I never really liked her show (the topics didn’t resonate with what I cared about), but I did like how she acted as a person. In a TV world full of fear-mongers and drama-queens she held court during her afternoon talk show hour in a more upbeat manner. Now that her Oprah show is over, she’s been spending more time doing other things, and talking about topics that I do care about.

Her Lifeclass is really great. She’s had Tony on several times, Deepak Chopra and others. Worth tuning in to online. They have posted the full episodes along with notes for each class.

Artwork from U2's "Joshua Tree" album. Source and copyright: U2.

I’m a big U2 fan and enjoyed watching “Classic Albums: U2, The Joshua Tree.” This one hour documentary from 1999 has interviews with the band members as they join their producers in listening to tracks from the album and reliving their creative process. It’s a pretty amazing thing to watch as Bono, The Edge and others re-live classic tracks and tell the stories around how they were created.

I particularly like the part where Bono talks about “Still haven’t found what I’m looking for” and “With or without you” and how unconventional the songs were at the time to perform. They were really new sounds and out of step with everything else that was around. Very unconventional and ecstatic music that was alive in a new kind of way.  Now, of course, we’ve all heard the songs a million times and they sounds like they totally just “fit,” but when they were being created this was not the case.

It struck me how so many new ideas at first seem foreign but later seem familiar. It takes confidence to stick with new ideas that you believe in, even if they at fist don’t seem to fit. I’m glad U2 did.

In loving memory of Micah True "Caballo Blanco"

It saddens me to hear this evening that Micah True – “Caballo Blanco” – has been found dead after being missing for almost a week in the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico. Search and rescue along with many ultra-runners participated in the search…..his body was found today.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Caballo on several occasions, and spent over a week with him during my own trip to Mexico to participate in the Copper Canyon Ultramarathon in 2011.

He was a man who truly followed his bliss, and gave everything he had to support the Raramuri “Tarahumara” people and their way of life.

Run free Caballo, we will miss you.

Driving home from work today, annoyed at the traffic on my short 5 mile commute – and dreading my impending 5 mile run in the cold pouring rain…… NPR played a story about Shin In Geun.

He is, as far as we know, the only prisoner to escape from the horrid (and rarely talked about) political prison camps in North Korea. He was born into the camp, and lived there for 23 years…under the most extreme conditions.

He has been free for 7 years now, and The Guardian has an amazing story about him. It boggles my mind that these camps have ever existed…but is even more disturbing to think that in this modern-day and age…they STILL EXIST. The US State Department estimates ~200,000 people are in North Korean labor camp prisons right now.

Blaine Harden, an author and journalist, has just published a book about Shin’s ordeal – “Escape from Camp 14“. You can find articles and interviews about it on his website and get it on your Amazon Kindle now.

If anyone has a reason to be angry at the world it is 108 year old Nazi holocaust survivor Alice Herz Summer.

She lost her family. She suffered incredibly at the hands of her captors. However, what is so remarkable is that she isn’t angry. Not at all. She considers herself as “optimistic and laughing from the beginning of my life.” She lives by herself, plays the piano daily and has an outlook on life that we can all learn from. For her, life is never terrible…it is a gift.

What I took away from this video is:

• Be grateful for everything – a smile, the sun, “everything is a present”
• Never hate, we are all sometimes good and sometimes bad
• Things are not so terrible, no matter what you might think
• Focus on the good and learn from the bad
• Learn, learn, never stop learning
• Music is her food, her religion…and her medicine…”Bach is better than 100 pills!”

For me, the most powerful insight comes 10 minutes into the video…..”living ones life backwards.”

Take 12 minutes out of your day and watch this video. I’ve watched it several times already since this morning. It is guaranteed to shift your perspective in a positive way.

According to Dr. McDougall, Job’s plant-based diet was not at fault for his cancer. On the contrary, it surely did enable him to live longer than would have been ever thought possible with such a disease.

http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2011nl/nov/jobs.htm

Image by gbSk via Flickr

Just watched a nice documentary, Ashtanga, NY on Netflix (streaming) regarding Ashtanga yoga as taught by Sri Pattabhi Jois (“Guruji”).

