Tag Archive for 'Health'
Toastmasters is a very positive organisation that provides a supportive learning environment for learning public speaking, communication and leadership skills in a low-risk format. The types of people who are attracted to join and stay in Toastmasters are very positive and sharing.
In this facilitated discussion with a group from one of China’s highest quality club - Shanghai Leadership Toastmasters Club - we talked about ways to use the skills used in Toastmasters and apply them in other areas of our life, such as health, wealth and contribution.
The principle is based on leveraging the activities that you spend the most time on. The more applications you can find for a given skill, the higher your ROTI (return on time invested) will be.
You can link to my Toastmasters page here. Or you can download the audio file directly here. (MP3, 18.3MB)
Well it’s been about two months since I started the long road to fitness. Joining a gym really helped and I have been averaging about 15 sessions a month. The last month have been tough with many “brick” sessions of back to back cycling and running. This prepares the muscles to race tired - which is very important in triathlons.
Honestly, my body is feeling pretty exhausted. I gave myself a day off on Saturday to rest and sleep up. It was a big help. Although I do not have any aches and pains due my slow build up of exercise, I did not realise how much the brick session drained me. Doing a run only yesterday felt so good!
With 7 days before the race, I am only doing a few gentle workouts with a couple of swims thrown in. I will also carb-up during the week on pasta. Although I am not a nutritionist and there are many schools of thought on endurance diets, there is something reassuring about bowls of pasta. My goal for this race, as it’s my first of the season, is to get through safely and in a reasonable time (around 3 hours). With the other four to five races planned through the summer, I will look to drop some weight and that will probably mean a more protein based diet.
Once again during this process of change, I am surprised at how easy it is to achieve a consistent change when there is a fixed target in mind. I wonder why I can’t keep this going throughout the year. Certainly, I have to put aside the excuses of busy travel schedules and packed work calendars. Even though I spent last week in rural parts of China at a friend’s wedding, I still squeezed in several treadmill runs between the continuous banqueting.
I am looking forward to this first race, and see it as the first step in my continued journey towards better health. And perhaps to a faster race time of 2hours 45 minutes!
I revived my exercise program about one month ago and I have been consistently taking small steps on my running. In this time, I have had 23 exercise slots. I started by just walking, then added in a minute or two of running, and now am moving into my run/walk program. I do a 5 minute warm-up and 5 minute warm-down and now I am doing a 4 minute run / 1 minute walk module. This means that I run for 4 minutes, then walk for 1 minute. So I am running about 50% of the total time of my work out (including the warm ups and downs).
As I use a treadmill, I can work with speeds and heartrate to guide my progress. Currently I run between 9.0km/hr and 7.0km / hr. At the same time I observe my heartrate. It is currently within 50-60% of my maximum heart rate which is acceptable for base training. I talk about how to calculate your maximum heart rate here.
So now that I am building up my time running, I adjust total work-out time (20-35 mins), speed while running (my target is 10km/hr) and my heartrate (so I can do more exercise with less exertion). The biggest lesson here is that small and consistent is the only way to build up a healthy fitness level.
I also have a target for my first triathlon of the year: an Olympic distance in Suixian in Henan province in China. Here’s to a healthy year for you and your family.
I have committed myself to increasing my health and fitness levels and one key pillar is my gym work. Although this was a struggle, I have started my program.
Of course, now I have lots of excuses like a busy schedule, the need to get out of the city, keep my businesses running, get involved in my improv club and Toastmasters. So what can you do when you have an important goal to reach, have got off to a good start and want to keep it going?
One key tool you can use is to find “pockets” of time in your day. The trick here is not to get too rigid or fixed in your approach. For example, if you say you will get up early each day to go for a jog and you struggle for a few days to arise at 6am, then stop. Look through your schedule for this week, and identify the times of the day that you will be able to slot in an hour of exercise. While it’s better to be up at 6am running around the park, it’s even better to complete your exercise targets at any time of the day.
I got stuck in this position for a while because I prefer to run in the morning. My local gym does not open until 10am, and I am often out late at speaking events, so the late opening hours didn’t always help. By being a little more flexible and realising that I needed no more than one hour from door-to-door for each session, I was able to find pockets of time. Sometimes late morning, sometimes lunch and occasionally in the evening.
