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2019 Book Reads (and listens)

Looking over my list, I see that I’ve rated just about every book a 4 or 5 star rating. I feel this is because I have no tolerance for books that don’t interest me. I have no trouble abandoning a book half-read. There are too many amazing books in the world for me to waste my time with mediocre books.

I hope you enjoy my (eclectic) list.

The Way of the Superior Man: A spiritual guide to mastering the challenges of women, work, and sexual desire, David Deida

***** You might rightly wonder why I, as a woman, would listen to this book. It is a fascinating look into male/female relationships. It taught me things about my worldview that I didn’t realize before. It has also helped me look at all people I come across as divine, and hustling the best they can, just like me. I highly recommend this book for everyone.

Rules for a Knight, Ethan Hawke

***** Ethan Hawke found a book among his family’s inherited memorabilia that belonged to a great great grandfather in Europe, who was an elderly knight. The experienced Knight wrote a book of advice to the younger knights including his sons and grandsons. It is such a great book of advice that would help anyone become a better person. The book also tells what stone henge really was.

Half the Sky, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Practical Politics, Human Rights, Globalization & Politics

I can’t rate this book because to rate it would be to put it into the same category as other books. This book describes the plight of girls worldwide, girls who are forced into the sex trade or forced to marry men who rape them. If we think we have come a long way in women’s rights, this unforgettable book shows us just how far we still have to go and how much help is needed.

Conversations with God, Book 1, Neale Donald Walsch

***** Spirituality. This book is filled with wisdom and insight. It made me reflect on what I believe about God, the Universe, and our place in it. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

Conversations with God, Book 2, Neale Donald Walsch

***** Spirituality. I gave it a few months between reading the first book in this series and buying the second. I go back and read passages in this book like it is scripture. These books left me on a spiritual high that lasted for months.

12 Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson

**** Self Help. Jordan Peterson tells it like it is, and a lot of young people could benefit from listening to him. I gave his book 4 stars instead of 5 because he is long winded, and I could only make it through half the book.

Money, Master the Game, Tony Robbins

***** Finance. This book is the deepest dive into financial literacy I’ve read. Robbins consulted experts that the lay man or woman doesn’t have access to. If you follow the advice in this book, you will be well on your way to financial freedom. It is an advanced read.

The Female Brain, Louann Brizendine

***** Popular Neuropsychology. This book was a fascinating look into ancient wiring that explains why women do what they do. I’m looking forward to reading her book, The Male Brain.

A mind of your own, Kelly Brogan

***** Health and Wellness. This book continues to change my life as I implement Dr. Brogan’s recommendations. The winter blues are far, far away this year, thanks to Dr. Brogan.

Stress Less, Accomplish More: Meditation for Extraordinary Performance, Emily Fletcher

*****This book took my meditation practice and my life to a new level. I was meditating regularly in the morning, but committed to meditating regularly in the evening too, and easily continue to do what I need in the evening with sustained energy. I’ve adopted Fletcher’s meditation methods, and really love them.

Party Girl, Rachel Hollis

**** Fiction. This is an enjoyable beach read. It is fiction based on Hollis’s early career as an event planner.

Sweet Girl, Rachel Hollis

**** Fiction. This is the second book in Hollis’s girl series. It’s cute, but the story is similar to Party Girl, and I haven’t made it to the third book yet.

Girl, wash your face, Rachel Hollis

***** Self Help. Rachel tells it like the boss she is, no holds barred. If you want a better life for yourself, stop making excuses. Highly recommend

The Miracle Morning, Hal Elrod

****Self Help. Hal gives steps to jump start your day in order to jumpstart your life. I only read half the book because I am already doing my own version of what he suggests. But I did hand the book off to a friend, and I think it has helped her a lot.

Blue, The Color of Noise, Steve Aoki

*** Memoir. This book chronicles Steve’s life as the son of restaunteer Hiroaki Aoki, who founded the Benihana restaurants. I read this book after watching Steve’s interview on Impact Theory, but I had never heard of him, and by the end of the book was questioning why I kept reading. But Steve had some treasures at the end. He mentions Anticancer, by David Servan-Schreiber MD PhD, which lead me to Kitchen Table Wisdom by Rachel Naomi Remen.

Composed, the Memoirs of Rosanne Cash

*** Memoir. I’m not familiar with Cash’s music, but I her book is worth a read. It offers an honest look into the life of her father through her experience.

