Category: Life Improvements

Hello Friends!

The blog serves as a personal journal, sharing insights from the author’s life experiences in finance, health, nature, exercise, history, science, and philosophy. It emphasizes the importance of mindset changes for financial management, maintaining health proactively, appreciating nature, regular exercise, learning from history, and understanding philosophical concepts for personal growth and improved living.
Stand by for some good posts coming up in the new year!

Welcome to my blog. I expect this will be more like a personal journal, but I also want to give some insights I’ve gleaned from my travel experiences and studies. Personally, I’ve taken way too many years to learn some simple things that make life and the world a lot better. I hope to share what I’ve learned to younger people (and maybe some of my fellow old farts) so they will not have to do as much catch up as I have.

I will focus on some basic areas that make the most improvements to a good life:

Financial – Struggling through life, pay check to pay check, is not a good plan. It does not have to be that way. Learning to manage your personal finances more like a business is a much better way. Our economy is designed to promote commercialism and this is the trap. Improving personal finances is as simple as controlling expenses and saving for the future. The main hurtle to this is the change in mindset that is required. For example, what are you thinking about the day before payday – “I’ll have the money to go out to eat”, “I can buy that new dress or sports coat I’ve wanted”, or “This paycheck will give me enough down payment for a new car loan”. Or are your thoughts more like – “I get to pay down that credit card a little more”, “I’ll have a little bit to add to retirement savings”, or “I’ll have a little bit to add to saving for a down payment on an investment property”. A change in your mindset is the way out of the commercialism trap.

Health – A lot of folks, my younger self included, think their doctor is all they need to stay healthy. Go through life until you feel bad, then go to the doctor and they fix you. That’s actually a downward spiral. Look around at the older folks you know. How many of them are sitting around watching TV with too many aches and pains to get out much any more? Truth is, our main stream doctors are only trained to “fix” people. They are not trained to keep you healthy, much less improve your health. I’ve finally learned there is a whole other type of doctor out there that is totally focused on improving health, strength, and endurance. They are the sports medicine doctors. I know, if you’re like me, you can’t afford your own personal sports doctor. But fortunately, these guys write books, have web sites, and podcasts. These guys share their knowledge for all of us to benefit from. I’ll be sharing the best of these I’ve found in future blogs.

Nature – Want to feel like you’re rich even if you’re broke? Go outside and learn the different trees and birds. Breath the air. Go for a snorkel and learn about the fish. Plant some new plants in your yard. Go for a walk in your local park. It’s all free or cheap and does wonders for the attitude.

Exercise – Strength training and cardio are not an option. Find some activities you enjoy doing to keep you going. Move it or lose it! It’s well known we lose muscle mass and blood flow as we age. Work those muscles and get the blood flowing to the brain. That, good sleep, and diet are the keys to better quality of life at any age. Don’t neglect flexibility and balance, as these are the first to go as you get older. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” Don’t let that happen. Yoga does it for me, but there’s plenty of other ways.

History – The German philosopher George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel famously said, “What experience and history teach is this—that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.” Politicians depend on this fact, but we don’t have. Learning human history will demystify and filter the fire hose of news we get everyday.

If you want to be less frustrated by the silly actions of society and governments, start reading more history. I acquired an interest in history when I started traveling around the Caribbean. At first glance, the islands appeared to be “third world” to me. I saw a lot of old run down buildings and folks living below standards I am use to. Upon closer look I realized that was not the case at all. These islands are “old world”, their post Columbian societies being formed a couple hundred years before that of the states. That change in perspective sparked my curiosity about how civilization began and changed shape through time. I started studying the explorations of the European’s discover of the “New World”, but then backed up and got interested in man’s first emergence on the planet. You will find some great recommendations in my reading list that will explain a lot about what is going on in your world today.

