5 Things Successful People Do Before Breakfast

build-successBeing successful in life is more than just having a good career and money in the bank. Successful people have a higher quality of life and live happier, more fulfilled lives. Most people wish to be successful in life, but that can be easier said than done. It is a well known fact, however, that successful people do certain things differently than unsuccessful people.Here are five things successful people do before breakfast:

  1. Wake Early : Starting the day early, at 5:00 AM or 6:00 AM, is a habit successful people follow every day. While it is one of the greatest challenges you will face in your journey of self development, it is also one of the most rewarding. Waking early gives you time to start the day off right, taking time to get out of bed, shower, and embrace the day gradually, rather than rushing off to work at the last minute. Waking early also suggests that you are happy with your life and dedicated to personal growth.
  2. Exercise : Setting a goal of exercising multiple times a week makes it easy to say, “I will do it tomorrow.” Successful people exercise every morning. Start your day off with a relaxing, invigorating session of yoga or Pilates to ensure that you are ready to embrace success.
  3. Review And Rewrite Goals: Successful people are great at making and keeping goals. You should make an effort to read your list of long term and short term goals every day. Whether you have short term goals like keeping up with job performance, or long term goals like obtaining a degree from Sanford Brown, reviewing your goals can help keep you on track.
  4. Set A Mentality: Whether you choose to do so by listening to inspirational audio books or visualizing the day ahead, setting a mentality is an important part of a successful person’s day. Visualizing the day ahead can prepare your mind for the tasks and challenges of the day.
  5. Read The News: Successful people are people who have a good understanding of what’s happening in their community and the world around them. Not only does this prepare you for the day ahead, but it keeps you up to date so you can carry on a conversation about current events as well.Successful people do a lot of things before breakfast to help them stay on track with their goals.

By waking early, exercising, keeping your goals, setting a mentality, and reading the news, you, too, can be successful.

via 5 Things Successful People Do Before Breakfast | CAREEREALISM.

How To Best Track Your Exercise – Sports Tracker

sportstracker

We use FitBit in order to track our progress, but one of the things that FitBit does not do is track activity other than steps and floor climbs – in fact the next version of the FitBit tracker, the Flex, won’t even be able to track stairs, due to its wristband form factor. Having just bought a couple of new bikes in February, we wanted to track the number of calories burned by cycling into FitBit as well.

We are currently using the FitBit android app on our Galaxy S3s in order to view and track things, and have already purchased an Aria scale from them (review of the FitBit Aria coming soon) so we’ve bought into the FitBit thing. Unfortunately, the app doesn’t track calories or distance automatically either.

So we went on the lookout for tracking software. What we wanted was something that we could fire up before we starting biking, it would speed, time, calories burned, and then be able to log that. We tried Noom, which worked fine for a while, but had a lot of duplicate features to the FitBit App. Plus it was huge, taking up a lot of space on the phone. noom is a great app, and I would recommend it if you have no other trackers like FitBit or Jawbone Up.

Enter Sports Tracker. This app does exactly what we need it to do – you fire it up before you get on your bike, it will auto pause when you stop, and restart when you start moving again. When you are done it will record your workout. Unfortunately, there is currently no automated way to sync that data with FitBit, but its trivial from that point to just enter the calories burned into your FitBit app.,

So if you are looking for good, bare bones sports tracking software, Sports Tracker is highly recommended.

If You Don’t Ask You Don’t Get

Life-Lesson-Dont-Ask-equ

After reading a post on one of our favorite blogs Zen Habits on how to make it impossible to fail, we were looking for a new electric toothbrush for myself at Target.  There was a baby blue Oral-B Professional 1000 on sale for $48, but there was also a pink one (my favorite, of course) there at full price. Only the blue one was on sale, the pink one was $65, but other than they were exactly the same toothbrush.

So we decided to take them both to the checkout and asked if we could have the pink one at the same price as the reduced blue one.  The cashier called someone over. They looked at it. They called someone else over. They looked at them. No one could find a difference between them other than the color, but they scanned at different prices. They hummed and hawed and one of them said but the pink one was the newest one.  We basically just stood there and let them talk amongst themselves (this is one of those situations where it actually helps your case to just stand there and wait for them to make a decision) and after a few minutes of deliberation they agreed that we could have the one we wanted for the same price.

In the end, we saved 30% !  and by using our Target Visa, an additional 5%

I’m not sure why people don’t just ask. Sure, there is a chance that they would have said no, ans we would have happily paid the full price – but if we didn’t ask, we never would have known.

As they say, if you don’t ask you don’t get. Next time, just ask!

