Ignite the Promise

Be distinctive and win the competition

When I was involved in marketing my consulting business, I learned that if I differentiated myself from the crowd, there was a higher likelihood to win a client.  This is really useful advice for getting recognized anytime we are competing for an opportunity. 

For the past few months, I have been making suggestions to a young college graduate looking for a job.  This young lady has shown that she is capable of doing good work as evidenced by her college grades.  Her major is in social science rather than technical and those jobs are harder to find.  My suggestion?  Distinguish yourself from the crowd.

First, what did she do well?  She said she enjoyed reading and writing.  With that in mind, I suggested that she write to get 'recognized.'  Start simple and write a blog; write up small articles for publishing in local newsletters; submit articles to electronic newsletters.  Offer to write a column in a community paper.  The goal?  Build up a body of writings that are in the area of your expertise or area of interest.  Once you have a set of articles, these are used as part of your 'resume' when submitting for a position.  

Here is my suggestion on writing:

1. Do the following without thought of a publication.  Do it just so that you can gather your thoughts on a topic.
   1. Draft up a set of topics that you feel you have expertise and insight in.  Mull them over and consider which would be most relevant based on current events.
   2. Pick and outline ideas for one of the topics.
   3. Write it up – about 700-1500 words only.  Depending on the publication, that’s the size of articles they want.
   4. Find local publications (print or electronic) that may have interest in what you want to say.  I started publishing by writing a column for a local (district within DC).  They were receptive and we got four articles published before they shifted gears. 
      1. A publishing consultant once said that if you want to become a subject matter expert in eyes of readers, you have to work your way up.  Start with community papers with very little screening to get started.   
      2. Once you get published, you use these publications to move to a next level by showing the higher level publications your prior article(s).  Each publication gives you credibility since a third-party deemed your writing was worthy.  The publication itself is a testimony to your subject matter expertise.
      3. If you find a trade association that fits your interest, that is a great place to write an article.   It has the dual benefit of being in your field of interest and getting yourself known (quickly)!  However, you will probably be expected to join the group.  Joining your professional association demonstrates that you are serious.  At this point in your career, this would be a distinctive mark of membership.
      4. As you reach out for a job, I would work in parallel to write article(s) as I note above.  Each time you can get in for an interview or learn about what a firm needs, it helps you to focus what you want to say in a future article.  Timely articles will be impressive for your next interview.

   The electronic media is a very good place for new writers.  Online publications are essentially national (actually worldwide), so that’s good.  Because they need articles daily, they are good bets to get articles published.  Definitely try a bunch of them.  Also, many do not have restrictions about your article going to several sources at the same time.  Hence, send your articles to as many outlets as you see relevant.  I once had the same article published in three web places during the same period.  The printed press is a little more difficult to break into, except for local papers that don’t have a large corps of writers. 

2. Check out blogs in your areas of interest to get an idea what people are writing.  This will give you an idea what you might do with a blog.  Another thought.  Read books and blog what you read.   

UPDATE:  This young lady just submitted an article for publication and had a blog published as a guest blogger in her areas of interest.  She is on the way to differentiating herself from the crowd!

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com

Simple Truths -- acting on them is difficult

Why is it that when we 'know better' we do it anyway?  Is it like the child who is told not to touch the hot plate, yet reaches out to touch it to experience the hotness?  Even as adults when we know not to do something, we still do it.  Is this the same prove-it-to-me approach we took as a child? 

Alternatively, why is it that when we 'know better' we don't do it?  This is the more difficult question. 

There are simple truths I have collected that guide my life:  1) Your focus determines your reality; 2) You can't win if you aren't in the game; 3) If you want it, you have to go get it; or the Nike ad 4) Just do it! 

My goal is to live to age 100 with life quality.  Here is the simple truth.  If I take care of my mind, body, spirit, and relationships, I will have the potential to live a long and quality filled life. Here is what I mean -- stay 'young' in every way.  Youth is not just in physical appearance nor chronological age.  It can be, but it is importantly the mindset one takes. 

MIND.  I understand that if I don't exercise my mind (like a muscle), it will lose its resiliency and atrophy.  By that I mean my thinking is no longer sharp.  How do I exercise my mind?  I stay curious about things and read in different areas. I blog about topics I like.  Blogging takes thinking, considering and then writing.