Lies my teacher told me, James W. Loewen

***** History – Nonfiction. This book is amazing. Everyone in America should read this book. Loewen is a history professor who is beyond frustrated at the version of American history taught in American text books, from Columbus being hailed as a hero despite the countless atrocities he committed, to the plague that decimated the native american population, to the nadir period of African-American history.

Anti cancer, David Servan-Schreiber MD PhD

*****Health and Wellness. If I could give this book more than 5 stars, I would. Everyone should read this book. Servan-Schrieber is diagnosed with a brain tumor twice as a young doctor. This book chronicles what he learns about how to prevent and heal cancer to compliment traditional therapy. Of all my reading on health, this is the book that finally got me to switch to butter from grass-fed cows and raw milk.

Bulletproof Diet, Dave Asprey

*****Health, Diet. I checked this book out from the library then made myself stop reading it until I got my own copy because there is so much good information in this book and I wanted, no, needed to write notes in the margins. I’ve implemented some dietary changes before I even finished the book.

The Third Plate, Dan Barber

*****Food, Sustainable Farming. Dan Barber is a famous chef and his book is a fascinating look into the world of a white tablecloth restaurant. But this book offers so much more. It takes a hard look at the industrialization of the American food system, from chemical fertilizers and pesticides to the practice of huge farms that only plant one crop. The solutions are simple, but not easy.

Kitchen Table Wisdom, Stories That Heal. By Rachel Naomi Remen

*****Medical, psychology, short essay. I gifted this book to my siblings and friends for Christmas this year. It is a collection of short essays from a medical doctor turned therapist to cancer patients and co-founder of (kt) treatment center. The stories touch upon humanity in such a beautiful way.

tiny beautiful things, Advice on love and life from Dear Sugar, Cheryl Strayed

*****Strayed is raw, and the questions she answers are equally raw. She writes with such love and compassion, and sage wisdom to the letters she receives as Dear Sugar. She never judges, but encourages people to live boldly. She sees and embraces the naked mess that life is sometimes.

Girl, Stop Apologizing, Rachel Hollis

***** Business, Self Help. Hollis is my girl, she is an amazing business leader who tells it like it is. She has started multiple successful businesses and shares her tools, tips, and tactics in this kick-ass business book.

Mad Skills

Mad Skills – Put your energy where it matters: A lesson for parents and kids

Technology is changing the way we live and earn money in a super fast way.

Let’s list some industries that have gone away because of changes in technology or health awareness

Cotton – the cotton gin made it super easy and cheap to process cotton
Farming – used to have lots of small, local farms, now we have fewer, industrial farms
Tabaco – went away due to health concerns
Printing – Replaced with email and digital documents
Taxi Drivers – replaced by UBER
Lots of local shops – replaced by Amazon
Lots of national retail chains – Replaced by Amazon
Trains – replaced by cars

My hubby and I own 2 print shops. We work to be the best print shops around, but just as important, we work to develop business skills. While all of us can focus on a specific field, and develop skills in that field, we also want to develop universal skills that will translate into any field we decide to pursue.

What universal skills can we develop?

Scott Adams, in his book, “How to fail at almost everything and still win big suggests, “Some skills are more important than others and you should acquire as many of those key skills as possible, including:

Public speaking
Business writing
A working understanding of the psychology of persuasion, (or marketing)
An understanding of basic technology concepts
Social skills
Proper voice technique
Good grammar
Basic accounting

Develop a master skills list, and start working to develop those.

Health

A Runner’s Gut Biome

I was talking to a friend yesterday and he said, “I need to rebuild my runner’s gut bacteria”. I questioned him on the validity of what he was talking about. He explained that he used to hate running and thought people were lying when they said they enjoyed running. But after a while he got into running and found that he really enjoyed it.

Recently he got sick and took a round of antibiotics. When he recovered, he thought, “I don’t want to run, I can’t remember why I ever thought I liked that. In his anecdotal experience, the antibiotics that killed his good and bad gut bacteria was the key variable. He now thinks that as we run we develop a gut biome that helps us want to go for a jog and helps us enjoy it.

I haven’t experienced this, but I do know that if I eat sugar, I crave sugar more, so perhaps the same is true with exercise. The more we do it, the more we crave it.

You set the course

Be your weird self

I was talking with some friends recently and one said out loud before she could catch herself, “you’re so weird”. Even my children tell me I’m weird. I don’t mind.

I feel like people might think I’m weird because I have a mother-in-law that I rent out instead of reserving the space as a guest room for when family comes to visit. I’m weird because I sketch in church while I listen to the speakers. I’m weird because I buy raw milk for my family, for which someone recently asked me, “is that even legal?”. I’m weird because I don’t watch the news or keep up on the President’s tweets. I don’t watch TV in the evenings. I don’t know popular culture.

