Get Skinny and Be Successful

Sonya Thomas – “The Black Widow” of eating contests – devoured 181 chicken wings in 12 minutes to set the national championship record on Sunday at the 9th Annual National Buffalo Wing Festival in Buffalo, New York. It was the fourth year in the row that Thomas has won the contest.

The 43-year-old stands just 5-feet tall and weighs 105 pounds. She ate 4.86 pounds of chicken, compared to second-place finisher Joey Chestnut’s 4.55 pounds (169 wings). Chestnut, known as “Jaws”, has won the last four Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating competitions at Coney Island and is also known for his ability to eat pizza.

“I’m savoring this victory, because finishing ahead of Joey in any food may never happen again,” Thomas said. “Before today it had been well over two years since I earned a victory over him.”

It seems maybe Thomas is better at the wing-eating sprint while Chestnut is better at the marathon. Chestnut set the 30-minute record back in 2008 with 241 wings.

Post from: EveryJoe

When Nathan Pritikin found out that he had heart disease, back in the 1950’s, most dietary concepts were pretty basic. He was one of the first to try out a low fat, high fiber diet to improve heart health and his results were pretty amazing. Fast forward to today and we now have the Pritikin Longevity Foundation and this book. For those looking not only to lose weight but also to get healthy, this is a great book to start with.Before we get started, our absolute favorite part of this book was that it stressed exercise. So many diet books claim that you can lose tons of weight without ever lifting a finger, and that is just not a realistic view. This diet plan will require a good commitment to follow, since you will be required to walk at least 45 minutes every day. However, this type of exercise is relatively simple for most and easy enough to do.

The main tenent of the plan is that you need to limit processed wheat, rice, and the majority of meat in your diet. Nothing really new here, but we’ll concede that back when the diet first came out it was pretty extraordinary. It’s easy to see where today’s diets got a lot of their ideals and obviously, this kind of eating plan does get results.

The main problem with the diet plan, at least for many, is that it is nearly vegetarian. If you’ve spent a lifetime eating meat, this is not going to be an easy diet to go on. That doesn’t make it bad, that just means that you will have to put forth a concerted effort if you want it to work. Quitting meat cold turkey is not easy for a lot of people, and if you have health issues, you will definitely want to discuss this diet plan with your doctor before getting started.

Despite the difficulty level, this is still a good diet. It promotes everything we know that is important for heart health. Many have found that they were able to improve their overall health with the diet, and the foundation does state that you can help ward off many illnesses by following this plan.

Overall, we enjoyed the book, even though we were familiar with most of the concepts. We recommend it based on the fact that the diet includes plenty of exercise and relies on proven techniques that do result in weight loss. It’s obviously not for everyone, but those that give it a solid try should see results.

Our main issue with the diet is that it does not include enough dietary fat. You do need some fat in order to keep your body running properly and to keep losing weight. If you do decide to try this diet we highly recommend adding a little more dietary fat, from good sources, such as salmon, olive oil and avocado, for the best results and overall health.

Originally posted 2008-09-12 05:27:02. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related Posts

• #1 Weight Loss Tip – The Journal A nationwide study of over 1500 people, who were overweight and obese, consisted of a half year of 30 minutes of exercise a day, a low-fat diet that had plenty of fruits and veggies. It was also recommended that they write in a journal how much they ate and how……
• Five Healthy and Permanent Weight Loss Tips Your weight reflects many things including how many calories you consume, how much you work out, and what your individual metabolic rate is like. The composition of the food you’re eating is also important as well. Here are some tips for achieving healthy and permanent weight loss. 1 – You……
• The Weight Loss Cure They Don’t Want You To Know About By Kevin Trudeau The Weight Loss Cure They Don’t Want You to Know About is an interesting book that covers quite a lot of shaky ground. If you’re sick of trying several different diets that never seem to work, you may be tempted to buy it and give it a whirl. However, it’s……
• Carnival of Weight Loss #1 – Let’s Make a Commitment Edition The holidays are coming…. The goose is getting fat… Please takes some pounds of my fat. This holiday season we are going to lose weight not gain. I am excited and proud to announce the first ever Carnival of Weight Loss… Next week’s Halloween edition will be hosted here, but……
• Carnival of Weight Loss – Welcome to December Welcome to the December 6, 2008 edition of carnival of weight loss. editor pick Trevor Watkinson presents 10 Great Weight Loss Tips posted at SaveYourSweat.com Blog, saying, “These are the ten weight loss tips that worked best for me!” Valeria presents 10 Back-to-Basics Ways to Lose the Buddha (Belly)……

