LegendaryLife Blog

As my plan is to live well over a hundred years by following a very healthy lifestyle full of whole foods, vigorous exercise and lots of mental activities, I found this Ted talk by Dan Buettner rather interesting. Here is the embeded video followed by a summary of the talk’s key points. If you wish, you can read more about Dan here.

Lecture’s key points:

• based off the studies of twin lifespans, it’s been calculated that less than 10% of our longevity is based directly off our genes with 90% being dictated by our lifestyle.
• there is a lot of confusion regarding optimal health and lifestyle choices
• a team of experts visited and studied extensively the lifestyle of populations known to live a long, healthy life with few health complications. These four areas are known as blue zones and include Costa Rica, Okinawa, Sardinia and California
• longevity myth #1: you can’t wish yourself to live longer, no matter how hard you try because we are built to multiply, not live long. Your chances of living to 100 are 1 in 5 000 currently within America.
• longevity myth #2: treatments exist that can slow aging. Our bodies have 35 trillion cells… there is simply too much we don’t understand and that can go wrong to possibly know what works and what doesn’t. These cells are completely replaced every 8 years and each time, genetic and cellular damage occurs which builds up exponentially.
• a 65 year old senior ages 125x faster than a 12 year old child
• the capacity of the human body to sustain your life is about 90 years, slightly longer for woman

• in the highlands of Sardinia, there is a place where old age is a given, with 10x more centenarians than in America! They are also healthy, working and enjoying a vigorous lifestyle. Here, men live older than woman.
• diet consists mostly of plant based and whole foods made and found locally using naturally sourced products high in Omega-3 fatty acids
• they are mostly shepards, so they enjoy an active lifestyle throughout their lives
• they enjoy wine which has 3x the amount of polyphenols than any other type in the world (this is a strong anti-oxidant)
• the older you get, the more wisdom and acceptance you get within the social structure of the Sardinian society
• on the island of Okinawa, in the northern part of the island, the oldest female population can be found
• here they live a long time, die quickly with little health problems in between
• 5x the number of centenarians with a fifth of the cancer compared to America
• they have a mostly plant based diet that consists of smaller calorie dense foods – they stop eating once their stomach is 80% full
• isolation is known to shorten lifespan, so the Okinawans have a system in which they develop lifelong friendships
• American’s have adopted a lifestyle that can be divided into two categories, work and retirement but in Okinawa, there is no word for retirement. They simply live by a motto which means “the reason you wake-up in the morning is ___”
• in America, it’s the 7th Day Adventists found in California which live the longest, the study that the numbers come from tracked 70 000 people for 30 years
• they don’t eat a lot of meat, for 24 hours a week they stop everything and focus onto their social being and doing nature walks

• things that all these “high longevity cultures” have in common
• they all do daily physical activity that isn’t overly strenuous on their body or joints
• they have the right outlook on life and a purpose that drives them on a daily basis, they purposefully slow their lives down to deal with built-up stress
• they all take some “time off” to reflect or to relax on a very regular basis
• they eat food based on what is found around them and it forms the majority of their diet
• they eat mostly plant based foods, a little wine and rarely till they are absolutely full
• they put their families and relatives first in their lives and have strong social contacts
• longevity has no short term fix

The Bottom Line

A long, healthy life is a choice that involves incremental and small proactive steps through ones life.

I like goal setting, so here is what I hope to accomplish this year and what I did or didn’t for the last.

Goal setting for 2010

Here are some my goals for 2009, I’ve crossed-out the ones that were accomplished:

• publish my first inspirational/motivational book
• publish another WoodMarvels.com volume (current book one is already in pre-press)
• triple the total traffic from all my sites
• create lasting change in at least 100 people using LegendaryLife.com (thousands will join but not everybody will use it as intended)
• create two new sources of revenue for myself (online or otherwise)
• try to win some sort of award somewhere, somehow
• get WoodMarvels.com pre-cut kits into retail stores (online or otherwise)
• enjoy the gift of life even more!