But I know this: I have found myself and am being true to myself. I was lost in a society that values consuming over creating. We grow weary of the things we own too quickly and “need” to replace them. We’re rarely happy with the house we live in, but are always looking to upgrade into something bigger.

I have discovered what really matters to me, and it’s not a bigger house or more, newer stuff. It is learning and growing and creating and building and helping my children understand that they need to listen to their own heart about what is important to them instead of deciding what is important to them by the commercials they see on TV.

And I have found that when I am myself, I give other people permission to be themselves. A few years after I started renting out my downstairs apartment, my sister started renting out a room in her house. When I started sketching in church, which surprisingly took courage to do, I saw others start doing it too.

So be your weird self. Be you. You won’t regret it.

In the Arena

Vital Energy and Anti-Anxiety Meds

My coworker said to me recently, “I don’t know how you keep up with yourself, and I mean that as a compliment.” I took this statement to mean that she thinks I have a lot of energy and get a lot of shit done. I can’t help but feel flattered, as I seek to increase my energy like a missile seeks heat.

However, in the same day I was also explaining to the same coworker how stressed I can get about looming customer deadlines, and she said, “Do you take anxiety medication for that?”

In the same day I got, “you get a lot done, but might have anxiety”. Either my coworker is too vocal/opinionated, or this is just a lesson that we can’t listen to praise or criticism, but stay in our lane and go after our vision.

Health, Uncategorized

Book Review: Bulletproof Diet by Dave Asprey

The basis for Dave Asprey’s bulletproof diet is starting your day with myo-toxin free coffee blended with a Tbsp of butter from grass-fed cows, which is easy to find in local grocery stoers, and a Tbsp of coconut oil, or MCT oil. So far, I haven’t used MCT oil.

I tried the Bulletproof diet because I want to attain the highest level of mental clarity I can.

3 benefits I’ve noticed from following the Bulletproof diet:

Honestly, I haven’t noticed a jump in mental clarity, but I was already eating clean and taking other measures to attain top performance like working out and meditating regularly.

But I have noticed 2 immediate benefits from adding bulletproof coffee first thing in the morning:

I’ve cut my meals by a third. Literally, I’m eating one less meal a day. And, I am losing inches. This isn’t the reason I started the bulletproof diet, but I don’t mind.
I don’t crave sugar. At all. I can walk by the doughnuts at work. I can walk by the candy bowl at work, even when it is stocked with chocolate and not reach for a piece, even the week before I start my period.

To be totally transparent, I do keep a bar of dark chocolate at home that I indulge in.

When I get hungry, I’m not ravenous, I’ll even forget I’m hungry for a bit.

None of these benefits have come by hard work or iron will-power. It’s not will-power that keeps me away from the candy bowl. I honestly don’t crave it.

Why the bulletproof diet works: Warning, oversimplified Science ahead:

Coffee is an appetite suppressant if you drink it without all the sugar.

Our brains are made from fat and fuel themselves with sugar, which they can make on their own when we eat macronutrients (fat being a favorite).

I’m pretty sure the fats that Asprey recommends are why I’m not craving sugar. My brain is satisfied with the fats I’m eating.

Asprey says, “Thanks to faulty research, fats have gained a bad reputation, but the right types of fats are healthy and essential for life. All nutrients are converted inside the body before being used. The right fats are a clean-burning, nutritious, and satisfying energy sources that keep your body and brain functioning at maximum capacity. Fat is a building block of healthy cell walls and hormones.”

And bulletproof coffee is super creamy.

Give it a try, see if you like it.

Family History

What are your family stories?

I worked in a gym daycare when my kids were small. There was a little girl who used to come in and tell me stories about her grandma. She would tell me how her Grandma and Grandpa met, and funny stories from their youth. I realized I hadn’t told my own kids anything about my parents or grandparents. I started telling them family stories as bedtime stories. They loved them.

I recently read, Barking up the Wrong Tree, by Eric Barker. He sites a study conducted by Researchers at Emory University. Barker says, “What’s the best predictor of your child’s emotional well-being? It’s not great schools, hugs or Pixar movies. The Emory University study found that whether a kid knew their family history was the number one indicator.

The study says, “Family stories provide a sense of identity through time, and help children understand who they are in the world,”

“There is something powerful about actually knowing these stories,” the study said.

However, the authors cautioned that more research is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn.