Online Stores

• Polar Compatible Heart Rate Monitors Monitors & Pedometers Gym, Workout & Yoga Exercise & Fitness
• Calcium Supplements & Diet Exercise & Fitness
• Slow Burn Workout Heart Rate Monitors Monitors & Pedometers Gym, Workout & Yoga Exercise & Fitness
• Back of Book United States Stamps
• Back of Book United States Stamps

New England Patriots rookie Brandon Spikes is in the news today – and it’s not about football. An explicit sex tape featuring Spikes hit the web and has everyone talking. A source has confirmed that it is Brandon Spikes on the tape.

Brandon Spikes – NFL.com

His agent Terry Watson said, “Brandon is showing himself to be a high-character guy in the Boston community and has the promise of being a very good player.” He commented that the tape is “an embarrassing situation for Brandon” and “certainly doesn’t reflect the kind of person that he is,” according to the Boston Herald.

The sex video was shot while Spikes was in college and began to appear around the Internet only after a $1500 offer to Deadspin.com was turned down.

As of this afternoon, the NFL was investigating the situation to determine if it’s a violation of their personal conduct policy.

Post from: EveryJoe

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Cal Newport of Study Hacks.

“I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years,”  Steve Martin recalls  in his 2007 memoir, Born Standing Up. “Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success.” If you do the math, this sums to fourteen years of hard work before Martin saw returns on his investment.

Fourteen years.

That’s a long time to remain focused on a goal without reward, especially when the path is ambiguous (“The course was more plodding than heroic,” Martin recalls).  But as he makes clear in his book, Martin found a Zen peace in the simplicity of his pursuit. He describes with relish, for example, the importance of “diligence” in becoming a star — a term he redefines to mean the ability to not work on unrelated projects — and he labels “loss of focus” as an “indulgence” that success cannot afford.

Martin’s story should resonate with those of us interested in the minimalist lifestyle preached here at Zen Habits. He injected minimalism into his life by orienting his world around a single passionate pursuit: innovating stand-up comedy. For Martin, there was never any doubt what his Most Important Task would involve each morning, and jettisoning unrelated commitments and distractions came naturally. As he discovered, when you know what your life is about it’s easy to sidestep all that threatens to clutter it.

In other words: passion breeds simplicity.

Even if we agree on their value,  however, how do we find these simplicity-generating passionate pursuits in our own lives? This is the thorny question I address in this post.

Passion Paralysis

Faced with the task of identifying their “passion,” most people have one of two reactions:

The first is a frantic search of their lives with the aim of uncovering some magical pursuit that unmistakably sings to their soul. As a writer of student advice, for example, I frequently receive e-mails from young people that begin: “I’m trying to decide what my passion should be…”  (If only it were that easy.)

The second reaction is paralysis: faced with the life-changing importance of this discovery, many people freeze — hoping for a sign from above that will make things clear. (Spoiler: This can be a long wait.)

Neither of these approaches succeed, as passion is not something that can be forcefully identified, and though it sometimes bubbles up serendipitously, this is not something you can count on happening any time soon.  So what’s a passion-seeking minimalist to do?

I found an answer in an unlikely place…

Do Less. Get More.

In the winter of 2009, I began researching a book on college admissions. Inspired by the type philosophy taught here at Zen Habits, I sought students who followed a Zen path through the college process — getting into good schools while still living uncluttered and authentic high school lives. It soon became clear that the students who pulled off this feat shared a common trait: like Steve Martin, they had organized their life around a passionate deep interest. (This interest, in turn, made them irresistible to admissions officers weary of reading the files of chronically over-scheduled and stress-addled applicants.)

To make my book useful, I needed to discover how such passionate interests are formed. After months of research, I arrived, finally, at Penn State University, where a professor named Linda Caldwell had made a career out of studying interest formation.

Excited by her results, and wondering how to translate them into everyday life, I gave her a call:

“You need to be exposed to many things,” she told me. “You should expose yourself even though you might not know if you’ll be interested.”

When you find something that catches your attention: follow-up; see if it sticks.

In other words, discovering passion requires a dedication to unstructured exploration. You have to leave large swathes of free time in your schedule (a technique I call underscheduling), and fill this time with the exploration of things that might be interesting. Of equal importance, when something catches your attention you must leverage your free time to aggressively follow up.