BODY.  Need I say anything here?  Daily we observe our bodies slow down and deteriorate from lack of exercise and poor eating habits.  Remember the sprained ankle?  It used to take only three days to heal.  Now it lingers for over a week.  Well, for whatever reason, I decided to start the extreme exercise program, P90X at age 68.  I then joined a dragon boat team that races on rivers, lakes and bays up and down the east coast.  We got onto a healthy diet and together with the exercise, I lost 20 pounds.  I am now in better shape than I was at age 40.  I now compete with 30 year olds!  Another thing, if we just do stretches so that we can move more freely, we will feel younger.  If one stretches, many of the aches and pains go away.  I'm told that it is because we 'lubricate' our joints by using them.  Yes, there are things we cannot do, but we do the best we can ... and forget the rest.

SPIRIT.  This is more about our frame of mind than anything else.  It is having a youthful spirit and being at ease with the world around us.  Do fun things.  Now that I have started learning about our minds, I can appreciate what meditation can do.  I happen also to be a person who prays.  Prayer also can help quiet the spirit.  There are many ways we can help ourselves to calm our brains and body.  Seek quiet time during each day, even if it is for a short period.  Stop and smell the roses, as the saying goes.  Close your eyes and relax all parts of your body and quietly breathe rhythmically. 

RELATIONSHIPS.  If you want to stay young, you need to interact with young thinking!  Youth provides the type of energy that is infectious.  How?  Work with youth.  Be friends to them.  Invite them to meals.  They really appreciate conversations that give them perspectives about life's challenges.  Madeline and I started by 'adopting' the youth of our church.  These are 20-40 year olds.  Most are single and away from home.  Hence, we consider ourselves their away parents.  We feed them, recognize their birthdays, celebrate their new babies (our grandkids), support them when they have problems, etc. 

FINALLY, maybe the secret to youth is to interact with youth.  Do grandparents have a more youthful view about life, even momentarily?  I believe so, especially when they are with their grandchildren.  They enjoy the time with grandchildren by buying toys and play like a child again. Indeed, as Madeline and I have 'adopted' many young men and women, we have noted that our interactions with them keeps us thinking young.  We also stay sharp by sharing our life's experiences with them to assure them that what challenges they are going through are 'normal.'  This also keeps our minds nimble and energized. 

This is my formula for staying young.  It may not be yours, but maybe there are some simple truths that resonate with you.  For a fuller, rewarding life, staying young is the goal.  In my opinion, the alternative is not an option.  I recognize that at some point the Body will slow down.  However, the Mind, Spirit, and Relationships can stay young forever -- that's not bad, 3 out of 4!

The Challenge:  From age 0 to 20-I'm invincible!  Age 30-sprains take longer to heal.  40-stamina not what it use to be.  50-more aches and pains. 60-slow in getting up from sitting and more joint issues.  70-all of what I said, plus slow in thinking. 80-hmmm?  PS: This does not have to be the scenario, IF 1) you change your focus to change your reality; 2) you get in the game and determine to get 'young'; 3) you go for it; and 4) you just do it! 

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com

The Ghost Map

The Ghost Map, a book by Steven Johnson (Riverhead Books Publisher, NY. 2006), tells the story about a devastating outbreak of cholera in 1854 Victorian London.  It is about the disease, the people, a map, and the investigation by two men who discovered the source of the spread of the disease.  

Johnson is a masterful storyteller.  He paints a vivid picture of London as a city of scavengers.  I can see and smell the stench as Johnson describes the lives of many, especially the bone pickers (finders of carcasses), rag-gatherers, pure-finders (collectors of dog dung), sewer hunters, night-soil men, and others – the underclass of London who lived in a world of excrement and death.  Johnson notes that the city had 2.5 million people in a space 30 miles in circumference, a crammed space with no public health department, no safe sewage removal, and no recycling.  In 1851, London was the most populous city in the world.  The scavengers played an important role in ‘recycling’ waste and discarded goods.  Johnson goes on to describe the need for recycling to sustain life, how manure replenishes the earth so more crops could be grown.  Human waste (night soil) was prized for use in fertilizing the soil for new crops.  Houses and other living establishments had cesspools in which waste was stored.  It was the night-soil men who would collect the waste.  However, since they were paid to do so, some landlords, unwilling to pay, ignored the overflowing cesspools which then would accumulate in basements and adjacent areas.   Yuk and yucky!  The idea that bacteria and other filth were invisible in the contaminated waters was unknown to the people.  They would collect the waste water, let the solids settle and then skim the liquid from the top believing this to be good for human consumption. Thus it is this part of London in which the cholera bacterium was spread among the citizens to infect many -- in the Garden Square neighborhood of Soho.