Science – I am very interested in many facets of biology and physics. While not much of a scientist (my math skills being way out of date!), I just like to try to understand more about the world and the universe. I’m presently learning more about AI. Did you know that AI development has helped us learn more about how our own brains work? There is just so much to learn and so much more yet to be discovered.

Philosophy – Learning some basic philosophical theories is a good way to learn more about yourself, the folks in your life, and society. I lean towards stoicism for personal and business decisions and Zen Buddhism for life perspective.

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Effective Technique for Better Sleep

Sleep is the foundation of health. Without it, nothing else works. Here’s a technique I’ve used for years when I have trouble getting to sleep.

Lots of folks have trouble sleeping and I am no exception.  I have some physical things going on that make sleep tough, not to mention age.  Back when I was working full time with a fairly stressful job, I had problems then, too.  I have had my share of sleep deprivation moments.  No fun waking up and realizing you’re driving.  Or being in a meeting and suddenly everyone is looking at you and you’re not even sure where you are.  Yes, I’ve had to work at this sleep thing for a few years.  But I’ve gotten much better at it.

There’s massive information out there about good sleep habits and you need to do all that stuff.  You know – dark room, quiet, regular sleep times, exercise, light dinner, limited alcohol. You’ve heard it all and you’re probably doing it.  Me, too.  Meantime, the brain just doesn’t want to turn off sometimes.  The bad puppy that’s your brain decides the best thing to do is to review every bad decision you’ve ever made or needs to plan in detail everything you need to do the next day.  The body is yelling, “Please let me rest!” and the brain is saying, “Nah, we got things we need to think about”.  I’ve figured out a way to fix this and that’s what this post is all about. Good sleep is the foundation of health and the rewards penetrate all aspects of life.

I have used this technique for several years now with very good results.  It’s basically all about taking control of your brain to lead it in the direction of sleep.  The technique is simple, but can still be difficult to implement, so some patience is needed.  I will describe how it’s done, then get into some of the science for those interested.

So, you’re laying in bed and the brain just will not turn off.  Here’s what you do:

  • Start by working to relax your muscles one at a time.  This is a yoga technique.  When you think stressful thoughts, your muscles tighten.  But this works both ways.  If you relax the muscles, stress is reduced.  Start with your face.  Brow muscles tightened?  Relax them.  Muscles around the eyes, the jaws, back of the neck, relax them one at a time.  Work your way down through your whole body. Check the belly, it can hold a lot of stress.  This takes practice but pays big dividends.  Take your time.
  • Then, start to focus your attention on your visual thoughts.  That is, watching the visual imagery that happens with your eyes closed.  Might be just some vague swirling dim colors, but that’s okay.
  • This procedure is not like a “light switch”.  You will have to start over multiple times as your mind just naturally wants to revert back to just pumping out stressful thoughts.  But that’s okay, it’s natural.  Don’t stress out when it happens. Go looking for those face muscles that have tightened up again then refocus on the visual.

This probably won’t be easy to do at first, but I promise it gets easier with practice.  After a while, you’ll manage to start the muscle relaxing and the visual focus at the same time.  Look at it this way, when laying there unable to sleep, what else do you have to do?  Just keep at it.

Now for the science.  The first part of the process is simply taking conscious control of the stress expressed through the tightening of muscles.  You can not control the unconscious control of your muscles due to stress, but you can control the relaxation of those muscles.  Fortunately, the process works both ways – stress tightens the muscles but consciously untightening the muscles reduces stress.  This alone can make you sleepier.

The science behind the second step is way more interesting.  Focusing on visual thoughts or imagery can help calm an overactive mind and ease the transition into sleep.  This phenomenon ties into several psychological and neurological principles:

Guided Imagery and Visualization

Research on guided imagery, where individuals focus on mental images, shows that it can reduce stress and promote relaxation, which are key for falling asleep.  By engaging in visual thoughts, you’re essentially practicing a form of guided imagery that distracts your mind from stressful or intrusive thoughts, helping your brain wind down.