As Caldwell’s research reveals, true passion can’t be forced. You can participate in personality tests and self-reflection exercises until you drop from exhaustion, but it’s unstructured exploration coupled with aggressive follow-ups that most consistently leads people to a life-consuming interest.

Here are some examples of this idea in action:

• In a gap year following high school, Ben Casnocha booked an open-ended trip around the world. He left his schedule undefined, traveling with only the general goal of journaling and meeting interesting people. During this process he noticed a recurring interest in writing. Because his time was unstructured, he was able to aggressively follow-up on the interest by calling up his contacts in the publishing industry. His efforts led him to a book deal and he went on to finish the manuscript in the exotic international destinations left in his trip. He continues to write professionally today both on his blog and in magazines; he’s also a frequent commentator on NPR.
• In 2003, Dee Williams, a toxic waste inspector, was living in a spacious bungalow in Portland, Oregon. (Depending on the source, it was somewhere between 1500 to 2000 square feet of luxurious living.) Her time was consumed by the standard traps of middle class life: an extensive remodel on her home, car problems, the struggle to pay bills, and so on. A committed environmentalist, she realized she was tired of walking the walk and wanted to talk the talk (“I was a slackavist,” she recalls), so she simplified her life, selling her house and moving into an 84 square feet “tiny house” made out of found materials and parked in the corner of a friend’s yard. This move to simplicity opened time in her schedule for exploration. She soon stumbled into a community of people who were using tiny houses as a way of promoting sustainable living. She left her job as a waste inspector and started Boxcar Woodcrafts, a small woodworking company, and now dedicates her newly copious free time to teaching classroom programs on green living and sustainability.
• As a high school student, Maneesh Sethi was adamant about leaving free time in his schedule. (During his senior year, for example, he arranged a schedule that allowed him to return home after lunch each day.) He filled this free time with exploration: among other pursuits, he became Internet famous for demonstrating how to transform a tube sock into an iPod case. A computer enthusiast, Maneesh found himself one weekend afternoon at a trade conference where he met an editor of programming books. This led him to discover that the editor was considering a book on computer game programming for teenagers. Leveraging the free time in his schedule, Maneesh aggressively followed-up on the opportunity, sending over a collection of sample chapters, and finally convincing the publisher that a he, as a teenager, was well-suited to write their book for teenagers. This led, among other things, to a follow-up book, and a recurring segment on a TechTV show. Maneesh now writes full time about living an unconventional lifestyle.

This advice can be hard to follow at first. When we think about passion we think about action: we want to start doing big things right now! But the reality of passion is more subtle. You have to do less to get more in your life. It’s a virtuous catch-22: by embracing a minimalist lifestyle now, you are more likely to develop the passionate interest that will support the lifestyle in the long run.

Put another way: take a step back; relax; then open your eyes to patiently take in all that’s out there.

Read more from Cal at his blog, Study Hacks, or subscribe to his feed.

‘A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.’ ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on twitter or identica.

Life can be ridiculously complicated, if you let it. I suggest we simplify.

Thich Nhat Hanh’s quote, which I’ve stolen as this site’s subtitle, is the shortest guide to life you’ll ever need:

“Smile, breath, and go slowly.”

If you live your life by those five words, you’ll do pretty well. For those who need a little more guidance, I’ve distilled the lessons I’ve learned (so far) into a few guidelines, or reminders, really.

And as always, these rules are meant to be broken. Life wouldn’t be any fun if they weren’t.

the brief guide

less TV, more reading
less shopping, more outdoors
less clutter, more space
less rush, more slowness
less consuming, more creating
less junk, more real food
less busywork, more impact
less driving, more walking
less noise, more solitude
less focus on the future, more on the present
less work, more play
less worry, more smiles
breathe

—
If you liked this guide, please bookmark it on Delicious or share on Twitter. Thanks, my friends.

Tiger Woods wasn’t a very good golfer after his sex scandal up until his divorce was finalized. However, in his first round of golf since his divorce, Tiger Woods looked like the Tiger Woods we all had grown accustomed to watching. At the Barclays, Tiger Woods shot a first round 6-under 65 to sit on the top of the leaderboard.

Said Tiger: “It’s exciting to hit the ball flush again; it’s something I’ve been missing all year.”

A happy wife at home has also been missing all year. In his case, no wife appears to be better than an unhappy wife. Although, Tiger wouldn’t directly come out and say it.

“I can’t really say that’s the case. As far as golf, it was nice to put it together,” remarked Tiger.

It’ll be interesting to see if he can hold on for the win and get his golf game back in order. And hey, if he wins this tournament, he doesn’t have to worry about losing half of the paycheck.