The main characteristic of the infection is severe diarrhea.  Death comes from dehydration.  What the bacterium does is multiply in the small intestine to form a mat on the inside walls of the intestine.  The mat confuses the intestine to discharge fluid instead of taking in water to the body.  As much as 30% of one's body weight is expelled from the gut during an infection.  This then causes the body to compensate, especially the heart to pump harder and faster to push a decreasing volume of blood to the brain. If fluids are not replaced, the heart becomes overtaxed and eventually quits.  It all started on August 28, 1854 when one little girl was stricken by cholera.  She lived at 40 Broad Street in the Golden Square neighborhood.  She vomited and passed watery green stool.  Her mother rinsed her daughter's diapers in a bucket and then tossed the fouled water into the cesspool in front of their house.  A leak in the cesspool caused the city well to become contaminated.

Cholera is spread by drinking fouled water, not by contact or aerosols.  Thus when drinking water is contaminated with infectious sewage, the disease will strike those drinking the water. In this section of London, 70 persons died in one 24 hour period and it soon became a ghost town with few people coming and going.  In 5 days, over 500 died.  Those who could leave left the area. 

Note that the bacterium (Vibrio cholerae) gets more virulent as it passes through multiple intestines so that a person can go from health to death within 12 hours!

In a systematic bit of detective work, a young physician, Dr. John Snow, was already studying cholera from a prior outbreak and found that it was not filth, poor living conditions, nor was it by contact that people contracted the disease.  In studying water sources he noted that most of the deaths from the prior outbreak occurred in people living in south part of London, where the water supply was nearest where the city sewage was discharged.  Yet, the mainstream medical establishment was fixated on the air as the transmitter of disease.  Snow firmly believed it was the water, but needed to prove it.  He examined the water, but nothing definitive could be found.  Together with a scientist, William Farr, they began to determine the victim's sex, age, elevation from sea level, and where they got their water.  He was in the midst of this research study when the Garden Square outbreak happened.

Snow began mapping the deaths and their proximity to different water sources in the area.  At the end, nearly 700 deaths (in less than 2 weeks) were recorded of people living within 250 yards of the Broad Street water pump.  Thus Snow was able to deduce the source of the outbreak by observing statistically unusual patterns that occurred during the outbreak.  Snow's theory was challenged by Reverend Henry Whitehead.  He started an inquiry into the outbreak to disprove the pump contamination theory.  Whitehead, who lived in the neighborhood, was no less determined and persistent in investigating the outbreak.  He had the advantage of knowing the community and getting more open input. Whitehead was able to piece together the picture that validated Snow's theory that it was the Broad Street pump that was the source of the outbreak.  Snow developed a map of the neighborhood, its wells (pumps) and the deaths to graphically depict the outbreak.  It is said that it was this map that helped Whitehead see the same pattern Snow did.

If you like a scientific detective story, history, challenging medical dogma, and systematic thinking, you should read this book.  It was a joy!

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com

 

Beam me Up, Scotty!

Bruce Lipton, in his book, Biology of Belief (Hay House Publishers, 2005), believes that medical doctors and researchers need to pay more attention to energy-based medical treatments.  Lipton expects that this shift in focus will reduce the over 300,000 unintended deaths a year due to adverse drug reactions.

If we look at ourselves subatomically, we would find ourselves made up of a bunch of atoms floating around in electrical fields, the electrical charges keeping us from flying apart.  The science fiction televison program, Star Trek, had a special chamber that dissociated a person into electrical charges to be beamed to another location where they spontaneously reassociated back into the person.  'Beam me up, Scotty' was the signal to initiate this --  definitely a great way to travel through space!

Yes, our entire body is held together by charged molecules -- energy.  This leads to the notion that all of us have an unique energy signature that radiates from us.  Ever meet someone you immediately liked, that seemed to be on the same wave length?  Well, if we all exhibit unique energy fields, then it may be that those positive people encounters indicate a coherance of fields between you and the other person, i.e., there is harmonic resonance.  So what we term 'good chemistry' is in reality harmony between the two energy fields! "Were there sparks when they met?!"  There are also those encounters with people we feel antagonistic towards.  There is no resonance, just destructive interference. It is like there is a repulsion of energy fields.  On a larger scale, the in situ destruction of kidney stones is caused by the stones vibrating when the frequency of introduced energy waves match those of the stone, causing the stone to vibrate to the point of dissolution.