The documentary takes place during a 1 month intensive in which Guruji and his grandson led several hundred students in daily Ashtanga practice in the heart of Manhattan. What makes it even more powerful is that the teaching occurred in September, 2001.

I have not taken a formal Ashtanga Yoga class despite having practiced yoga asana for almost 10 years. I now want to check it out!

Image via CrunchBase

I had a recent conversation with a friend around the captivating nature of reality TV. How it is so interesting to get a glimpse into how others live their lives, whether the lives are boring or a total train wreck. Given that some of you have been reading this blog for a few years now, I figure it might be interesting for you to get glimpse into my day-to-day life. I’ll warn you up front my routine is fairly straightforward. If you still want to know what I do…read on:

Weekdays

I am a team leader at Microsoft and have been there for almost 10 years. My job is that of a Principal Product Planner Lead. I lead a team of eight incredibly talented and ridiculously bright Product Planners that work on the future of our Windows Live products. This includes Hotmail, Messenger, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Mesh and many other services that make up Windows Live. As part of this role, I work super closely with the Windows and Internet Explorer teams as well (we are all in the same division). My job is all about making sure that we have a compelling vision for our next “wave” of services and software, and that we are able to build and deliver on a plan to achieve that vision.

In a day-to-day capacity, my team seeks to understand customer needs, what the competition is up to, and then works with engineering teams to figure out the right end-to-end scenarios to invest in. It’s a super-fun job, and something I’ve been doing for most of my nearly 10 year career at Microsoft so far after a few years doing business planning and strategy in the finance team (I joined straight out of college).

• 6:45 am is when I wake up on most days, and after using the rest room, sit down to meditate. I do this every day no matter what. Right now, I just sit for 10 minutes, setting the timer on my phone to beep when the time has elapsed. I get up and then return to the bathroom to get ready.
• 7:15 am I’m in my kitchen (I live in a small but nice 1 BR apartment) making a vegan power smoothie. Usually it has a bunch of bananas (anywhere from 2-4) and frozen blueberries or whatever other fruit I have around. Sometimes I throw in some kale for good measure. Occasionally I add in some vegan protein (I make custom blend of hemp, brown rice and pea proteins). I eat a crap load of fruit. Sometimes 10 or more bananas a day, a bunch of apples and other fruits.
• 7:30 am I am in my car and drive 20 minutes to work at the Redmond, WA Microsoft Campus. It’s a great place to work.
• 8:00 am I am in my office sorting out my schedule for the day, checking in on technology news (I like Techmeme). Lately I’ve also been drinking some coffee in the morning while I do this. I also figure out one big thing I need to get done during the day. I’ll write this down on a slip of paper or Post-It and stick it in my pocket and look at it a few times during the day.
• 8:30am I start working on whatever the most important thing is to get done during the day.
• 9:00am – Noon Let the games begin! If I am lucky I will have just 1-2 meetings before lunch. Often, I’ll have back-back-back meetings straight from 9am to lunch. This will include 1:1 meetings with folks on my team, meetings with other Planning Leads and meetings to review progress on projects to meet with folks on other teams regarding some sort issues that arise. It can actually be an endurance event to make it through!
• Noon-1 pm I will walk to our cafeteria (5 minutes away) and get something for lunch. I’ll bring it back and eat at my desk while I either read e-mail or browse the web aimlessly (MSN’s Wonderwall is a brilliant way to totally kill time!)
• 1-5 pm Usually 1-2 more meetings happen. In general, I have around 20 meetings a week, usually half of them are 60 minutes long and the rest are 30 minutes or so. A few might be longer. Every now and then we’ll have all-day checkpoints to projects that spans a lot of teams. Given my role as a team lead – a big part of my job is collaborating with other teams and helping to coordinate projects. Before I was a manager, I had half as many meetings.
• 5-6 pm With no meetings after 5pm (usually not at least!) I will get work done in peace until 6pm or so, and then head out for the day. Sometimes I’ll leave work at 5pm (usually to catch a yoga class), but that is rare right now. Monday’s I leave work at 4:30 pm since I teach 3 hours of yoga in the evenings on Monday.
• 6-6:30 pm Drive home
• 6:30-7 pm Putz around at home! Prepare for whatever workout I’ll be doing and generally procrastinate. Running is what I’m into now. I also practice a ton of yoga (and also teach).
• 7-9 pm Workout of some sort, and then come home and clean up and get ready for dinner. Sometimes I’ll workout in the morning instead, which shifts my whole schedule a bit, but 80% of the time I train in the evening.
• 9-10 pm Prepare and eat dinner
• 10-Midnight at the latest I don’t own a TV (sold it years ago) so I will browse the web, blog, read books and get work done until midnight or so. I’ll often respond to e-mail I didn’t get during the day in the evening, or finish reading messages and prepare for meetings the next day. While working I’ll usually have some kind of music playing, or an audio book. If I am wiped out from my workout, I will just go to sleep at 10pm, but that usually only happens a few times a week.