Tiger Woods better after his divorce? (Image: TSN.ca)

Post from: EveryJoe

The Weight Loss Cure They Don’t Want You to Know About is an interesting book that covers quite a lot of shaky ground. If you’re sick of trying several different diets that never seem to work, you may be tempted to buy it and give it a whirl. However, it’s a pretty far fetched read in some points, and you may want to bring a pretty big salt shaker with you when you read it.

The author claims that several years ago the cure for obesity was discovered, but the FDA, AMA and several officials, doctors and diet gurus worked to keep it a secret. This revolutionary cure apparently details the fact that overweight people have urges to eat when they are not hungry, more fat stores than normal and a low metabolism. Well, duh.

Despite this earth shattering start, it gets better. The author recommends that in addition to trying the diet plan (we’ll get to that in a second), you should get daily injections of a hormone known as HCG. Please note that the FDA has not approved the use of this hormone for weight loss and we can’t really recommend that anyone try it. It’s commonly used by pregnant women, but that does not mean that it is safe for everyone.

Ok, onto the diet plan. For thirty days, if you do decide to give this plan a test drive, you will only be able to eat foods that are 100% organic. Easy enough, but a little expensive for most people. Our main problem was that the author didn’t go into which organic foods were good, and how much you should be eating of each one. Sure, organic beef is good, but you don’t want to eat an entire side of it.

Next up, in addition to your organic food and hormone injections, you’ll need to shell out money for some very pricey supplements to go along with everything. Bottom line, this diet will definitely hurt your bottom line. If you can find a doctor to give you the injections and hopefully you won’t, you’ll be forced to pay for them since your insurance won’t cover it.

Did we mention that the author is a convicted criminal and has no background in health or wellness? If you had any lingering hopes about trying this diet, that should be the kicker. Buy the book, but only to use as a guide of what not to do. This is the perfect example of a diet plan that can actually do more harm than good and we cannot recommend this book by any stretch of the imagination. Save your money, and start eating healthy balanced meals and workout. That’s the real secret to weight loss, and no one will ever try to claim that the information has been hidden from you. How this book made the best seller lists is one of life’s great mysteries.

Originally posted 2008-09-19 05:29:07. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related Posts

• Do Online Diet Plans Work? As our lives become more focused around online activities, it was only natural that diets would make the move towards becoming more online based. There are literally thousands of different sites that purport to help you lose weight, but do these plans really work? For many dieters, they do, and……
• Review: YOU on a DIET: The Owner’s Manual for Waist Management by Michael F Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet C. Oz, M.D Title – YOU on a DIET: The Owner’s Manual for Waist Management Author – Michael F Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet C. Oz, M.D Format – Hardcover, 370 pages Publish Date – 2006 Publisher – Free Press, Simon & Schuster, Inc ISBN – 0743292542 and 9780743292542 From the authors behind YOU:……
• Eat Right For Your Type This book is considered to be one of the most controversial diet books on the market and it certainly raises a lot of interesting issues that are normally avoided in the diet industry. Although a lot of people believe that metabolism and genetic predisposition can lead to weight problems, the……
• The New Glucose Revolution By Dr. Jennie Brand-Miller, Thomas M.S. Wolever, Kaye Foster-Powell, Stephen Colagiuri, Thomas Wolever Anytime it takes five people to write one book, you’ve got to wonder whether the subject matter is really difficult, or if there was a shortage of available projects on the market. The New Glucose Revolution tackles a pretty complex subject, but we failed to see how five people were……
• Review of Are You Ready? Many of you that watch The Biggest Loser are already familiar with the author of this book, Bob Harper. He’s one of the trainers on the show and has already provided millions of dieters with inspiration and advice on getting fit and losing weight. Let’s see how well his book……

Online Stores

• Weight Mold Downrigger, Outrigger Gear Fishing
• Weight Training Supplements & Diet Exercise & Fitness
• Puma Complete Eutopia Review Women Shoes Running Deals
• Proofs & Essays Back of Book United States Stamps
• People Contemporary (1970-Now) Miniatures Dollhouse Miniatures Dolls & Bears

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” ~Confucius

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Scott Dinsmore of ReadingForYourSuccess.

How can a mountain better prepare us for life? At over 14,000 feet, there’s more to learn than I would have thought.

Last week I sat on top of Mt. Shasta, a 14,179 foot mountain in Northern California. It was my first real summit and I was proud. Getting there took me through two days of snow, ice and below-freezing camping conditions, using crampons, an ice axe, and more layers than I thought I owned.