Be open to adapt your time to your important goals. With 16 hours a day, find one hour to dedicate to taking your dreams further to realisation. Good luck!
For as long as I can remember, I have hated gyms. As a nature lover, they stand for all the things I don’t value. Indoor life. Stuffy. Repetitive, loud music. I have never joined a gym and the only time I visit one is when I am traveling and I visit the hotel fitness center.
I just bought a gym card. Interested to how why? Why I would change my deep seated aversion to gyms? In a nutshell, it’s because this attitude wasn’t serving me anymore.
I recently moved to the suburbs of Shanghai. My preferred exercise is swimming but there are no pools nearby and although it’s outside the city center, the roads are not that great for cycling and I am still aware to avoid pollution (which brought on an asthma attack last year). I actually have a negative mindset about running to go along with my anti-gym attitude so I rarely jog outside anyway.
I have a target of competing in a couple of triathlons this year and want to beat my personal best. My target is to finish between 2 hours 30 minutes and 2 hours 51 minutes. When I looked at my resources, I found that with no pool, a busy work schedule and not much training, I had a perfect combination of excuses. I enjoyed this for a few weeks after moving, but finally got irritated enough with this inertia and still wanting to pursue my goal of completing up to 5 triathlons this year, that I had to revisit my two beliefs: I don’t like (and am not good at) running and I don’t go to gyms.
Just two minutes from my apartment is a gym equipped with the latest treadmill and cycling equipment. There is even an outside pool which opens in the summer. I challenged my previous beliefs. I set up a time to visit the facilities and - to be honest- they have some nice kit. I decide to sign up for a membership when I realised that this was the only chance for me to pursue regular exercise - essential for a healthy triathlon finish.
In a recent trip to Beijing, I also realised the benefits of combining running with treadmills. Technology is way cool. You can measure speed, heart rate and calories burned which are all useful to gradually increasing fitness. I want to avoid exercising too much too soon.
I worked out my maximum heart rate here. Importantly, I can also find out that as a beginner ( I have been inactive for way too long to have any base fitness) I should only exert my heart to 50-60% of its maximum. So now I have a heart rate target. When I am on the treadmill I can set a 30 minute jog to take me no higher than the heart rate I punch in. This helps me exercise in a very precise way that helps me bring my body up to higher levels of fitness in a sustainable way.
By opening myself up to challenge an old belief that it not serving me anymore, I realised that I could now exercise more sustainably and scientifically. Which is good because it means I can now accurately predict my times for the run section (and the cycle section when I get onto the gym bikes).
Most of all, I now have no excuse not to exercise as the gym is a couple of minutes walk away from my door. Also, a motivator for me, is that now I have paid money for the membership, I will want to make sure I can get a good return on my investment. Already this week I have started with some gentle fast walks (I record all the measurements) and can now plan an exercise program to support my goal of competing in more triathlons. Just one week ago, I really couldn’t see what I could do. But the fog has now lifted.
What belief or habit do you have that no longer serves you? They might be holding you back from living with abundance and achieving all your goals and dreaming. If you need support by working with a coach, contact me.
Even the most successful people get stuck in a rut. Your motivation and energy levels drop. You allow negative emotions to seep into your life. Your temper becomes shorter. You can’t see the point of life. And so on.
So what can you do to get out of your rut?
The key to making a change in your life is.. to make a change in your life. Break your routine. Take a new route to work in the morning. Travel on the subway or take a taxi if you usually drive. Do something different. Take a walk after work instead of going to the bar. Take the family out to dinner if you usually eat at home. Buy your loved one a small gift. The purpose here is to break the routine, the monotony of your current routine which is not serving you.
Speed up or slow down. If you are slipping into a depressed state of mind, you may notice that your energy levels drop. You watch TV more, you go to bed earlier and sleep longer. Speed things up. Take some exercise in the morning or after work. Have 15 minute bursts of activity around the house - perhaps clean up a pile of papers, sort through old magazines or clean the garage.
If you are feeling burned out, slow down. Spend 10 minutes each day in silence. Pray or meditate or simply think about your goals. Reduce your inputs. Turn your mobile phone to vibrate and turn off your computer’s email alert. Put your calls through to voice mail. Insert these 10 minute breaks into your day until you feel calmer and more in control.