How To Get Your Exercise In: Bike Places

43537As part of our drive to get healthier, we went to a local bike store and each picked up some new bikes. For the longest time, I’ve never really spent a lot of money of bikes – I’ve always had a bike but I’ve never really had a decent one – the first time I actually did buy a decent bike, it was stolen about 2 weeks after I bought it, from a locked garage in an apartment complex no less. So I’ve always had cheap bikes. Now that we’ve decided to make our health a priority, we figured that spending more than a few bucks on something for our health was probably a good idea. Since every bike I’ve ever had prior to this one has been cheap, its always been heavy and the seats have always been uncomfortable. I figured that’s what bikes were like. Until now. Riding this bike is such a breeze, its light, its comfortable – even though the seat looks uncomfortable I can ride and ride and I never feel tired. It really is worth the money. Whereas before I sometimes dreaded getting on the bike, now I enjoy it so much that I prefer my bike over any method of transportation, assuming that I can get where I need to go in time. We even took the bikes to go for dinner the other day.

If you don’t have a decent bike, and have decided rightly that your health takes priority, this bike is highly recommended.

Why Exercise May Do A Teenage Mind Good

Two of our three kids are doing daily physical activity. They are both doing mixed martial arts are doing quite well. The third unfortunately is a bit more of an academic and not really interested in physical activity. No matter how hard I tried to explain to him that physical activity helps mental acuity it hasn’t sunk into him yet. I think he’s starting to see the light. Sometimes I see him on our exercise bike and he does get burst of energy afterwards. Hopefully he will be able to stick with it.

It’s well known that routine physical activity benefits both body and mind. And there are no age limits. Both children and adults can reap big benefits.

Now a study published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, explores whether certain factors may help to explain the value of daily physical activity for adolescents’ mental health.

Researchers from the Trimbos Institute in the Netherlands looked at two possible explanations for the link between exercise and good mental health. One was positive self image and the other was winning friends. They surveyed 7,000 Dutch students, ages 11 to 16.

via Why Exercise May Do A Teenage Mind Good : Shots – Health News : NPR.

The Ultimate Guide To The 50+ Hottest Health And Fitness Apps, Gadgets And Startups Of 2012

We are both currently FitBit users, but are looking to upgrade to the Jawbone UP (which unfortunately does not yet have an Android version – which is a deal killer for us) or the next iteration of the FitBit. However, since we want to get deeper in the Quantified Self movement, the Basis looks really interesting. We’ll let you know what we’ve decided to go with and give you all a review…

The holidays wreak havoc on our bodies, with their mandatory over-indulgence in food as well as family and reminiscences. As we reflect on the year past — its victories and losses — we also begin looking ahead to the next, and in big ways or small, making plans to keep our momentum going.For many, this involves taking health more seriously, whether it’s losing a few pounds, training for that first marathon, or just being more active. In turn, there’s been a lot of activity in the health space over the last year, as we’ve seen a number of apps and startups launch — or continue iterating — in the quest to help us make healthier choices, get in shape and conquer the world.

via The Ultimate Guide To The 50+ Hottest Health And Fitness Apps, Gadgets And Startups Of 2012 | TechCrunch.

10 Ways To Create a Healthy Office Environment

 

Anyone who has been responsible in keeping his employees happy knows how challenging it can be. Different things inspire different individuals and the same goes to what makes people happy, enthused, and more eager to perform. employees to be more productive.

If you want to create a good working environment that supports your workers as much as you want them to support your objectives, below are 10 ways that will help you create a healthy office environment.

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1. Clean working environment

Professional office cleaning or commercial cleaning can provide you with effective cleaning services that will ensure all your employees arrive to the office that is fresh and set for every new day. Keeping your office clean will also cut down germs, minimize the number of unpredicted sick days your staffs will need to use.

2. Provide added benefits

Many companies that employ full time employees offer benefits such as vocation days as well as health insurance. For any company to lure the best and the brightest workers to their company, additional benefits such as well being bonuses are imperative.

3. Get comfortable chairs

Since your employees are likely to spend most of their eight hours on the chair, you need to ensure they are comfortable. Most companies choose swivel chairs as they have the ability to adjust their height, backstreet as well as the height of the arms.

4. Lighting

Many studies have suggested that employees’ productivity can be increased with good lighting, and many have concluded that good light play a central role in productivity as it minimizes fatigue, anxiety and stress. You can do this by replacing fluorescent lights with softer lights.

5. Create family and flexible working hours

In today’s fast paced society, busy employees are trying to manage their careers with family duties. Provide your employees the opportunity to take one or two hours off at least once in a while to take care of family issues. This will create a happier, loyal and productive workforce.

6. Update technology

Your employees will become frustrated and annoyed if they have to work with slow and outdated software. This restricts their efficiency and productivity. It is also essential if files can be accessed easily from anywhere as this creates a sense of freedom and will leave your employees happier.

7. Trust your employees and coworkers

Trusting your employees to be accountable for their time and decisions is also crucial. While there should be some limits in which to work, most employees are responsible enough to ensure work is done appropriately and in a timely manner.

8. Music

A little bit of music can have some soothing effect on your workforce and can also help motivate them. Music can affect physical health, communication abilities, well-being and cognitive skills. People adopt smooth, uplifting music to keep the office charming.

9. Colors scheme

Scientific studies suggest that colors can bring emotional reactions in people. Reactions and attitudes to color vary from person to person, and it is vital to make sure you change your office color scheme from regularly in order to keep all your employees refreshed.