As I climbed, and especially on my way down, I began to realize the lessons required to reach the top and make it back down safely. As it turns out, the most important rules are just as relevant in the snow as they are in conquering our everyday challenges.

When was the last time you reached a mountain summit, whether outdoors or in life?

We face our own mountains everyday. Some small. Some big. There’s always a summit we want to reach. Maybe it’s running those few miles before work, making that intimidating sales call, or running your business. Goals, no matter the size, require a strategy for success.

A cold tall mountain reinforced an approach that can convert life’s everyday challenges into gratifying accomplishments.

A Guide to Reaching Life’s Summits:

Pack light. I wish I took this more seriously. Every unnecessary piece of gear complicates things and detracts from the experience. Aside from the bare necessities, things do not make life better. They often cause more stress and keep you from what’s most important. The lighter your pack the better. Life is too short to be burdened with excessive possessions, emotional baggage or regrets. Positive thoughts, relationships and experiences weigh nothing at all. Pile them on and leave the rest behind. They’ll lift you to the top.

Take one step at a time. Any major accomplishment can be broken down into a series of single steps. My pattern for the mountain was 15 steps up, 15 breaths of rest. I did that for 7 hours. If I would have only focused on the very top, frustration would have overcome me. If your summit is too intimidating, break it into smaller steps. Focus on those one by one. Eventually one step will be the one that puts you on top.

Don’t go at it alone. When climbing, a partner is a must. For safety, support, camaraderie, motivation and simply to share the journey. You’d be silly (and putting yourself in great danger) to go up alone. Life is meant to be experienced with others. It makes the valleys shallower and the peaks higher. Relationships magnify experiences and help you do things that prove impossible alone. Don’t leave home without your support team.

Listen to the experts. Halfway up, a passing guide told us if we couldn’t get to the top by 12:30 at the latest, then to turn back. Chances of late day thunderstorms were too great. As amateurs we would have had no idea. While we all ought to experience our own paths, it’s foolish not to learn from and observe the guidance of experts. Choose your life models wisely and keep them close by on your journey.

Slow down. As Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia says, “It’s about how you got there. Not what you’ve accomplished.” Despite what colleagues and competitors may tell you, there is no rush. Rushing on the mountain risks slipping, not acclimating to thinning air, exhaustion and possibly death. In life the biggest risk is that you miss the wonders of everyday experiences in your pursuit to the top. The top is secondary to the process.

Look back and take in the view. There’s never any guarantee that you’ll get to the top, but you always have the ability to stop, take in a deep breath, smile and enjoy the view-whether it’s miles of wilderness or two feet of fog. It’s all wonderful. Every moment of life is a new view to appreciate.

Save some energy for the trip down. We thought the summit was “just over that peak” half a dozen times before it actually was. Conserve energy. Things will inevitably take longer than expected. Don’t be discouraged. Budget your capital, energy and drive appropriately. Rarely is anything in life an all out sprint. Treat it like a marathon. You may need your reserves when you least expect it.

Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory. These are Ed Viesturs’ famous words; the first U.S. man to summit all 14 peaks above 8,000 meters with no bottled oxygen. The summit will be there tomorrow and likely so will yours. If more planning, a stronger team or more support is required, then save the summit for a time when the payout is safer and more probable. If you are outmatched, know when to turn back, only to return stronger and more savvy tomorrow. Stay objective and don’t let short-term excitement get in the way of long-term fulfillment.

Failure is a part of the process. If we would have started our climb the week before, conditions would have been too grave to make it. Be ok with not reaching the summit every time. Falling short is inevitable. You will never learn more than from your failures…at anything. Embrace them.

A daunting summit is nothing more than a challenge. A challenge is simply an opportunity in disguise. You won’t summit every one you come across, but you will become a better person with each attempt.

There will always be another mountain. You are not meant to conquer them all. Past summits are simply preparing you for the next. With the right strategy, you’ll put the top within reach. When your summit arrives, you will be ready.

“It is not the mountains we conquer but ourselves.” ~Sir Edmund Hillary

Read more inspiring articles from Scott Dinsmore at Reading For Your Success where he is committed to discovering your own path to personal and career success, on your terms, through “action-based reading.” Subscribe here to Scott’s future articles.

‘It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.’ ~Bertrand Russell

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on twitter or identica.

I know there are many of you who want to declutter, or who have already gotten started … but you hit a roadblock.

