Mindfulness Mondays 14: Attitude
August 31, 2009 by dr. lam · 12 Comments
After returning from Europe recently in July, I spent a day in New York City to attend my baby niece Bailey’s baptism and was prepared to fly back that night to Dallas. We waited on the tarmac for 4 hours because of simultaneously bad weather in New York and in Dallas. The captain told us that if we did not take off within 20 minutes, the flight would be cancelled and we would return to the gate. About 5 minutes before the expiration of our deadline, we started to push off ever so slowly and continued to do this routine for about 10 minutes until I could see from a distance that our gate was approaching us. Of course, shortly thereafter, the captain announces, “I’m sorry to report but weather patterns have changed again and we have been asked to return to the gate. The flight has been canceled.”
I would be lying if I said that I was not disappointed at seeing our gate appear in the distance and the captain’s announcement, but I can say that I did not raise my temper or become startled. The gentleman in front of me stood up, raised his voice at the flight attendant, and when the captain’s door opened, assailed him with further verbal abuse at his lack of communication during our extended interval on the runway. We were compelled to rebook flights, pay full price for transit and hotels, and subject my staff to near chaos to reschedule my patients the following day, two of whom were coming from out of state for my services. We finally took off the following day on a Monday in the afternoon after another 2-hour delay from scheduled flight time.
As you have heard in a previous blog, Viktor Frankl, the survivor of Nazi concentration camps, has said that when all freedoms are taken from you, you have only one freedom left, the freedom of attitude. That variable we can control. It has also been said that when adversity strikes us, it is our attitude that dictates our emotions and how well we can cope with the situation. When we become frazzled, so does everyone else around us. It brings everyone down. When we have a difficult situation, our anxiety is only heightened when we respond with trepidation. Instead, when we look at that situation with resolute calm, we can actually train ourselves to be even calmer in the next situation. We can continue to improve our attitude, when in my case I could not change the latitude.
This week, when you encounter seeming adversity from a coworker, friend, loved one, acquaintance, work or personal situation, past circumstance, future obstacle, or anything that would otherwise perturb you, CHOOSE YOUR ATTITUDE. Choose freedom from the shackles that would bind everyone around you and provide the needed calm and escape your self-imposed prison.
How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins Part 1 of 6: Introduction
August 28, 2009 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
I love Jim Collins. His first two books Built to Last and Good to Great have been inspirational sources for much of my business and which I have referenced in my talks on leadership. Accordingly, I quickly bought his newest book, How the Might Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In, a worthy sequel to his more positively bent monographs. I always get something out of reading Collins, and I look forward very much to a 4-hour lecture that I am attending in Dallas that Collins is giving for my Entrepreneur’s Organization this coming October.
This blog is not going to talk about his book but about the man. I read a fascinating article on Mr. Collins on the May 24, 2009 edition of the New York Times about how Collins conducts his business practices. He spends 53% of the time being creative, 28% of the time teaching, and the remaining time of 19% he allocates toward other pursuits to get the job done. In fact, he is relentless with his time mangement, keeping a stopwatch to make sure that he lives up to his word of how he budgets his time. He commands a whopping $65,000 per lecture but consciously limits his speaking engagements to only 18 per year (hence I am quite fortunate to hear him talk this year).
What I got out of this article was that Collins at 51 is on a relentless pursuit of self improvement and nurturing his business through creativity, pushing away lucrative speaking engagements that compromise his vision. Collins’ guru is the famed Peter F. Drucker. To quote the New York Times: “Do you want to build ideas first and foremost?” he recalls Mr. Drucker asking him, trying to capture his mentor’s Austrian accent. “Zen you must not build a big organization, because zen you will end up managing zat organization.” Therefore, in Jim Collins’s world, small is beautiful.
I also like Collins’ commitment to creativity, to push and to contribute to society. I really like the relentless pursuit of being better, thinking better, and ultimately contributing to society — a lesson that we all can learn. I hope you all can learn as much as I have from Mr. Collins in the coming blogs.
In Defense of Food Part 10 of 10: Eat Less
August 27, 2009 by dr. lam · 10 Comments
What I found enlightening was the reason Pollan proposes to eat less. It has been found that individuals who eat less also tend to have less risk of heart disease, cancer, and aging. By eating a lot in a gluttonous fashion, we encourage our cells to enter a state of unbridled replication that in turn can accelerate our aging.
The French Paradox of eating saturated fats and drinking wine without the risk of heart disease found in America may not be related to the polyphenols in red wine or some other mystical factor. Instead, it might be related to how the French eat. Most French take their time to eat. They eat far smaller amounts than we Americans do, and they hold a taboo about eating seconds. They also do not snack; whereas Americans are chained to a lifeline of endless drinks and food on their desk at work and at home near the television.