Weekend

My weekends are focused around an adventure of some sort. Since I am starting to get into ultra-marathons now, I try to get in an epic long run on either Saturday or Sunday (2-4 hours long). I’ll also get in 1-2 yoga classed and I teach yoga on Sunday mornings (and Monday nights).

I’ll wake up at the latest by 9 or 9:30am at the latest. I don’t set an alarm on the weekends, this is just when I end up waking up. After my training, I’ll usually eat some nice vegan food somewhere and then find a coffee shop where I can read for a few hours (I try to power through one book a week).

I’ll head home in the afternoon and then write a blog post and read other blogs. During the winter I’ll deviate from this schedule and go snowboarding on Saturdays.

In the late afternoon I’ll see what my friends are up to, and usually have kind of social thing going on in the evenings. A music concert, movie, dinner, or something. Last night I went to a Warren Miller ski movie with a friend. A few weekends ago I went to the Ballet (they performed “Dracula” believe it or not!). There is always something interesting happening around Seattle.

On weekends I’ll usually go to bed a little later, often after Midnight (again, unless training kicked my butt!). I sleep when tired and don’t worry about forcing myself into some kind of routine on the weekends.

On Sunday nights I’ll work for 4-5 hours. If a big project is looming, I’ll work 5-10 hours spread across Saturday and Sunday. This will basically replace my reading time for entertainment and some of my training time.

Over the course of the week I spend around 55 hours a week working, with some weeks bursting to 80 hours (when I travel for work, or when a big project is looming near). I spend about 10-12 hours a week training (mostly running and yoga right now) and the rest just hanging around doing whatever I want to do.

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So that’s it, my weekly routine! If you want to know more about anything in my routine, drop a note in the comments and I’ll get to it in a future post. Thanks!

How are we supposed to create any positive change if we always remain part of a crowd? The answer is simple but definitely not easy to put into practice. This  short video by Derek Sivers breaks it down very well, with a story about a shirt-less dancing guy.

The lessons:

1. A leader needs the guts to stand-alone and look ridiculous.
2. A movement must be simple and easy to follow.
3. A leader embraces followers as an equal, it’s about the movement not the leader.
4. Being a first follower is an under-appreciated form of leadership.
5. New followers emulate followers and not the leader. Movements must be public and transparent.

The best way to create a movement doesn’t require that you create one on your own. If all everyone did was create their own movements, there would be no movements! Instead, be an early follower. Find something you believe in, and have the courage to support a movement that is already underway, no matter how obscure it may seem at first.

I’ve heard this twice today on two totally different radio stations. Good to see it is making the rounds again after first hearing it so many years ago. What an amazing song!

Wear Sunscreen or the Sunscreen Speech are the actually an essay called “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young” that was written by Mary Schmich. It was originally published in the Chicago Tribune as a column in 1997 and then remixed into a song by Baz Luhrmann in 1998.

The lyrics are awesome. Here they are:

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
than my own meandering experience…I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not
understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and
recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you
imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blind side you at 4pm
on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you

Sing

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with
people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes
you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with
yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you
succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your
life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they
wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year
olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children,maybe
you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky
chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t
congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your
choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body,
use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people
think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever
own..

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for
good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the
people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you
should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and
lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you
knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live
in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will
philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize
that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were
noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund,
maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one
might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you’re 40, it will
look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who
supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of
fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the
ugly parts and recycling it for more than
it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen…