Mindconnection eNL, 2011-07-03

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In this issue:
Good News | Product Highlight | Brainpower | Finances | Security | Health/Fitness | Factoid | Thought 4 the Day

We're also inundated with "news" about financial disasters, home foreclosures, wars, and whatever new insanity is emanating from Washington, DC.

To help battle that flood of funk, this eNL now starts off with our Good News item. Here are a couple of good news items for this issue:

• "The Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI U.S. Industrial Outlook states that demand from emerging economies is a leading factor in a production increase of 7% in the first quarter this year, and will support a further increase of 6% by year-end." Source: Industrial Supply Magazine, 2011-06-16
• "A new hydraulic excavator plant in Victoria, TX, currently still under construction, will be expanded to include an additional 200,000 sq.ft. Once operational in mid-2012, the plant is expected to employ 600 people." Source: American Machinist.

And here's another one, small but important: Siemens hires 400.

Despite the rampant plundering of the economy (and the diversion of limited resources from productive use to dubious use), bright spots still emerge. Look around for good news in your local area, and talk it up.

Or, to help make more good news happen, each month write to your misrepresentative in CONgress with demands to slash federal spending (pull out of the three wars or however many we're up to now, eliminate useless federal agencies, eliminate pork spending, etc.--the existing budget can be cut 50% with no loss in actual services).

Consider this classic, but petty, dispute. The husband rolls his toothpaste tube and the wife squeezes hers from the middle. Each annoys the other, and they want to agree on which way is better and both do it that way. Despite years of hashing this out, they still cannot agree. But there is a correct answer (assuming that, for some reason, they can't afford to each buy their own tube).

What they don't seem to realize is that both methods are wrong. Neither method maximizes using the paste that's in the tube, and both present some hassle as the tube gets smaller.

Rather than think of justifications for their wrong method, each spouse needs to think of the problem in a different way. Maybe it's not a matter of squeeze vs. roll.

Suppose you squeeze the tube from the end. When you're done using it, place the cap on it and stand it upside down. This provides several advantages:

• Moves that gel or paste toward the opening throughout 98% of the day (via gravity).
• Easier on the user than fighting a roll or squeezing in two directions at once just to get a dab of paste.
• Takes up far less space on the countertop.

The husband wanted to roll the toothpaste so that there wouldn't be wasted toothpaste. She wants to just squeeze the tube, because her goal is to brush her teeth rather than waste time engaging in toothpaste tube management. The false choice here was between wasting money and wasting time. Why are those the only two choices that a couple will normally consider in this classic dispute?

So now we have come up with a potential solution that is obviously better than the two "choices" to which the matter was formerly constrained. It wastes neither money nor time.

Of course, this scenario plays out over something as inconsequential as toothpaste while each spouse wastes money in other areas with nary a thought. But the conflict is a common one, and it's based on false choices.

Often, what we presume to be "choices" are not choices. For real choice, you must think through the problem to come up with something acceptable. Or, as in the case of toothpaste, maybe just get a life?

Another false choice situation involves those farces we call "elections." Why we even bother to have these, I can't really say. In federal "elections," a majority of American "voters" simply hands over its votes to The Party. It's like buying a Chevy instead of a Pontiac because you don't like GM. As if anything changes for GM by virtue of that "change."

This false voting accomplishes nothing more than sending the message that the stealing, plundering, and general lawlessness meet with your approval. The two non-choices to which most people limit themselves are merely employees of the same company. The result of this is horrendous. Exhibit A might be the millions of people who lost their jobs due to the Porkulus.

Or maybe it's the crushing federal debt with all of its arduous carrying costs. Divide 200 followed by 12 zeroes dollars of debt over 80 followed by 6 zeroes of workers and you come up with 2.5 million dollars of federal debt per worker. Sure, we all have that much cash just lying around, so why worry? Right.

Or maybe it's the evisceration of the Bill of Rights ala the anti-Patriot Act or the various other Constitution-gutting illegal measures passed by CONgress and illegal Executive Orders in the past 10 years. A nation of laws? Hardly. But we "elect" these lawbreakers right back into their grossly overpaid jobs every two years. It's that GM analogy all over again.

You've heard the expression "think outside the box." That comes from a puzzle diagram in the form of a box. Most people cannot solve this puzzle, because they limit their choices to drawing lines that are inside the box. To solve it, you must draw lines outside the box. In other words, don't limit yourself to only false choices.

If you were to make a list of each thing you did throughout the day, odds are everything on it is reacting, responding, or a combination thereof.

There's nothing wrong with that, in ordinary times. But with the economy staggering from record debt that is increasing daily, this is a dangerous game to play.

Odds are your company (if you work for someone else) has a grossly underutilized asset: you. Think about it. You probably know your job better than anyone else does. If you're in sales, you know more about your customers than anyone else does--the smell of opportunity is all over you. If you're in project management, you know a lot about inefficiencies that, if improved upon, could considerably boost profits. And so on.