Start with your head. Dream about a wonderful place you would like to be now. Fill your mind with these beautiful images rather than negative emotions. Take out your year planner and pencil in a get-away week where you will be able to take a full break to recharge, rest and recover. By creating this destination, you have made a roadmap for yourself and given yourself a way to get out of your current rut.
Getting stuck in a rut is only a temporary blip for a Change Catalyst. Keep future and goal focused and progress- however small - will start to move you forward. I am available to coach you through life’s obstacles. Contact me whenever you help out of your rut.
In a world of stress and pressure, it’s important to find a healthy release. For me, it’s stand up comedy. I love stand up. Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, Mitch Hedberg, Russell Peters, Dave Chappelle are some of my favorites. Go and check out YouTube for great stand up.
For the last couple of years, I have been the host in Shanghai for ChopSchticks - founded by Richard Robinson in the late 90s - and have been lucky to see first hand how stand up comedians operate and what motivates them. My admiration for stand up has increased. It’s not just about the jokes. The best ones know how to adapt to an audience. The headline acts can turn around even a quiet night and get people rolling with laughter. The main skills is the timing of delivery. The punchline or punch word need to be done precisely. It is an art.
I recommend you go visit a comedy club at least once every couple of months. Laughing for an hour is really good for you. If you are in China come to ChopSchticks. Check out the web site here.
Ever feel annoyed, depressed, down with the world, lazy, or just lacking in energy? Chances are - in my non-medical opinion - you could do with a little more exercise. I find that whenever I let the world to get down on me, I realize that it’s been a couple of weeks since I had a good swim or cycle.
So set some health targets. Easy to set, hard to carry-out! It’s easy to say I will exercise three times a week, but why do we get so easily distracted? Very few people regularly exercise three times a week for a minimum amount of 20 minutes of aerobic exercise. But this is often cited as a minimum of exercise to keep healthy. I tried this way and it didn’t work for me. So I use a different approach - it’s more fun and has a higher chance of keeping me on track and motivated.
Set output targets (not activity targets)
The big flaw with most “x-times per week” exercise programs is that they are activity-focused and this - while being a good way to exercise - is not particularly motivating. Perhaps this explains why the vast majority of people who take out gym memberships (often in January) never go after month three. Repetitive tasks in a gym is just too boring. There are a few ways around this. One of my friends hired a physical coach to motivate her with new challenges and this can work for the duration of the coaching. I prefer an output based approach to exercise. My health goals are based around triathlon races. This year I have a target to complete four Olympic distance races from May to September. Having these races in my calendar, gives me clear targets for my exercise schedule. I know that 12 weeks out I need to be doing regular exercise and this provides me with the motivation to time block exercise into my calendar.
Set a range of performance targets
Even though I am an age-grouper (amateur) triathlete I still set a range of targets for myself. When I started out two years ago there were:
1. To finish healthy
2. To finish ahead of my training partner
3. To finish in a “good time”
4. To finish in a personal best.
It’s always my primary goal to finish healthy. I cannot afford to be in hospital on a drip for a couple of days after the race - mainly because I hate hospitals and wasting time!
If I feel good about my performance during the race, I may look out for my training partners and want to finish ahead of them. If things are really good and I feel good on the run section then I may push the run and finish in style and seek out a personal best. But simply finishing healthy is a victory. Set yourself a range of health goals that allow you to be successful across the full range. When I finished a half Ironman distance race in Hainan in 2008, it was in a much slower time than I had expected due to the blistering heat. But just to finish that race, in which many professional athletes had dropped out, was an achievement in itself.
Have fun with a group
The final tip is to join a group of people who also share the same love. Whether it’s a dancing group, the swimming or cycling club, you will draw a lot of motivation from the fact that you are surrounded by people with similar interests. Use the best performing people in these groups to spur you on. Have fun, but certainly, have some health goals this year.
Listened to a speech by Daniel Smith this week and he mentioned a question that I wrote down. It was an abstract, big picture question. At first I passed over it as it seemed too vague to be useful, but then I realized that the answer to this question was an important reality check on whether my own life journey was heading in the right direction. The question was:
In the next 15 years what will you do to make the world a better place?
The lens that I look at the world comes under three categories: health, wealth and contribution (in that order). I asked myself would the vision I have for my own dreams actually make the world a better place.
