Author: animeshjmathur

Saying goodbye to 2021

learning, Learning, mindset

It’s already 2022 in Australia.  In India we have about 3.5 hours to go before we ring in the new year. I was having a few perspectives as we do the countdown.

While things started of quite well in January this year, by the time it was April we got hit with the second wave of COVID-19.  It was lethal. In India,  with such a huge population,  the complete infrastructure of the health system was taken by surprise. The speed with which it infected people was amazing.

A lot of us, lost some near and dear ones during this phase and it was a very painful period.  I am generally a very optimistic person,  but if you read my posts of that time, you may see a person trying to fight the depressive times and sometimes not being optimistic.

But after June things changed almost like a V and we had a lot of positive things happening.

This year has thrown up a lot of learnings for me and my team. While we have generally been locked in for a major part of the year, we have also learnt to appreciate what we have available to us in spite of all these challenges.

We have also been working on how in the changed environment with  changed dynamics of human interaction we still do business.

I think all of us will come out stronger to handle the future better.

To all the readers and followers of this blog Wish you a Healthy and Happy New Year 2022.

Look forward to being of service in the new year with some more value adds.

Carpe Diem!!!

Some more interesting aspects of Sugar

sugar

I came to know about the white sugar poison during the early part of this century when my father told me of research he had read where sugar was defined as the white poison.

Today I was reading the book “Cracked IT” and came to know that John Yudkin a doctor in the UK had written a book “Pure White and Deadly” way back in the mid 1950s but because of better lobbying by people with smarter communication abilities, his work was completely ignored.

Right through our growing years we used to hear doctors tell our parents to not eat fat because that would cause so many problems while the actual devil which is sugar was completely ignored.

Another thing that I wrote in my post yesterday was about, sugar being addictive. I had only compared it to drugs. But I also realized while reading “Cracked it” that the source of alcohol, which is also very addictive in nature, is also originating through the same process as sugar.

Even when you are having alcohol, you are taking in a lot of sugar. While beer may have lower sugar compared to say whisky, you end up consuming a much higher volume of beer compared to whiskey, leading to the popular term in India ” beer belly “

Coming back to Yudik’s work, it would have been lost completely if in 2009 an endocrinologist had not brought out a video on YouTube called Sugar the Bitter Truth.

In ancient times people used to believe that earth is the center of the universe and the sun rotates around us…..till someone proved it otherwise and communicated it well….so I realized that someone had already spoken about Sugar being bad about 65-70 years back but poor communication or persuasion had kept us focusing on the wrong things for so long

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

White sugar – getting the lows after the high

Energy, sugar

I have given hp taking added sugar completely. So no more sugar in coffee, tea etc. I feel generally feel much better.

In foods also I have almost cut down on items which have added sugar like cookies, juices etc.

But we had Christmas. How can you celebrate Christmas without the Rich Plum Cake. All rules fall by the way side when I get to identify a really good quality plum cake. After all Christmas comes only once a year and I get to eat a plum cake only at that time.

So when I got the opportunity to get a really good plum cake, I ended up buying 3 boxes. I shared the cake with our guests who had come for lunch with us. The rest of the box I ended up eating by the time I went to sleep.

The next morning, when I got up, I was feeling so exhausted , I had to force myself out of bed.

Sugar had done its job. After the high of Christmas, I was was having a massive low. If you have given up on sugar , then the drain is even more I guess.

Since that day I am wondering on what I do with the remaining two boxes of the rich plum cake.

The bottom line is that sugar completely messes up with the body. While drugs get a bad name for addiction, in my opinion sugar comes very close. Its difficult to give up. After a high you get a low which can only be covered after another round of sugar.

A simple rule – avoid refined sugar at all costs.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

You just said Yes – You just said No revisited

Affirmative action, Delegation, Productivity, relationships

Everything in life has an opportunity cost.

For everything that you say Yes to , there’s something that you said No to , right there. Which could mean that you said Yes to a non essential task which won’t get you anywhere closer to your aspirations. This same time will not be available for you to do a task which could help you meet your aspirations.

I happen to be one of those people who aren’t able to say No easily. Which makes me among the biggest culprits of breaking this rule.

Then you should not be reading this post, because it is only theory, except the fact that I am taking affirmative action to get out of the habit. I have written about how I have eliminated all , but an extremely few apps, from my devices and stopped all kinds of alerts. So now I don’t say Yes to looking at all the alerts from different apps.

The other thing I am trying to measure is a “no” index everyday. This is where I specifically say No to things. I want to see how high can it be taken. Earlier I have tried other mechanisms of saying No, but each time I would do that I would feel guilty. So now I am trying to gamify this. On a weekly basis I am tracking the index like the stock market to see if my trend is climbing up or not.

Being a person who works very hard on relationships, I am now delegating the job of identifying and starting relationships with people to others in my team. I support them rather then get into the activity myself. There are glitches, it also takes more time and I have to do a lot of hand-holding, but I have a feeling its starting to show results for me, because now I don’t have to say Yes , to cultivating every relationship.

If you have found other practical ways to say No to more things, then please put it in the comments below, I would love to learn and practice more productivity methods.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!