The literature is littered with self help advice about highly successful individuals and celebrities and how they benefited greatly from their own self confidence. While I believe the correlation between success and skill can be debatable (most have been only lucky once, it’s repeatedly being lucky that gets my attention), I want to talk about the will to get up again and again when you fail or experience a setback while in pursuit of creating the life that works for you.
Success is hard work and a lot of luck. Enormous success is even more hard work and an enormous amount of luck.
I think however that in addition to being able to pursue exposure to serendipity and simply being lucky, there is a direct link between your achievements and believing in yourself and your abilities. So going back to those celebrities and other high achiever billionaire talking heads you see on tv, they were only able to to keep going and achieve success because of the level of belief in themselves despite the enormous amount of failures they had experienced for years leading up to their big breakthroughs. Their belief is what created a vision so big that they didn’t care how many times they failed at something. They were eventually going to get to where they wanted to go.
From getting in the best shape of your life to being an entrepreneur, you are most definitely going to fail and experience a huge setback at some point - if it hasn’t happened already, it will. And that’s okay, that’s just life. But when it does happen, and when your belief is strong, no failure will have the power to wipe you out: it is going to make you even stronger. You’re going to suck it up and belief in yourself will be key. Here are a two daily rituals, small changes in outlook that can help change your world. count your wins
Athletes know this: tracking your training, nutrition and achievements is a real helper when you’re going for the gold medal. And yes I know minimizing the negative self talk is easier said than done however instead of thinking about all your losses for the day. To do so I use my journal to track everything from my fitness sessions in the morning to my mood and even work stuff, but also every evening I enter in it my “gratitude logs” to capture all my wins at the end of each day. The key here is to capture all your wins and to write them down, big or small doesn’t matter, because this will bring you joy when you realize of all the incredible things you’ve achieved and remind you that you can make happen even bigger things in the future.
the superhero mindset
Talk to yourself more than you listen to yourself. You are not a victim.
Thinking positive and empowering thoughts are great, but reconditioning your thought process by not giving in to any negative and discouraging thoughts and making it a habit will completely revolutionize your life. See, if you don’t have any belief in yourself, how do you expect anyone to believe in you? And most importantly, work to self-identify as a person who can and will help others and behave like an “everyday hero” by taking action helping others when the opportunities present themselves.
My name's phil mora and I blog about the things I love: fitness, hacking work, tech and anything holistic.
Many Career Hats. thinker, doer, designer, coder, leader. Head of Product Magic at Sikka Software. Here's my contact info.
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Own your own health: as exciting new technologies with major health care implications are emerging, 3D printing, diagnostic apps, new forms of data analysis and artificial intelligence, the tools that are democratizing health care for consumers are already amongst us.
The cutting edge of medicine is really not always high-tech; it's being more focused on prevention and being proactive, understanding your genetics. We're at $1,000 genome today; we'll be at $100 or even a free genome in the next decade. We know that sitting is the new smoking. We now have wearables that we can stick in our clothes and our cars and our phones that are going to help give us insight into our behaviors. We're in the era of integrating exponential technologies together. For example, with Scanadu Scout today, as a consumer, you can track your vital signs very readily. Tech can help you do a better job of understanding health, wellness, early disease detection, and triage. Tech like having an AI doctor blended with sensors like scanadu as a consumer will help you be more proactive, realizing that the best drug is walking, doing 30 minutes of exercise a day; being reasonable about your diet. Imagine when we can use some of these tools as levers, understanding that behavior change is hard, say, If you can look in the mirror in the morning and see future you and if your future you is 100 pounds heavier, that might change your lever on behavior change.
We could also use myers-briggs behavioral change methodologies to understand your care and your stick because just like precision and personalized medicine, not everyone needs the same drug or the same app or the same interface: How about we can start to use AI feedback loops integrated into your workday, integrated into your wearables, into your apps to be more proactive?
And how about card-based interfaces like Google Now: Not just leave work early because of traffic, but you also need to check in at the gym and get a few extra calories today if you're going to stay on track to a certain goal or to help manage diabetes or emphysema or heart disease. Today, we're seeing a whole new realm of digital diagnostic and new tools that you can use at home (for example Exovite: scan your fracture; make one that fits you), enabling cheaper, faster, more effective health care, and shifting the power curve to the empowered and engaged consumer.The patient who can be a data donor, can be connected to their own data to gain insights early, can have a visit with their clinician in more seamless less expensive and less time-consuming ways. So we're in an interesting era now, whether it's a tricorder or knowing your own genomics or having embedded sensors acting as your own personal check engine light can really shift health care diagnostics and therapy in smart ways. The most important thing that anyone can do is start owning their own health. Using tools and apps to quit smoking, get on a diet, tweet out their weight from your scale, all those things can come together in powerful ways to be more proactive and preventative as opposed to waiting for disease to happen. So be the CEO of your own health; don't wait for your doctor to tell you what you need to do when you're in the ER or worse.
My name's phil mora and I blog about the things I love: fitness, hacking work, tech and anything holistic. Here's my contact info.
Happiness is not a constant state of bliss that is ultimately attained but rather a way of being that needs to be cultivated and nurtured, practiced and maintained.