Shifting Brain Activity

When you focus on visual imagery, you activate areas of the brain linked to imagination and visual processing in the occipital lobe, rather than areas involved in verbal reasoning or problem-solving in the prefrontal cortex.  This shift can reduce the cognitive load that keeps your mind active and alert, creating a mental state more conducive to sleep.

Hypnagogic State

The hypnagogic state is the transitional phase between wakefulness and sleep.  During this state, people often experience vivid mental imagery and dream-like thoughts. By focusing on your visual thoughts, you will guide your brain into this state, where consciousness naturally starts to fade, and sleep begins.

Relaxation and Parasympathetic Activation

Visualizing calming or neutral images can stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system (responsible for rest and relaxation) while dampening the sympathetic nervous system (responsible for fight-or-flight responses).  This relaxation response can lower heart rate and reduce anxiety, which are essential for sleep.

Reducing Default Mode Network Activity

The Default Mode Network (DMN) in the brain is active during wakeful rest and mind-wandering.  Over activity of the DMN is linked to rumination and an inability to fall asleep.  By focusing on visual thoughts, you’re giving your brain a specific task, reducing DMN activity, and helping your mind transition into sleep.

This is a great technique, but it does not always work.  According to a leading sleep scientist (check my reading list), if you can’t fall asleep for 20 minutes, get up and do something low stress.  I always have a good book to read on standby.

Streamline Your Day: Communication Tips for Busy Professionals

Put an end to communication frustration. Take a few simple steps to improve productivity and reduce churn.

Like to find some extra hours in your day?  Effective communication is essential to success in all our business and personal projects.  Most folks know this, but lots of us take it for granted since it is an integral part of each day.  Like drinking plenty of water, we do it all day, so we don’t think much about it, but that’s essential to our health.  A little time spent analyzing our communication habits to improve efficiency has the beneficial side effect of creating more time in our day and the day of others.

Are you overwhelmed by messages and calls?  Our time is valuable and the communication methods you and your colleagues choose can conserve or waste time.  We are in the age of multiple communication tools, each with many pros and cons.  Using the tool that best fits the message can improve efficiency, save time, and reduce our level of stress.

I had a major awakening on this subject a few years ago.  I was helping the Navy design wireless networks for ships.  I was the lead engineer in our lab, so I had a lot of coordinating to do everyday with other engineers, equipment vendors, logistics folks, and our managers.  On a typical day I would spend the first two, three, maybe four hours on the phone each morning.  Then the Navy came down with a major operational change.  We were all issued Navy.mil email addresses and ordered to use email for all communications possible.  I had a tough time accepting this.  Phone calls are so much more personal.  Not only would the message be conveyed, but you also knew how their family was doing, the latest gossip, and when the next group happy hours is.  Why switch to email when you can work the phones?  But, once I finally caught on, my entire day changed.   I was done with emails in the first hour of the day and had eliminated 90% of the calls I needed to make.  This meant way more time in the lab where I was actually getting stuff done!

Then, text messaging came along.  Way more efficient than email for short messages, but other than that it’s a shit show!  I will break that down in a minute.

In a business context, selecting the right communication medium—email, phone, or text—depends on the urgency, formality, and complexity of the message.  Here are guidelines to help decide:

Email

Email solves a lot of the problems caused by the other comm modes.  The best use of email is for formal, important, and detailed communication that needs a response within 24-48 hours.  Specifically:

  • When formality is required, like sending reports, proposals, contracts, meeting minutes, or client follow-ups.
  • When details need to be documented, like project updates, task assignments, or confirming decisions.
  • And when the response is not urgent.  You only need to check email once a day. Use email to ask non-urgent questions or discussions that can wait 24 to 48 hours.

