without them live much less), and I have discovered that a blog is another great way to increase them.

But, I think the number one reason why I feel that everyone should write a blog is because you matter. Your story can help me, just like my story has helped you. We ALL have something valuable to give. I know many of you, so I know this is an indisputable fact. If you are creating your business, don't you think that there are many people who can learn from your struggle? If you are a teacher, don't you learn from a other teachers? Then, what you do in your class can definitely help me as well. You know, I never thought people would be interested in reading about  mushrooms, for example, but I got many great comments to that post and I realized maybe it was just a good reminder for my friends to add something healthy easily to their menus.

I also think it has been therapeutic for me, and although I really cannot explain why, I think it can help anyone else as well. Some of the people who sometimes read this blog have great blogs already (Forthcoming and La Mia Famiglia are just two examples), but I know many of you still feel a bit scared of technology. I have to say that Blogger is a rather easy platform to use (although the comment section is a bit unstable). Here's a tutorial. I know it can be daunting, but it's just a matter of doing it (like most things in life). It really can be a fun project and it is a way to be creative, which is also so important for health and happiness.

Well, I hope you consider the idea. There are other ways to share, like social media platforms, or even journals that you can pass on. Let me know if you have more ideas.

And I also wanted to finish this year with a shout out to my husband, Shawn, as tomorrow is our 20th wedding anniversary. I feel extremely thankful that I have such a great partner in crime and that I am here to celebrate it!

 

I don't think I'm going to write any more tips for now, but I definitely have something planned for this blog for 2013. I'll explain next Sunday!

Please, let me know if you already have blogs of your own. I want to read them!

As always, thank you for having made this an incredible year.

Tip #52: Start with happiness

I recently recorded a PBS special called The Happiness Advantage with Shawn Achor. I had already seen a TED Talk of him (see Tip #19: Nourish your Friendships), so I decided to watch the episode and see what else I could learn. Well, although some of the things mentioned I (we) already knew, I still enjoyed hearing about many fascinating experiments that prove his theory, which is this: We don't have to seek happiness (in things, events, like "I"ll be happy when I retire") but we have to START with happiness. Or:

Be successful --> Be happy (WRONG)
Be happy --> Be successful (RIGHT)

But I want to write here about the exercises he recommends to be able to achieve that goal, so that we can rewire the brain in such a way that we start from a place of happiness when dealing with life. Because, according to him, this is possible even if you consider yourself an incorrigible pessimist. So, here we go. There are five exercises we can do. We have to choose only one of these, but do it for 21 days in a row.

1. Three Gratitudes: Say or write three things that you are grateful for in the last 24 hour period. Try to be specific and say different things each day if possible.
2. The doubler: Write for two minutes about a meaningful experience that you have had in your life. According to him, when we have this kind of experience, our brain gets already rewired but when we think about it, the same areas of the brain also get engaged, so we get double the effect.
3. Fun Fifteen: Do a fun activity which involves movement for 15 minutes. He mentioned that this type of activity makes you feel so good about yourself that it leads you to do improvements in other areas as well (something he calls a cascade of success).
4. Ripple effect: Add 3 smiles to your day, but to moments where you normally would not smile. The name of the activity comes from the fact that when you smile, people around you tend to smile too, and thus, everyone is happier. And if you cannot smile, put a pencil in your mouth as the men in my life demonstrate in the picture. You may not look happier, but you are actually releasing dopamine by doing it (and getting happier, whether you want it or not). He wisely suggests throwing a pencil at your spouse when you are having an argument. I'm keeping a pencil near by. :)
5. Charge your battery: For this one, you have to spend two minutes writing a meaningful e-mail to someone in your life, a different person every day, telling them why they mattered to you. And the theory behind this one is that having many meaningful social connections is a more important factor to your longevity than, for example, smoking.So, you strengthen those connections with your e-mails but also feel really good when you do something like that.

What I liked about the talk is that many of these I have more or less adopted already, although I definitely do not do them often enough, so he did inspire me to try to do a specific one for three weeks, treat it like an experiment and see what happens.

So, what do you all think? Do you want to join me in this? Should we do another Google Doc? Let me know!

Happy Holidays!!

Thank you for always being there for me.

Without a doubt, I have the best audience in the world.