Health
Health is always number one on my list of goals. Without good physical health you limit your energy and potential to live a dynamic life. Whether you like sports, going to the gym, hiking or endurance events, all these are key to making the world a better place. People who exercise believe in self-improvement and are often competitive. I think it’s a real shame that some schools forbid sports day on the grounds that some of the children will lose. This is teaching children something terrible because like it or not the world is a very competitive place and whatever your chosen field you need to be competitive- whether you are stock trading or raising funds for a community project. Being competitive means always improving. Sports teaches this to children in a fun way. Even if you lose today, you can come back tomorrow, train harder and have a chance the next week to compete and win. That is much closer to a winning life philosophy.
During the next 15 years I intend to continue my participation in triathlon races around the world in beautiful locations like Lombok, Thailand, Malaysia. I also will return to another love - scuba diving. This leads onto an important part of outdoors sports, the environment. I am more aware of the importance of maintaining a balanced ecosystem. As I become more involved in these sports over time I will direct my efforts to support efforts that are working to educate people about how to be a responsible tourist.
Good health will keep my energy high, allow me to share my talents and increase my awareness for how I can contribute to keeping nature beautiful. What are your health goals and dreams? How do they help the world around you to become a better place.
Wealth
Many people still have a negative mindset towards money and wealth. Growing up an Irish Catholic we were taught: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24). Which is not exactly an resounding endorsement for wealth creation!
Media sensationalizes wealthy people by focusing on their material possessions, wild and debauched lifestyles and other trivial parts of an abundant lifestyle. But wealth is more than that. Wealth creation is a important part of my philosophy of an abundant life. It says that I am responsible for my own wealth, I have the power to influence and there is absolutely unlimited “wealth” in the world. Having wealth is about having more opportunities to live a life of purpose, passion and sharing.
In 15 years I will have a successful publishing company which spreads important skills around the world to millions of people. Education is a key value for me. I went to a great school on a scholarship and I want to share that opportunity with children and adults everywhere in the world. Educating yourself is an important step to freedom. Wealth creation is the result of that process.
How much wealth do you wish to create in the next 15 years? How will you create it? Will you exchange your time for money? Will you build a business? Are you an avid investor. Allow yourself to imagine how you will use this wealth to create a wonderful life for yourself, your friends and your family. Because once you have a healthy life and you have created wealth, the third part is the most rewarding: contribution.
Contribution
Sharing my talents with the world is my main life purpose. In many ways, I see this as the main life purpose for us all. We all have abilities which other people can benefit from. By maximizing our ability to share them with the world is the journey I believe we are all on. Consider the people we admire. Don’t we admire the fact that they have the ability to influence and contribute to others, more than just their singular abilities. I like Michael Phelps more for his grounded approach to life than for his freakish talent. When he has stopped swimming this attitude will take him further even than his amazing sports achievements. Even if you are the smartest person in the world, this talent is only as good as your ability to share it with other people. Is this perhaps why the most intelligent people around us are never the highest paid? They believe that their internal talent is enough to take them to the top, whereas the less-gifted among us realize that it is only the ability to connect, support, share and build relationships that will help them rise above the more intelligent.
I founded my business on the principle of giving. We have supported Love without Boundaries since 2005 and now my new book has connected with The Library Project to ensure that enlightened self interest will also educate orphans in the rural parts of China. As my wealth grows, so does my ability to contribute. I read Randy Gage’s newsletter this week and he is very direct about his enjoyment of the material parts of life. He talked about buying USD10,000 pairs of shoes and USD250,000 cars. And if this makes you uncomfortable ask yourself why. He also contributed US300,000 to charities. That doesn’t mean he is a saint but isn’t that a tremendous way to live. To have the options to contribute massively to the worthy causes that turn you on.
How will you turn your health and wealth into contribution. What causes do you stand for? Education is my main cause but what’s yours? How are you going to continue your expanding contribution as you become wealthier? Feels good just thinking about it, doesn’t it?
Spend a few minutes today and write down some big, big dreams about how your dream health, wealth and contribution goals will help the world become a better place in the next 15 years. If your read your goals and they seem unbelievable, then great because no one has done anything of note that didn’t first sound unbelievable to themselves. Keep the picture in your mind and keep believing. Have a great week!
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