And it’s a big one: you don’t want to be wasteful. Your gut tells you that getting rid of perfectly good things — things that cost a pretty penny to get in the first place — is wasteful as hell.

I recently received this letter from Marissa, a brilliant reader:

“I am currently going through my possessions for the umpteenth time to have/own less. My issue I am having now, is that when I donate/throw away items I don’t “need” I feel like I am wasting money. At one point in time I used my hard earned money to buy this item and now I just want to get rid of it. Though this does help in my future shopping habits so I don’t buy anything on a whim or just because I want to have it, I feel like I am throwing away money into the trash/donation bins.”

This is such a common question that I thought I’d address it here — if you’re holding onto stuff because you feel it would be a waste of good money if you got rid of it, here is the answer you are looking for:

I hereby release you of your burden.

You are free. You bought these items with hard-earned money, and you don’t want that money to go to waste, so you’ve been holding onto them. It’s a burden that keeps you from freeing yourself of these unneeded possessions — it forces to you keep the space they occupy, to maintain these possessions, to constantly see them every day even if you don’t want them, to walk around them or trip over them or live in a cramped, cluttered space. This is a burden, paying penance for your initial wasted expenditure of cash.

But: the waste was when you bought it, not when you get rid of it. You bought something you didn’t really need — and the real waste would be to ignore this and not learn from it.

So here’s how to make sure that by decluttering possessions you don’t need, it’s not a waste:

1. Learn your lesson. This might sound condescending, but it’s not meant to be — if we don’t realize our mistakes, we can’t learn and avoid them in the future. So realize: you shouldn’t have bought the items in the first place. Avoid doing this in the future, by buying as little as you possibly can. Stop being a consumer, and start living.

2. Realize that keeping the items is wasteful. If you keep stuff you don’t need, it costs you money — you pay for the space to store it (lots of possessions means bigger homes or storage containers), you pay to maintain it, it costs you time (and therefore money) to keep it and go around it, you have to fix things when they break, you have to sort through things to find things, you spend time moving things around, and so on. Getting rid of this unnecessary stuff frees you of this waste.

3. Find someone who will use it. It’s a waste to keep something when you’re not using it (a good reason car-sharing is a much better use of cars than private ownership, btw). So find a friend or family member who needs it, or give it to Goodwill or some other such charity, or donate it to a library that will let many others use it. Consider starting a neighborhood tool library, or a book-sharing spot in your community. When someone else uses your items, it’s not a waste.

4. Test the waters. If you’re unsure of whether you’ll need something later, put it to a test: have you used it in the last six months? If not, you probably don’t need it (unless it’s seasonal — then ask if you needed it in the last year). If you’re still unsure, box it up with today’s date, and check on it in six months — if you never needed to open the box, you didn’t need it.

5. Don’t let your possessions own you. If you hold on to possessions because you feel it would be wasteful to get rid of them, they are controlling you. They are dictating your life, rather than you creating the life you want, living how you want to live. Let go of possessions and be free — living otherwise would be the true waste.

6. Make better use of your time and space. Once you’re freed of this clutter, don’t waste your freed time on acquiring more stuff. Spend your time on incredible experiences, not on possessions. In the end, get a smaller house, now that you need to store less stuff, and help save the earth while you’re at it (a smaller home, along with ditching your car and becoming vegan, is one of the most important things you can do to reduce your carbon emissions).

‘Don’t water your weeds.’ ~Harvey MacKay

—
If you liked this guide, please bookmark it on Delicious or share on Twitter. Thanks, my friends.

What’s the hottest trend in the NBA world right now? No, it’s not throwback jerseys or one of a kind Bentleys or even vacations to South Beach. The hottest trend right now in the NBA world is the Jewish culture. First, Amare Stoudemire says he’s Jewish. Next, Shaquille O’Neal is quoted speaking Hebrew. Now? LeBron James has hired a Rabbi for spiritual guidance on business matters.

Image: TSN.ca

Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto has reportedly been hired by LeBron — at a cost of around $100K! The Rabbi is to aid LeBron as the new member of the Miami Heat considers various endorsement opportunities.

This news was first reported by TMZ.com … and they even got a picture of LeBron James holding hands with Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto. Their meeting took place in a yacht off the coast of New York City. While this may seem like an odd move by LeBron, it actually isn’t too unusual. Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto is popular with millionaires (and billionaires) who are making big business decisions.

Amazingly enough, the Rabbi only speaks Hebrew. No word yet if Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto will be taking his talents to South Beach.

Post from: EveryJoe