We already use energy to generate information from our bodies' systems.  Doctors use different scanners such as CAT scans, MRIs, and PET scans.  The energy sent into the organs cause release of energetic molecules which can be measured on films, like brain scans.

While the mainstream medical establishment has not yet embraced energy-based medicine, the belief that energy fields are influential in controlling our physiology and our health has led to a number of healing modalities that exploit this.  Acupuncture, massage therapy, music therapy, chiropractic and Frequency Specific Microcurrent treatments use electrical/energy pathways to treat different health issues.

As an extension of our electrophysiology, and the fact that our cell membranes are the sites of our responses to the environment with specific protein receptors to make those responses specific, it follows that electrical signals coming from the environment have specificity.  This further means that we do not respond to all signals, as different people have different receptors and respond differently to signals.  This leads to an interesting question.  Does every thought, even prayer, have specific electrical markers that will only be received by a person(s) who has the complementary receptors, and to no one else?  Additionally, do these environmental messages (signals) last forever since they are made up of specific energy units?  Can my grandfather's prayer for me 100 years ago show up today?

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com

 

 

It's St. Valentine's Day Once Again!

St. Valentine's Day (14 Feb) is one of my wife's favorite days.  That means I must remember it and celebrate it!  It is a great opportunity to recalibrate your approach to people you care about.  How do you make the day memorable to them?  Last year in my Valentine's blog, I ended by saying, "Yes, we need to send 'love' today, but should do so other times as well.  We should be gifting those we love, spontaneously, not just on St. Valentine's Day."  I also provided a bit of history that showed St. Valentine's Day was first declared in 498 AD!  So what I will do for my wife? 

It's simple, just do something -- with meaning, with heart!  Here is my list for all of this year: 1) Give her flowers; 2) Tell her I love her every day and every time I leave to go somewhere; 3) Help her more in the kitchen and with the laundry; 4) Ask her what she would like to do on the weekends; 5) Listen to her and talk less; 6) Give her undivided attention instead of multitasking when she is speaking with me; 7) Give her a hug regularly; 8) Make regular, unscheduled efforts to surprise her with things she likes, like a gourmet cookie; 9) Make dates to take her out to something nice; and 10) Pray for her health and success daily.

Happy Valentine's Day, Madeline.  I love you!

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com

We are of Two-Minds!

Have you ever heard the phrase -- my mind has a mind of its own?  It's a reality -- we have two minds -- conscious and subconscious minds!  As you might guess, the two minds may not always agree with each other.  When that happens, life can be stressful and bad things can happen! 

Our conscious mind works to think conceptually, abstractly, set goals, judge, try new things; it has short-term memory and limited processing capacity (illustrated by the inability to multi-task beyond 2-3 things at one time.

Our subconscious mind keeps us alive and safe.  It monitors our body functions, heart rate.  It is literal and is sensory based and holds our attitudes, values and beliefs.  It has long-term memory with an immense processing capacity able to manage thousands of events to support our body's needs.  Our subconscious mind is continuously being primed by all our senses.

The importance of understanding our two minds is when the two are not in synchrony.  For example if we consciously decide to undertake a risky task or sport, our subconscious is cautious and unwilling to act, so there will be an internal struggle.  In the 1996 movie 'Shine' we find a brilliant Australian piano prodigy struggling with his subconscious as his conscious mind strives to succeed as an acclaimed pianist.  He has been subconsciously programmed by his father to avoid the spotlight because the notoriety will get him killed.  Thus as he plays in a competition to win, his subconscious fights his conscious mind to fail.  He makes it to the end of the piece and collapses.  He has a mental breakdown.  The conscious fight to keep from failing had taken its toll. 

In an experiment conducted with college students, one group was 'tested' with a series of rude words. Another group was 'tested' with polite words.  After their tests, participants were asked to meet with two testers.  When they arrived at the appointment, they found the two testers having a conversation.  Unbeknowst to the students, the conversation was a test to see which would interrupt the two testers first.  All the students exposed to the rude words waited about 5 minutes before interrupting the testers.  Surprisingly, 82% of the polite-word group did not interrupt the testers during the entire test period.  Exposure to the different word-sets programmed the subconscious of the students.  Further, the subconscious demonstrated influence on conscious actions.

