Insurance to eliminate fear

Fear, Happiness, Health, Insurance, Leverage, Risks

I read an extremely interesting concept today. I have considerably got convinced about the idea, still digesting a few things, but thought of sharing to see what you think.

I have always been aware of insurance being necessary. As a matter of fact in my posts on advice to young women, I had layed great stress on both health and life insurance.

Quite frankly given the high inflation in healthcare costs, I would anyway recommend you to take the highest possible health insurance. On life insurance however I was generally of the view that you should take term insurance to cover the major risks that you envisage.

One of the key things in financial independence that I keep harping about is the ability to take decisions without the fear of having a job in the future.

One of the reasons that financial independence becomes a moving target is because as you grow in life, your finances improve, you get used to a better lifestyle. To be able to achieve that lifestyle if you leave your job, you need to have a much higher level of assets. So you again start saving and investing for the next higher level but by then your target amount has moved further.

This happens primarily because FEAR, the What if eventuality.

This is where if you have more than adequate insurance of different types, you transfer the risk to the insurance company and your fear can reduce. This is where I have to delve deeper on how you can leverage this ideato become more fearless.

I will keep you posted as I delve deeper into this subject.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

The tide will turn – once again

Affirmative action, confidence, Health

I had written a post similar to this about 8-9 months At that time we did not have the Covid vaccine. This time we have but still these are crazy times. When you hear thousands of people dying everyday, in the news, it’s natural to feel dreadful about your personal future. You can be fearful or you can be hopeful its a choice that you make everyday.

However history has had various events and the human race has adapted and come back stronger always. Whether these have been related to hurricanes or the plague the human spirit has always ensured that we survive. Eventhough across the world millions are getting vaccinated everyday, the virus is also become smarter and is mutating even more viciously. Let’s ensure that we maintain social distancing and bring down the compounded daily growth rate of the virus.

The tide will turn – Always

So during this time you could see all the problems, you could binge on watching movies and serials on TV and feel even more depressed.

Or you could think of what else you can do to brighten your future. This is not about just positive attitude. Its about affirmative action. The surfer takes advantage of the tide to get his momentum, the airplane takes advantage of the air resistance to fly.

Get prepared while you are locked down so that you can be stronger to face the future. Get trained – there are so many universities offering free courses. Or get trained on products – so many consultants, OEMs are offering free training.

We have a bright future ahead, let this “reset” time that nature has given us, not go waste.

Carpe Diem !!!

Mind Control – Part II

Affirmative action, Breathing, Habits, Human Brain, Yoga

I was thinking on this topic since the time I posted yesterday on the comment “how can I stop my mind from wandering”

While I wish, I had a silver bullet answer, I don’t.

However there are some more things which help put my mind in better state to get into flow. In yesterday’s post I already suggested you watch a video on YouTube of Ilovemarketing episode on the 50 minute focus finder. Its one of the best methods of getting the mind cleared and then fully in flow. Earlier to that I have spoken about breathing and yoga.

Another thing which I have found very useful when I am doing any activity which requires intense focus is to play Mozart and Beethoven symphonies. Those have a massive impact on my ability to concentrate when I am trying to do a job which requires immense brain power. In addition I use a paper and pencil to put my thoughts down on paper as they come.

The brain is like the CPU of the computer, it typically is working at a speed which is more than a 1000 times faster than the input-output devices connected to it . If you leave the mind idle even for a milli second, it will like to wander and think of multiple thoughts.

In the life of an average person a typical waking day of 16 hours has about 57000 seconds. You brain has massive compute ability, which means it typically processes tasks very fast and then till it gets the next task, it wanders. Potentially your brain could be wandering 50000 times in a day hoping from one thought to another.

To keep the brain engaged you should use multiple sensory organs (the input-output devices of your body).

If I am reading a book – especially a non-fiction book – then my mind tends to wander. So what I do is I use my fingers to scan through the pages diagonally. Since my eyes follow my finger, two sensory organs are involved and the mind wanders less, in addition I play Mozart and Beethoven symphonies and my ears also get involved resulting in much higher concentration levels.

Why not try these two ideas in addition to what I had mentioned about watching the video by Dean Jackson and doing yoga.

Let me know your feedback and do let me know if there are other methods you have found useful and share it with us.

Till next time

Carpe Diem!!!

Refined sugar – the biggest poison

Evolution, Habits, Health, Human Brain

Today my post is short, even though the topic is quite dense. I am not a medical doctor, nor am I a nutrionist, so I will only give you some very short pointers. If you can also research yourself and reduce your consumption of direct and indirect sources of refined sugar then in the long run it will be tremendous.

My father in the early 90s had started warning me about the ill effects of refined sugar and the long term impacts of its usage on the different organs including the brain.

When we are young we don’t actually realise all the impact of this advice.

As I started getting a little older, I realised whenever I was in the US and had breakfast included with my room, I used to end up eating a lot of pancakes with maple syrup, doughnuts and all the possible sugary items. After that I used to get such a drop in my energy level in a couple of hours, that I wanted to just drop on the bed.

So I started avoid getting rooms with breakfast and rather started going to the local Subway to have a large sandwich with coffee.

Today with recent research its becoming more and more clear that refined sugar is not only a cause of diabetes which is the root cause of a lot of other ailments but also a cause of dementia and other brain related diseases. If we are going to be living longer but our brain is going to deteriorate we will end up being a vegetable. That’s a very scary situation for me.

I now have a target on myself to not take more than 2 tablespoons of sugar directly or indirectly every day. I used to love sweets and chocolates. So initially this did hurt me quite a bit. But I have consistently improved.

Today if I have a milk chocolate in the night (my preferred time for eating sweets was after dinner) then I get up feeling groggy. I don’t know the reason for this but high carb diets in the nights also now make me get up groggy.

I have moved to having more jaggery which has a low glycemic index and dark chocolates with more than 55% cocoa. Lets see how much further I can reduce the sugar intake.

Have you experimented with reducing your intake of refined sugar. What have been the benefits you have observed. I will love to hear your comments

Till next time

Carpe Diem!!!