10. Say thank you

Do not hesitate to show your gratitude for an employee when he has done something well. A friendly gesture can beyond doubt go along way.It is important for companies to create pleasant working environment for their employees, so that they will look forward to coming to work each day. Moreover, a comfortable working environment will increase your company’s productivity.

 

Article inspired by  Cosmos Clinic , Australia 

One Of The Best Cough & Cold Remedies

One Of The Best Cough & Cold Remedies

I have a cold. A pretty bad one actually. And I’ve been to the doctor and got my prescription of antibiotics in order to attempt to get better. But in the meantime, while the anti-biotics are doing their magic, I still need some kind of immediate relief. OTC to the rescue!

Ever since the taxman took a big chunk of our savings 🙁 , we’ve been going to Walmart more often, and this remedy fits the bill and is a good price – last we checked it was $2.34 – its got all the usual suspects:

  • Acetaminophen – (Tylenol) for pain
  • Phenylephrine HCI – for sinus pressure
  • Gualfenesin  – for chest congestion

Yes, it has the dreaded G word in there – you know that horrible tasting thing. They put “Cool Blast” flavor into the capsules but it still like Airwick over garbage.

This was a good choice for my cold, congestion and pain – but we aren’t doctors, so please talk to your medical practitioner before you take anything. Just saying it worked for me – as long as you keep to the schedule of 2 caps every four hours as per the directions.

PS: There’s only about 600Mg of Tylenol in a dose so we throw in a 500Mg Tylenol to help me out on that front. Add that to my antibiotic and put it all in a little cup, I’m getting flash forwards that I’m in some kind of old folks home already!

Self Medication ‘R Us

I tell you, if I has a nickel every time I went to the doctor and he prescribed antibiotics, I’d have, well, a whole lot of nickels.

It seems to me that it’s a no brainer to start to move some of these treatments out from under the “prescription” category, give adults a little bit of credit that they would be able to self medicate when it comes to antibiotics.

But no, we can’t have these over the counter now can we? Seems to me that this is more of a job creation and maintenance strategy than a healthcare strategy. Is there any real reason why we couldn’t take some of the older antibiotics which require a daily dose for 10 days and let people just take them on their own when they sense that they may have some kind of infection?

Just saying that its far past time that we took control of our health, including self medication on this front – it’s a bit sad that instead of moving towards more medical freedom, we are moving towards less medical freedom.

I have friends in the quantified self movement who self medicate all the time – if anything we should be moving towards more self control in medication as opposed to less. The only thing that is holding us back is the current political landscape – do we truly prefer to give us control of our bodies to some nameless bureaucrat?

What about doctors, you say? Sure, very important to be able to consult with a physician if you wish to – but having them as the arbiters of whether or not you can get medication or not, I feel that is simply wrong.

Simply put: we should have ultimate control over our own health – including medicine. Therefore we should be able to legally self medicate ourselves with whatever drug we see fit to.

If you think about it, we are better informed now than ever before – and due to the explosion of information and the ability to sort the best information – and come up with the optimum solution, there really is nothing but regulation holding us back from from optimum health.

We Love Coffee

We Love Coffee

We love coffee. It’s not just for the pick me up that you feel after that first rush, we also love the smell and taste of it – everything from strong black to lattes and Caramel Macchiatos (My favorite drink prior to getting on the Eat To Live diet – a Quad Venti Caramel Macchiato with extra caramel, whip cream and extra caramel on top of that – so good, but so bad!) But I digress.

Up until a few years ago, everywhere we had coffee, from Starbucks to, Peets, to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, to Tullys around here, and even places like Cafe Greco and Cafe Treiste in San Francisco and were still not happy. The coffee always had a bitter undertone to it – it wasn’t smooth.

One day, a colleague of mine brought in a bag of Blue Bottle coffee, which he picked up from a hotel stay in New York. He brewed a pot at the office and it was amazing! Deep, rich flavor, no bitterness at all. This coffee was so good you didn’t need to add anything – you could drink it black and it was satisfying – even the caffeine level was so good that you didn’t have to drink multiple cups a day to stay alert – normally with Starbucks or some other blend, I needed at least 2-4 cups a day – with Blue Bottle, it was 1.

As it turns out, Blue Bottle is based right here in the SF Bay area, with a factory up in Oakland. We first visited a small operation here in San Jose called Broken Door coffee which is sadly now closed, then started making the trek up to Blue Bottle in Oakland, usually once every two weeks in order to stock up.

There, we were introduced to their single cup filter drip method, which in our opinion, produced the best single cup coffee. You may have seen this elsewhere now, but back then a few years ago, it was pretty revolutionary. We were able to reproduce this at home pretty easily – all you need is one of those Japanese hot water pots, a cone filter holder (ceramic is better but plastic is fine), cone filters, a burr grinder and coffee.

My personal favorite is the Three Africans blend from Blue Bottle. In future posts, we’ll go into detail on all of this, but if you’ve motivated to jump in now, there’s some great videos of how to do it here…