My kids are teenagers now and coming face to face with their developing identity. I think it’s time for me to dust off our family stories and start sharing them again.

Ideas to get the conversation rolling

How we met

How your grandparents met

What they did for a living

Specific stories that demonstrate what life was like

Any special journeys or accomplishments people in the family are proud of

Examples from my family history

My grandma was raised on a farm. She once fell out of a tree she was not supposed to be climbing into the pen with the hogs. She lost consciousness when she hit the ground, which was dangerous for her because the hogs would have easily harmed her.

My grandpa didn’t serve the in world wars because he worked in a steel mill that made parts for parts for materials for the war. He was told that he was needed more there than in battle.

These are just 2 examples. I hope you can dig up some favorite stories from your past and share them with the next generation.

One other resource

Family history has become more popular recently, with the availability of at-home DNA testing. If you want to do something cool with your family, familysearch.org, which is a mormon site, has cool things online, and centers you can visit that have interactive displays where you can find cool things about your family history.

Health, Uncategorized

Why use butter from Grass-fed cows? Why eat eggs from Free-Range Chickens?

I’ve recently made the switch to butter made from grass-fed cows, which you can easily find in your neighborhood grocery, no need to go to a specialty market. And, I’ve been trying to get my hands on grass-fed meat, although this seems a little harder to come by.

My sister asked me why the interest in grass-fed meat and dairy products, and although I had read prior books that convinced me to switch, I couldn’t articulate why, until I read, AntiCancer: A new way of life by David Servan-Schreiber MD Ph.D. He gives a great explanation:

In the natural cycle, cows give birth in Spring when the grass is most luxuriant and produce milk for several months until summer’s end. Spring grass is an especially rich source of Omega 3 Fatty acids. These fatty acids are therefore concentrated in the milk from cows raised in pastures and in the milk’s derivatives – butter, cream, yogurt and cheese. Omega 3s are likewise found in beef from grass-fed cattle and in eggs from free-range chickens fed with forage rather than grain. Starting in the 50’s the demand for milk products and beef went up so much that farmers had to look for shortcuts in the natural cycle of milk production and reduce the grazing area needed to feed a 750kg, 1600lb cow. Pastures were thus abandoned and replaced by battery farming.

Corn, soy and wheat, which had become the principle diet for cattle contained practically no Omega 3 fatty acids. To the contrary, these food sources are rich in Omega 6’s. Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids are called essential because the human body cannot make them. As a result, the quantity of Omega 3’s and Omega 6’s in our bodies stems directly from the content of the food we eat. In turn, the amounts of Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids in our food depend on what the cows and chickens we eat have consumed in their feed. If they eat grass, then the meat, milk, and eggs they provide are perfectly balanced in Omega 3’s and Omega 6’s. A balance close to 1: 1. If they eat corn and soy, the resulting imbalance in our bodies is as much as 1 : 15, even 1 : 40. The Omega 3’s and Omega 6’s present in our bodies constantly compete to control our body functions. Omega 6’s help stock fats and promote rigidity in cells as well as coagulation and inflammation in response to outside aggression. They stimulate the production of fatty cells from birth onward. Omega 3’s are involved in developing the nervous system, making cell membranes more flexible, and reducing inflammation. They also limit the development of adipose, fat cells. Our physiological balance depends very much on the balance between Omega 3’s and Omega 6’s in our body, and therefore, in our diet. It turns out that it is this dietary balance that has changed the most in the last 50 years. Cows are not the only farm animals affected by change. Chicken diets have changed radically as well. Eggs, the embodiment of a natural food, no longer contain the same essential fatty acids they did 50 years ago.

I emailed the passage to my sister.

You’re welcome.

On Meditation

Book Review – AntiCancer: A new way of life by David Servan-Schreiber MD Ph.D

Meditation is the new Yoga

Remember when yoga became popular, and then it was everywhere? I feel like meditation is like that now. And, I kind of love it. I love that this practice is becoming main stream. I only wish I had known about it sooner. I could have been so much farther ahead.

With that said, I would like to share some cool science behind meditating. Like we need another reason to take a break from the crazy.

In his book, Anticancer, David Servan Schreiber, MD, Ph.D gives us some scientific reasons to practice meditation on the daily.