Americans stop eating when the plate is empty or when the television program is over, which are external cues. Interestingly, the French respond that they stop eating when “I am full”, an internal cue. Not very complex on that one. The reason the French can eat smaller portions and be full than their American counterparts has to do with the speed of their eating. It has been known that it takes 20 minutes for the brain to realize you are full. Unfortunately, most American meals are well over by that time interval. If you slow down your meal, you will eat less.
Further, the French have built a culture around eating at the table. Americans today do not prepare meals but shovel them. The Normal Rockwall painting of the family dinner is now splintered into the kids eating a different meal from the parents at a different time at a different location while doing different other activities. The cohesive social element of food in the American family has been torn asunder.
I hope all of you have learned as much as I have from this fantastic book, In Defense of Food. It has changed the way I think about food and nutrition, and it has facilitated a revolution in my own life, as much as my recent trip to Europe has reinforced these concepts.
In Defense of Food Part 9 of 10: The Rules
August 26, 2009 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
Concluding In Defense of Food, Pollan outlines general guidelines for a prospective shopper of food to stay out of the treacherous waters he has discussed earlier in the book. He cites the principle problem is that Americans are eating faster, cheaper, and more prepared foods than most other countries. In the past, Americans would eat less processed foods that were more expensive and that actually required time to prepare. Here are some of his guidelines:
- Don’t eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize.
- Don’t eat anything on the label that you cannot pronounce or cannot recognize, especially anything with high-fructose corn syrup.
- Avoid food that makes health claims.
- Stay away from the center of the grocery store (where processed food reigns) and circumscribe the periphery (where fresher food flourishes but still can be invaded by refined foods today.)
- Better yet stay away from grocery stores, and go to farmer’s markets or be involved with community-supported agriculture (CSA).
- Eat more leafy plants.
- Eat well-grown food from healthy soils. Pollan argues that the word “organic” is important in that the food was not subjected to chemical fertilizers, but it is not the last word on quality. Organic oreos are not healthy, and some farmers who are not certified organic still grow exceptional food. In Omnivore’s Dilemma (which I shall be covering a couple of months from now), he goes into great detail of how a lot of organic food is truly not organic but a quasi “industrial organic” served up in reputable establishments like Whole Foods…frightening!.)
- Eat wild foods when you can like wild animals (which dine on leaves) and sturdier, wild plants that may have more nutritional value.
- Be the kind of person who takes supplements (not that you have to take supplements but just be in the mindset of those individuals who care enough that they would). Most nutrients should come from food but if you don’t eat a lot of fish consider taking fish oil capsules (see last Friday’s blog), or if you are getting older and need more to supplement your diet, then do so if need be.
- Eat more like the French, Italians, or traditional food cultures. This means as much of what we eat as how we eat it: slow, social, and relaxed.
- Have a glass of wine with dinner.
These are great rules to live by. Tomorrow we conclude our series on this wonderful, inspiring (and perspiring) book!
In Defense of Food Part 8 of 10: Food Ratios, Eat Less Meat and Eat Quality Meat
August 25, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
Sometimes it is not what we are eating that is bad but what we are eating that is shoving out what we are not that is the problem. Conventional wisdom today says, “Give me a big slab of meat and garnish it with a twig of vegetable on the side.” Some of the nitrosamines in the meat could lead to risks over the long haul (then again so can the mercury in fish), but also the absence of vegetables could be equally lethal. Perhaps we should challenge the Western concept of the large dead animal in the center of our plate with a side dish of some miniscule vegetable item.
Think about cutting down the dead animal portion (not necessarily getting rid of it unless you are already a vegetarian) and increasing our focus on vegetables. I myself am a big fan of the big dead animal in front of me and don’t quite feel it constitutes a meal unless I have that carcass in front of me. However, having finished my journeys through Europe and seeing a more egalitarian representation of food items, I am beginning to appreciate that we need to save room not for dessert but for green stuff in our bellies and perhaps make it the centerpiece of our meals.
It is not only important to cut down meat but to eat only quality meat. Meat that is fed grain instead of plant leaves has higher Omega 6s than Omega 3s, which as we discussed last Friday is bad for you. Cows were meant to eat grass as they are ruminators. Instead, man has forced cows to eat grain to get fatter faster at the expense of Omega 3s. Eating grains make a cow sick and therefore require antibiotics to keep them from getting sick. So it is not only important to eat quality animals but it is important what food your animal eats too. Pay more for pastured animals even chickens or other livestock. The more grass they eat the better it is for you. Obviously, eating organic products that are free from pesticides and other chemicals is very important too but hard to be certain if you are getting the real deal.
He encourages once you find great quality meat, get a deep freezer and keep it there. The elements of produce and meat do not get affected from freezing. That will help in the long run.
Interestingly, we can attain all the ingredients we need from plants without meat except for B12. But there is trace amounts of B12 in produce that also is manufactured from your own bacteria in your gut. Although great amounts of meat can lead to heart disease, a single serving a day has not been established to be detrimental to your health. If one does not want to get rid of meat from the diet, one does not need to do so. It is just important to eat better meat in smaller quantities with enough leafy plants along with that meat.