What am I suggesting, here? Take some time to just analyze what it is you actually do. What role do you serve in your company? What information does this role bring you, and what opportunities might you be able to identify?

Sure, you're probably not going to be able to waltz into the CEO's office (unless you are the CEO) and provide astounding insight that doubles the company's revenue in 90 days. But it's also true that you are in a position to spot opportunities in your own role.

Maybe you spot them and can't figure out how to turn those into strengths for your company or even your department. No problem. Get your boss' undivided attention, perhaps by going to lunch alone together, and lay out your ideas. Tell your boss you need some direction in doing the research necessary for turning those ideas into a preliminary plan that could benefit both of your careers.

If your boss chooses to be an automaton and wants nothing to do with your ideas, you have a dippy boss. If that's the case, you might talk to a coworker about tossing in with you to develop something, and after you put your heads together and work on it you'll have something much more able to be an offer your boss can't refuse.

The main point here is if you can't count on your company to stay in business or your career to stay on track just by hoping autopilot works. You can greatly improve your financial safety and your future by always examining your particular role and what opportunities it can present. That could take some creative thinking, but often the fruit is hanging so low you can't walk under it.

When the light comes on, so does the video and audio. It not only lights up the trespassers, it records what they look like, sound like, and are doing.

Select the setting you want, sensitivity, audio alerts, night mode, record mode. It records onto a SD card that is secured in the unit, and once it runs out of memory it records over the oldest file, so you can just set it and forget it.

Product discontinued,
2013-07

The implication is that yours truly spends a lot of time in a gym. Actually, I work out on my own equipment at home. But when I travel, I usually will go to a gym. And anyone who's watched me knows I don't spend a lot of time there. I do three four upper body workouts, in rotation across four upper body days. A given workout, if on Wednesday of one week will fall on Tuesday the following week. My shoulder workout takes about 20 minutes.

My shortest workout is probably my front squats routine (which, thanks to glutamine, I can do every week and not overtrain). It consists of five sets of five squats. While the briefest of my workouts, it's the most brutal.

It's not about seeing how long you can play around in the gym. It's about making your workouts count. In fact, the most common mistake gym rats make is doing too many repetitions. Apparently, the "logic" there is if you keep making the same mistake over and over you eventually will get it right.

Shortly after turning 50.

What about workout volume? How can anyone get results without tearing muscles down? The more you tear them down, the more they can build up, right? Wrong. It simply is not true that if a little is good, then more is better. You need to work out with the goal of forcing adaptation. The adaptive response is what produces the size, strength, and vascularity. It also alters your hormonal environment for fat burning and that lean, cut look. See my photo.

But some big guys at the gym hang out there! They must be doing something right! No, they only think they are. You have, perhaps, heard of Arnold Schwarzenegger? He became a body-building legend by taking the Mr. Olympia title seven times. Lee Haney later broke that record, becoming the only 8-time Mr. Olympia.

Haney says, "You want to stimulate the muscle, not annihilate it." Gee, there's that adaptive response again. If 8-time Mr. Olympia says something about how to train for a leaner, more muscular body, it's correct.

One of the secrets to getting that intense workout is the use of a preworkout supplement. Even guys on steroids can't get intensity without one (and thus the steroids don't do a whole lot of good; it takes that stimulation to bring about the effects).

A product that works extremely well is Anadraulic State (revision, 2013; this product has, unfortunately, been discontinued as many great supplements are because consumers go for hype rather than facts and results). This product, which I use personally, increases the key factors in the endocrine system to cause muscle growth. What I like most about it is the way I feel during a workout.

For example, I do extremely slow dumbbell flyes to finish my pec work. I use half my body weight in this exercise. I am certain I would be unable to do it without the Anadraulic State. Because I'm able to do this exercise at all, my pecs are just screaming the whole time. Maximum stimulation. A set is 2 or 3 reps, and I do maybe 4 or 5 sets.

If you want that lean, strong look you don't have to hang around the gym to get it. In fact, hanging around the gym means you probably won't get it. If you do your workouts so that you stimulate instead of annihilate, they will be short and they will be effective. Use Anadraulic State to take your workouts to the next level. Use glutamine to improve recovery, so you are strong all the time instead of sore all the time.

At www.supplecity.com, you'll find plenty of informative, authoritative articles on maintaining a lean, strong physique. It has nothing to do with long workouts or impossible to maintain diets. In fact:

• The best workouts are short and intense.
• A good diet contains far more flavors and satisfaction than the typical American diet.

Each day holds for you an opportunity (or three) to do something positive, thus moving karma in the other direction from where the crooks in Washington move it. This may be anything from bartering (thus avoiding the inflation tax) to simply being courteous to strangers. Take a moment each day to think about what you can do that day.