1. Happy people like themselves.
Martin Seligman, the father of "positive psychology," has found that about 60% of happiness is determined by genetic factors (what we inherited from our family and the unique temperament with which we came into the world) as well as by our environment. The rest is in our hands. Although seeking pleasure may be thought to be a goal of happiness, what really seems to be most important is leading a life of engagement, and a meaningful life. When we think of happiness, many things immediately come to mind—having a special intimate relationship apart from all of our other important relationships; being financially successful; having a satisfying career; enjoying a healthy life; being able to do many of the things we dream of doing, etc. Yet happiness often remains elusive and bad things do happen to good people. Desiring to be happy doesn’t mean you will be happy all of the time, but there are many things you can do and practice to increase your chances—or at the very least, to learn to look on the brighter side of life. Here are the 9 traits that set happy people apart from others: 1. Happy people like themselves. They are satisfied and appreciative of who they are as individuals. There’s always room for improvement, but generally, they know and like who they are. They are confident, optimistic, resilient, and adaptable. They can see humor even in things that don’t seem funny on the surface. 2. They are self-reliant. They look within themselves to find answers and solutions. They don’t see themselves as victims. Many notables have written about the true self vs. the false self, the idealized self vs. the realized self, etc. In other words, happy people have learned what is most important to them, what is true for them, and what things are non-negotiable, as opposed to allowing others to dictate and impose their beliefs upon them. 3. Their relationships are not about “you complete me." Happy people are complete within themselves, having done the required work on themselves to know who they are. They view relationships as an extension to, not the basis of, the human experience. It is not about “what can you do for me” but rather, the sense that essential relationships are unconditional. 4. Happy people live in the moment. Yet they embrace change and trust that everything happens for a reason.
5. They practice gratitude, being grateful for even the small things.
They appreciate the simple pleasures. They appreciate everything that happens to them; it’s all an experience, an adventure, an opportunity. 6. They try to be happy. In other words, they actually make an effort to be happy. They hang out with positive people. All things being equal, they tend to look on the brighter side of life. They attempt to find solutions and answers that are as close to satisfactory even if it is not the ultimate desired solution. 7. They take care of themselves. They exercise to relieve stress, anxiety, and depression. They know how to unplug, distancing themselves from the stresses of life. Many happy people have a spiritual practice, whether it’s taking a walk in nature or meditating. 8. Interpersonal connection is of vital importance. They listen to others and are genuinely interested in what others think, feel, and do—and they engage people in what is important to them. They don’t compare themselves to others, and don’t hold a grudge. They are kind to everyone and often give back to others in whatever way they can. 9. Happy people control their own life and destiny. They pursue their passion. They don’t let a bad situation defeat them; when something bad happens they choose to see it as a challenge and then try harder. They don’t sweat the small stuff. They accept what happens in life, especially what can’t be changed—and then they move on.
Phil Mora is based in Silicon Valley and AVP Product at SikkaSoft, a health SaaS startup. I specialize in product magic, digital marketing, business development and entrepreneurship. A creative problem solver with a talent for strategic thinking and communication, I combine lessons learned from more than 15 years as a high-tech industry executive with my roots as a software technologist, product developer and digital marketeer. When I am not working on mobile health, I am obsessed with with sports, fitness, wellness, nutrition and anything holistic: you’ll find me at the gym or outdoors training hard. I look forward to connecting with you! </ Here's my contact info>
So you want to lose a few pounds.
You've heard the mantra: You need to start eating right and exercising. But at the back of your mind, you wonder. When it comes down to it, which is more important: getting a salad instead of fries or hitting the gym four days a week? Several studies have suggested that diet — cutting calories from food — is the key player here, since working out burns far fewer calories (and takes far more time) than most people think. But other studies have shown that if you want to keep those pounds off, you need to eat right and work out regularly. We recently talked to Philip Stanforth, a professor of exercise science at the University of Texas and the executive director of the Fitness Institute of Texas, about this. He told us that in the short-term, diet is far more important for shedding pounds. But over the long-term, regular workouts are critical to keeping that weight off and staying fit.
Studies tend to show that in terms of weight loss, diet plays a much bigger role than exercise. But when you look at people who've lost weight and are also managing to keep it off, exercise is important.
There was a recent study on this in a large group of people who'd lost weight. And when you looked at the people who were able to keep it off, something like over 90% of those people exercised regularly. There have been other studies where they've matched calorie deficit with exercise expenditure — [meaning you have one group of people cutting 500 calories from their daily diet, for example, and another group of people burning 500 calories at the gym every day] — you see pretty much the same type of changes. But thinking practically, keep in mind you'd have to walk 35 miles to burn 3,500 calories. That's a lot of walking. But if you look at eating, a Snickers bar might have, say, 500 calories. It's going to be a lot easier to cut the Snickers bar than to do 5 miles of walking every day. All of that comes with an important caveat, though, Stanforth says. Lots of people have lost weight. Fewer people have kept it off. Again we've seen that 90% of people who keep it off — at least in that study I mentioned — exercise regularly. So it looks like it plays a bigger role there. What all this research is showing, we think, is that there's something about exercising that helps with weight loss and keeping it off. Research has shown that in addition to helping with sustained weight loss, exercise can have several other positive effects on our lives, from helping to boost our mood and protect our bodies from the detrimental effects of aging to helping us manage the symptoms of stress, depression, and anxiety. Plus, building and maintaining muscle can often mean your body will actually burn more calories throughout the day. Phil Mora is based in Silicon Valley and AVP Product at SikkaSoft, a health SaaS startup. I specialize in product magic, digital marketing, business development and entrepreneurship. A creative problem solver with a talent for strategic thinking and communication, I combine lessons learned from more than 15 years as a high-tech industry executive with my roots as a software technologist, product developer and digital marketeer. When I am not working on mobile health, I am obsessed with with sports, fitness, wellness, nutrition and anything holistic: you’ll find me at the gym or outdoors training hard. I look forward to connecting with you! </ Here’s my contact info > |
Head of Product in Colorado. travel 🚀 work 🌵 weights 🍔 music 💪🏻 rocky mountains, tech and dogs 🐾
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