When emailing always use a professional tone and structure your message for clarity.  Email is the equivalent to the old business letter and should be written in that style.  Here’s some other good practices:

  • Use rich text formatting to take advantage of bold text, highlighting, bullets, etc. for better readability.
  • “Answer the mail!”  Check email at least once a day to maintain consistency and responsiveness.
  • Manage your email account: use folders, separate accounts for business and personal, block spam, and have a “trash” email account for signing up to newsletters, etc.
  • Have good signature blocks.  Most should include your phone number.  If the recipient reads something in your email that strikes them as urgent, they don’t need to look up your phone number.  It’s at the bottom of every email.
  • Get your life back by training your colleagues and customers to email.  Once they see you are VERY responsive with email, they will get sucked in.
  • Make your emails as smart as you are – reread and edit all emails before sending!  The person that can compose and type anything perfectly the first time is very rare.  I know that’s not me and probably not you.  If you’re not doing this already, once you start you will see what I mean, there will be mistakes.  DON’T LET YOUR EMAILS MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A DUMMY!

Phone

Phone calls are total time suckers, but nothing beats a call for certain things.  A phone call is best for urgent or complex topics requiring discussion.  Use phone calls when a quick decision or immediate response is needed for resolving time-sensitive issues, clarifying miscommunications, or confirming details for tight deadlines.  Voice calls are essential when complexity or sensitivity is involved.  Emails and texts do not express emotion like the tone of a voice.  Calls are more personal for delivering critical feedback, negotiating contracts, or addressing client concerns.

When calling, always respect working hours and schedule non-urgent calls when possible.  Remember phone calls are not self-documenting like email or texts.  Having a clear agenda and keeping notes makes your calls more productive and considerate of everyone’s time.

Most importantly, before you make that call ask yourself, “Can this be better done by email?”  You can read and write a lot of emails in the time it takes to make a single call.  Be considerate of the recipient’s time, and yours!

Texting

Text messaging is best for brief, time sensitive updates when quick and informal communication is appropriate.  Use texting to inform someone or a group of a last-minute schedule change or confirming logistics (e.g., “Meeting moved to 3 PM”).  Texting is much more time efficient than a call for short semi-urgent conversations.

Beware, texting is easy for the sender, but much harder to manage for the receiver.  I’ve noticed a lot of folks using text just because it’s so easy to click, speak or type, and send.  But on the other end, text messages are a kludge of random bits of information not categorized in any way and hard to search.  Non-urgent messages coming in from several people in random order is a big time-sucker.  If you want to have a discussion, make a call.  If you want to document information in an organized manner, use email, please!

I am certain there are issues I have not covered here and some of you will disagree with my protocols.  So, I would love to get your comments.  And don’t forget, reread and edit all messages before sending!

Happy New Year!

I would like to wish everyone a great 2025 coming up. Hopefully, you don’t need any new resolutions and are already on the track of continuous improvement in your business and personal life. And if not, remember to aim for small changes as big ones almost never work. Reminds me of the joke about the person opening a new gym on January 1 called “Resolutions”. The business plan calls for operating like a regular gym for the first three weeks, then turning into a wine bar after that 😉

I have a lot of good posts coming up in the new year. My plans call for these posts to be very short and to the point. I try to write them on the level of a person that already “gets it”, but is looking to pick up a few valuable points for improvement. Or, just needs some encouragement they are on the right track.

Finally, I am always looking for the next great book. Please send me your recommendations.

All the best for 2025 and beyond,

Solution to Waiting Behind a Driver at a Green Light Checking Messages on His Phone!

Hey Apple and Android! Please add this notification to everyone’s phone. It’s an easy solution to traffic congestion and will certainly help with our stress levels.

So, here’s the scene. You’re sitting at a red light. Great time to answer those five texts that came in while you were driving. Then, this notification pops up:

Traffic light has turned green! Please put down your phone and keep your eyes on the road!

I know there must be folks out there working on this as our cars are getting smarter all the time. Maybe notifications will be included in one of the traffic apps and displayed on the onboard screen. Traffic lights will need some sort of wireless upgrade, then inputs from online maps and your GPS would do the trick.