The understanding that our subconscious plays such an important role in our conscious life reinforces our need to feed our minds with positive thoughts and images instead of negative ones.  This understanding also reiterates the importance to help children read, see, hear, and be exposed to life enriching experiences.  If not, our children will be at a disadvantage to live positive fulfilled lives.

These ideas are presented after reading "Biology of Belief" by Bruce H. Lipton (Hay House, 2005) and "Circle Maker" by Mark Batterson (Zondervan Press, 2011).

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com

Where is your Mind?

Have you wondered where your mind is?  Is it in your brain or is it somewhere else?  I wondered to the point that I figured no one knew so I stopped wondering.  Well, there is research evidence suggesting that the brain is not where the mind is.  OK, we know where the brain is, so where is the mind?   

If the mind is defined as the organ that responds to environmental signals with specific and appropriate cell and body responses, then that excludes the brain as the mind.  The mind decides on actions to take.  The mind helps us move to take the action. The brain coordinates the actions.

The definition also excludes the cell nucleus, with its genetic material (DNA), as the mind.  The DNA does not have an on/off switch that is needed to control cellular and body functions. The genes however contain information to produce a response to an environmental stimulus.  That information on the genes is 'protected' by a protein coat.  When the body needs a specific response, a stimulus in the cell activates the protein coat to uncover that portion of the gene to allow synthesis of a needed protein product.  In other words, the genes are there to respond to signals from the cells -- and the cell receives its signals from the environment through its surface membrane receptors. 

While the brain does not have the responsiveness for a 'mind,' the cellular membranes throughout the body have such functional capability.  The short of it?  The mind of the body resides on the surface of cell membranes!  Furthermore, the mind works through energy fields to control our physiology and our health.

As more practitioners take on this new thinking that it is environmental signaling (and not our genetics) that controls our physiology and health, there will be more outside interventions that can help us heal, get well, feel good, and live long vibrant lives!  I am looking forward to learn more about this!  Hope you are too.

These ideas are exerpted from "Biology of Belief" by Bruce H. Lipton (Hay House, 2005).

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com

"It's the Environment, Stupid!"

What controls our health, our biology?  Is it our inherited genes?  No!  We have been wrong since 1859 when Charles Darwin published "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection."  With this publication, Darwin launched a quest by scientists for the genetic proof that our biology is controlled by indelible genes.  This concept, Darwinian determinism, has been the mantra for over 100 years and our textbooks and literature tell us that our genes control our lives.  As a former medical school professor (who worked with cells that produced specialized proteins (antibodies) that confer immunity to foreign substances), I, too, learned the mantra.  Scientists spend years searching in the DNA for specific genes, e.g., a cancer gene, etc.  This view suggests that we are not in control of our lives, that the genes we inherit from our parents dictate who and what we will become.  It implies that if our parents had heart trouble or cancer we will have it as well.  We just wait for the cancer gene to emerge!

Genes give us the structure and unique form of who we are, but do not control our biology.  The book, "Biology of Belief" by Bruce H. Lipton (Hay House, 2005) shows it's the environment that is the driver shaping our lives (biology), not our genes.  Lipton, a former professor of Cell Biology, systematically and convincingly presents the case for this 'new biology' that is diametrically opposed to Darwinian determinism.  Instead, Lipton suggests it is Environmental determinism.  The implications of Lipton's thesis are profound.  It means that we are not trapped by our heredity; we are not cursed by poor health experienced by our parents; it is not inevitable that we get cancer if our parents had cancer; importantly, it means we have more control over our health and lives than we ever thought possible.  Lipton does reference that only 5% of cancer and cardiovascular patients can attribute their diseases to heredity. 

The dogma resulting from Darwin's thesis was that DNA (genetic material, deoxyribonucleic acid) produced RNA (ribonucleic acid messengers coding for proteins) that leads to protein synthesis.  Lipton says that this DNA-centric view puts the DNA (genes) in control of our biology and he emphatically points out that this is wrong!  Scientists have known much of what Lipton shares, but have not articulated the fact that it is the environment that plays the dominant role in controlling our biology. 