From the book:

“In his laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, Richard Davidson, Ph.D, studies changes in activity within the brains of people who have practiced meditation for years. Several Tibetan monks have participated in the experiment, among them, Matthieu Ricard, Ph.D, a former cell biologist turned Buhdist monk and philosopher who helped set up the experiment. During meditation, their cerebral rhythms register a larger amplitude of oscillations than in non-meditative states. In addition, activity measured within the different brain regions begins to oscillate in harmony. The regions are said to synchronize. On the scale of the brain, it’s a phenomenon comparable to establishing coherence in the bodies biological processes. Still better, Davidson and his collaborators have discovered that this synchronization lasts even beyond meditation sessions.

Fortunately, the health benefits of such states can accrue even in beginners. The same laboratory ran an experiment with executives from a large bio-technology firm as the test subjects. Two groups were studied. Members of the first group didn’t change anything in their habits, while those in the second group were trained in mindfulness meditation, as it is taught in the hospital program established by Jon Kabat Zinn. After a scant 8 weeks among those who had made a short period of meditation part of their everyday habits significant changes had taken place in the electrical activity of their brains as measured by EEG. Regions associated with positive mood and optimism, the left, frontal regions, were distinctly more active compared to their earlier state or to that of the control group. And this effect reached further than the brain or the subject’s mood. Their immune systems reacted to the flu vaccine more forcefully than those of the members of the control group. All these changes occurred with only two months of practice.”

Sounds pretty good right? If you are new to meditation and would like to give it a try, I would recommend listening to one of Deepak Chopra’s many guided meditations, or one of Emily Fletcher’s guided meditations.

Enjoy!

Self Improvement

A book review: Rachel Hollis’ Girl, Wash Your Face

Rachel Hollis, of The Chic site, is a business badass. She moved to LA, by herself, when she was 17, started her own event planning business not long after that, and now runs a lifestyle mega-business with her husband. She has a huge following, keynotes to sold out events, and is a best-selling author and speaker. Pretty much, she’s my hero.

She wrote the wildly successful book, “Girl, Wash Your Face.” One part made me tear up a little, because I recognize myself in her. The need to prove myself, the need to always get things done, as if I’m trying to save myself by staying busy.

Few things give me anxiety like a day with nothing planned.

Rachel calls herself a workaholic. She says, “The need to prove my worth, coupled with the fact that I’m good at my career, made me one heck of a workaholic.”

She writes about making herself sick from the stress of working too much. She got Bell’s Palsy, twice. I’ve had that shit, and it ain’t fun!

She got Vertigo, that she couldn’t shake. She says, “I resigned myself to the fact that life would be a little dizzier forever. It wasn’t a big deal, I told myself. It only meant that instead of giving 100 percent, I now would need to give 130 percent to make up for not being able to work fast anymore. It may sound crazy to write that, but in my overachieving mind, it made absolute sense.”

“In every single instance, my vertigo was a physical response to an emotional problem.”

Her Vertigo got so bad that she went to see a healer. He asked questions and listened to her and then told her to:

“Go home and do nothing.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Go home and do nothing. Sit around, watch TV, spend an entire day on the sofa. Discover that your world doesn’t implode without you going a hundred miles an hour. Get up the next day and do it again.”

“What would happen to you if you stopped moving?” He asked me.

I shook my head in blind panic. The image of a shark floating to the surface of the ocean, dead from lack of movement, came to mind.” All I could think was, I don’t know, but it will be bad.

I forced myself to stop working so many hours. I went to the office from nine thirty to four thirty and was shocked to discover that the world continued to spin on its axis. I pushed myself to rest and do nothing. It gave me massive anxiety, so I poured myself a glass of wine and kept right on sitting there. I looked for joy. I looked for peace.

I stopped drinking so much caffeine. I played with my kids. I did a lot of therapy. And then I did some more. I prayed. I looked up every scripture in the Bible that talks about rest. I had dinner with my girlfriends. I went on dates with my husband”.

She says, sometimes, “I still feel compelled to work until I’m exhausted, physically ill, pissed off at the world, or unable to focus my eyes-but at least they don’t all happen at the same time anymore. I feel like I’m gaining on this problem.”

I’m not there yet. I don’t have dinner with my girlfriends, I don’t go on dates with my husband. We do have a movie night every Friday, and I read to my kid and we watch popular science videos on youtube as I drift off to sleep every night. This is non-negotiable, and a favorite part of my day, but I usually stop working around 9:00 pm for this.

This is one of my life lessons. One that I learn over and over again. Slow down, take a breath. Recover. Rest. Don’t make the other people in your life crazy.

Here’s what I want, here is all I want: meaningful, fulfilling work where I can move at a steady pace. Trusting that money that is abundant. Knowing that we have enough for our needs. Family and friends that are close. Knowing that there is always work to be done and time to do it.