Lessons Learned and Shared

Ever catch yourself failing to implement some important realization you had? This page is my attempt to keep track of the lessons I learn and want to put into practice. I hope some of it may inspire you. Read more on why I’m doing this. See a list of the books I’ve read along with my notes.

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The ONLY rule you really need for healthy eating

Eat a good variety of whole plant foods most of the time.

For long term health

1. Make sure you get enough fibre rather than worry about getting enough protein.
2. Don’t go on temporary diets. Only make changes to your diet you’re ready to stick with as long as you live. (Except the occasional fast)
3. Fast occasionally to give your digestive system a break and to appreciate food when you have it.
4. Eat simple meals. The less effort your healthy diet takes, the more likely you are to stick with it.
5. Indulge once in a while. There is nothing you can never eat.
6. Eat flax and/or chia seeds daily for their omega 3 contents required for cardio vascular health.
7. Have a green smoothie every day. There is no easier way to take in a good portion of veggies and fibre.
8. To live 100+ do low intensity exercise most of your waking hours. Have a purpose for existence. Switch off regularly. Drink little, eat little animal products and mostly plant foods, not too much. Have strong family ties, belong to a community and hang out with people who reinforce all your positive habits. Inspired by Dan Buettner.
9. Reduce or eliminate chronic inflammation (the cause of most chronic disease) by:
   • Feeding the gut bacteria right: EAT FIBRE. Protein, carbs and fats get metabolized in the upper gut and don’t make it to the colon where the essential microbiome lives
   • Eat tuermeric, curcumin
   • Eat fish, algy, nuts and seeds, flax seeds for EPA, DHA (more of the plant based)
   • Exercise (cause acute inflammation that triggers an anti (chronic) inflammatory response) Inspired by Rhonda Patrick.

To prevent diabetes and heart disease

1. Keep dietary fat intake low. Fat causes insulin resistance ie. type 2 diabetes by inhibiting glucose transportation to muscle cells. Learn more.

For weight control

1. Track your weight (if possible body fat %) and what you eat regularly.
2. Forget about counting calories or carbs. It does not work.
3. Eat as much as you like of the right foods: fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds
4. Minimize processed food and animal products like meat, diary and eggs.

1. Plan your nights out for full moon. At the time of full moon we get less sleep and what we get is less deep. Learn more.

1. Make products that help people become better versions of themselves and (only) then you can use any technique necessary to get them to buy your product.

Inspired by The Century of The Self.

1. Hell yeah, or no. Whenever a new opportunity arises, say hell yeah and do it. A maybe, and a why not is automatically a no. There is no in between. – Inspired by Derek Sivers.
2. Don’t be busy. If you are, your life is out of control. Get your priorities sorted and start saying no. – Inspired by Derek Sivers.
3. Wisdom is the ability of taking your own advice. Take time to reflect on a regular basis otherwise you don’t know whether you are. – Inspired by Sam Harris.
4. Put passion before freedom. If you had complete freedom, you’d pursue your passion. So why not just pursue your passion? – Inspired by Scott Dinsmore.
5. Don’t strive for equilibrium as far as your mental health is concerned.
6. Look for the meaning of life in your unique, personal situation.
7. Think about what the world needs and how you can make it happen. The self can only be actualized once its transcended.
8. Think of love as a process in which you grasp the innermost traits of a human being and help her discover and fulfill her unfulfilled potentials.
9. When you are no longer capable of changing a situation, change yourself.
10. Don’t pursue happiness. Pursue a goal that helps someone. Happiness will ensue as a side effect. Inspired by Man’s search for meaning – Viktor E. Frankl
11. Share what you learn immediately after learning it while you still remember knowing what it’s like to not know it.
12. Success requires the following:Manage your state, emotions, reactions
    • Know what people need, what you need
    • Think and talk like the people you want to help so they accept it from you
    • Focus, learn, apply what you learn
    • Don’t focus on lifestyle design, but being useful to others. Purpose first, freedom second.
13. Define your criteria for success. Whether you are successful or not depends first and foremost on your definition of success.
14. Inspired by Derek Sivers.
15. Be willing to be wrong and embarrassed. Share your truth as soon as you know it. That’s the greatest contribution to the wellbeing of mankind. Inspired by Colin Beavan.
16. Question authority and ideas taken for granted by other people. In the end, you are always responsible for the choices you make even if someone tells you otherwise. Inspired by Stanley Milgram
17. Repeat what’s important. Learn from religions. Manage your calender in a way that propels you in the direction you want to go. Inspired by Alain De Botton.
18. Become confident by 1. gaining relevant experience, 2. getting even more practice with visualization, 3. focusing on what you can control. Inspired by Conor McGregor.
19. To live a good life, you need to work for things bigger than yourself. Inspired by The Century of The Self.

1. Prevent your guests from disrupting your sleeping patterns and making you miserable. Explain the effects of sleep deprivation on you. Plan your time together and schedule bedtime in agreement. Set your alarm for bedtime. When the alarm goes off drop everything and go to sleep.
2. Confine smalltalk to the elevator. You may find yourself having smalltalk with friends or family members every time you see them. Try to upgrade the relationship. Ask meaningful questions, listen and share meaningful details. If that doesn’t work, minimize the time you spend with them.
3. Be sceptical. Inspired by An honest liar.
4. Question authority, don’t comply blindly. When you are told you have no other choice, you always do. When you are told you are not responsible for your actions, you always are. Inspired by Stanley Milgram.
5. Tell people what they are not ready to hear in increments they can handle or sugar coated, otherwise they will turn against you.
6. Hold your friend accountable the same way you would a stranger. Inspired by Mark Manson and The School of Life.
7. Take the edge of a heavy statement away with a joke. Inspired by Russel Brand.
8. Question your own wants and desires – they may not be your own. Inspired by The Century of The Self.

1. Re frame yes or no questions to trade-offs. If you think about a question like “Should I take the job?” in terms of pros and cons and yes or no, you lock yourself into a frame which often excludes opportunity cost. By re framing the question like “Should I take the job, go on a sabbatical or become a freelancer?” and comparing alternative scenarios, you get a higher level view and can make a better choice.
2. Know that your primal brain comes packaged with some age old survival strategies that will set you back in the modern world (eg. preference for cake over celery) Inspired by Laurie Santos.
3. To gauge the likeliness of a future event, look at similar events first, and particulars second. Learn more.

1. Keep an awesome jar. Every day, take a moment to reflect on the awesome things that happened or the bad things that could have but didn’t happen, which is also awesome. Take a note, put it in a jar. – Inspired by an ex girlfriend of Tim Ferris.
2. End your own suffering by becoming aware of the deepest causes of it and then letting go of them. Take time to sit in silence and break the random chain of thought your mind runs constantly to cultivate that awareness and to be mindful of the present. Inspired by Buddhism without beliefs.
3. Control the monkey mind. Sit down every day, empty your mind and click to snap out of distracting thoughts. More details.
4. You start losing the game the moment you forget you are playing. So don’t. Inspired by gangster movies.

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