Things I wasn’t able to predict

• I would write my first science fiction book around the same time as working on my WoodMarvels.com Volume II book, hoping to have it published sometime in February
• I got mentions in newpapers, blog and magazines around the world regarding my design work
• Due to WoodMarvels taking up so much of my time, I haven’t had as much time to dedicate towards this blog or LegendaryLife, though I did launch it already, it’s only a shadow of what it should be, something I hope to rectify sooner than later
• I would accomplish my dream of living in China for a year and learning Mandarin (something I’m doing now)

My 2010 Goals

• I really think this is the year that WoodMarvels.com blows-up on me, in a good way! All the things that I track regarding this site are on a steep upward trend with no letting-up. You can read what’s been happening right here: WoodMarvels 2009 Year in Review as well as the goals I’ve established for that property.
• I want to become fluent in Mandarin, it’s a tough language, but one that I enjoy and being in the country where that’s all they talk is my chance to turn this long time dream into reality
• I still want to win an award of some kind, somewhere, somehow but it seems that my focus for this year will be on WoodMarvels more than anything else, which is great fun

The Bottom Line

Focus still leads to opportunities hitting you from unknown origins.

I believe each person has their own special gift, not given to them… just by random chance, their brains got configured in a different manner than the rest of us and this leads them down very different paths. One such person is Kim Peek.

Legendary Savant

Thanks to the movie Rain Man, the existence of savants got some attention by the media and hence, the the general public. His brain was larger than the average and looked noticeably different than the average but somehow, it allowed him to enjoy the benefits of a true photographic memory (eidetic memory). Everything he had ever read or seen, he remembered instantly! I wrote about his special abilities briefly in my book titled “Transform your life from blah to Legendary!” (page 95) which included reading a book, two pages at a time, one eye per page in only a few seconds!

The Rain Man affect

Kim Peek was transformed after the movie came out, he opened up regarding his abilities and developed a more outward personality… he came into being his own, thanks to the dedication and love of his father. I never met Kim but he was on my list of people that I would have really enjoyed taking out to lunch.

His joy of life was incredible and in my book, he led a truly legendary life! May Kim Peek rest in peace, he was a truly original man with an incredible talent teaching others the amazing abilities of the human mind!

You can watch the video outlining his life at ABC News.

I saw this animation and absolutely loved it… it’s a great summary of our life cycle and even better… it’s all explained visually!

Ask anybody who has accomplished a goal or vision they once had and the very first step they will say is that they STARTED. You can’t finish what you didn’t start… and each small step you take is that much closer towards the end of said goal or vision.

Starting is easy… follow-through isn’t

After you decided to take the first step and turn a dream into a reality… the next largest step is consistent steps forward, whether they happen daily or weekly… continual progress is a must because it create momentum that makes any distractions easier to deal with. Just like the body of a bodybuilder takes years of hard work, if he or she stops going to the gym… it’s always harder to start back up after a prolonged rest period than it is to continue through an injury.

Distractions are what you make them

It’s all too easy to get distracted from a goal, especially when it’s a difficult one or requires more effort than is ordinary. The mind is great at creating “outs” for you so that it can continue along the path of least resistance… the hard part is learning to scope and get back on track ASAP regardless of the distraction being present. You have to consciously decide each time you get distracted if it’s worth your attention or you are better off ignoring it.

What publishing has taught me… patience!

I’ve just published my forth book yesterday (WoodMarvels.com Volume 2) and the evolution in every respect is rather astonishing. I started this blog to improve my English skills and if you go back to the first article… it took me hours and it’s barely a paragraph and now, I’m editing my most ambitious effort… a science fiction book of over 240 pages! One thing that publishing has taught me is that no matter how much you have done in the past, there is always a better way of doing things, of telling a story, of laying the text out, of delivering key concepts and ideas to the reader. Patience is needed because just when you think you are done… you are NOT! I now fully appreciate why it sometimes takes a year or so between published books by the same author… and the pressure there must be when you have a publisher breathing down your neck to get things done ASAP! Luckily, I’m my own publisher so the pressure to get things done isn’t anything I put onto myself… things are done when they are done

The Bottom Line

First steps always require the momentum of a second!