The concept that the gene is in control is so very entrenched (textbooks, curricula, lay media) that it is difficult to change mainstream thinking. It has been widely assumed in the science community that DNA (found in the nuclei of all cells) is the brain for the cell.  A brain is an organ that senses and responds to its environment.  By referencing published science experiments, Lipton shows that the main function of the DNA is for reproduction of the cell.  In his colorful way, Lipton says that the DNA is not the brain, but the gonads of the cell!  If the nucleus/DNA is not the brain, then where is the brain?  By its function, Lipton declares the cell membrane the brain.  The membrane senses the environment and with its receptors and effector proteins sets in motion an appropriate response to the environmental stimulus.  There is a scientific discipline, Epigenetics, that studies the control of cell function outside of genetics.  Most interesting from these studies is the fact that we can change our genetics and that those changes can be transferred to our progeny.  As Lipton says, the primacy of the environmental signal over the DNA results in a sequence that starts with an environmental stimulus resulting in triggering regulatory membrane proteins that then activate the DNA, the RNA, and subsequent protein synthesis.  And proteins are the substances that serve as 'workers' in our bodies to help send signals, pass information, and turn on and off cells that produce other mediators that keep our bodies functioning optimally.

How do we humans develop our biological complexity?  It is with the several hundred thousands of protein molecules that mediate and generate our diverse responses.  It appears that even though mice and humans have about the same number of genes, our proteins' abilities to respond to many environmental stimuli far exceed those of mice. Why?  From epigenetic studies it has been shown that over 2,000 protein configurations can be formed from a single gene sequence.  That's diversity!

The bottom line?  If our cellular membranes translate environmental signals into behavior, then our environment plays the major role in controlling our biology.  This means that we have significant control over health and well-being situations in our lives.  We are not constrained by our genetics.  We can help ourselves and can no longer blame our inherited past.  Now that is exciting!  What does this mean in terms of medical practice, nutrition and health, existing diseases, people and places we interact with, or what we think and do?  New thinking, new treatments, new ideas, and new hope where there was none!  There is more to this story and I can't wait to learn it. 

© Baldwin H. Tom, Ph.D.
www.tbgroupconsultants.com

Brain Patterns, Neurochemicals and Non-Genetic Implications

Most recently when I find an area that connects the right brain to the left brain, I am fascinated.  I have focused on the right brain emotions of feeling good, being sad, being depressed, and having faith because there is now scientific evidence that we can take pictures of our brain patterns that represent these emotions.  Now that is amazing!  There are now ways to characterize and map emotions to different sectors of our brains.  Furthermore, there are now identified molecular markers that serve as messengers in triggering emotions and/or the brain changes.  Awesome!  In other words, we are beginning to discover hard scientific evidence on what we have previously considered just a feeling without science or chemistry associated with it.

As I was reviewing my notes and reference materials to write up this blog, I picked up a book published in 2005, The Biology of Belief, by former university cell biologist Bruce H. Lipton.  I had not read this book yet so I began to flip pages to read sections. It is an amazing read if you are a scientist, as I have been, because it challenges Darwinian determinism.  It notes that it's not the genes that dictate who we are, but it's the environment.  I am still reading the book and I guarantee that it will challenge your understanding about how genes work and do not work in creating who we are. 

While I have yet to complete the reading, here is what has been said about this book.  1) Our biology is controlled by energetic messages from our negative and positive thoughts; 2) The healing potential of our bodies are influenced by our thoughts, perceptions, and subconscious awareness; 3) There is a connection between biology, psychology, and spirituality; 4) Your emotions regulate your genetic expression; 5) Your health is controlled by your lifestyle, not by your genetics; 6) You are less a victim of your genes and more a responsibility of your own actions; and 7) You can change the character of your life by changing your beliefs.  If this synopsis doesn't get you running to read the book, I'm not sure anything will!

While it appears I have deviated from my original theme around finding common denominators in brain patterns and neurochemical secretion among music therapy, prayer, meditation, cognitive behavior therapy, acupuncture, and microcurrent stimulation, I believe this book may actually help reinforce the theme.  The fundamental question I am yet seeking is whether these types of treatments result in physics-based electrochemical endpoints that change our biology.  As an adjunct here, I personally witnessed the change in heart rate of a hospital patient anxious about a planned surgery while she was being prayed over.  Her starting pulse rate on the monitor was 95 and during the 5 minute prayer it dropped to 60 and stayed around 60 until the prayer was over and the patient opened her eyes.  Then it went back up to 75, not 95.  Whether it was the prayer or her relaxation, I don’t know, but her anxiety level was reduced.  The pulse rate drop was dramatic.

To be continued ... 

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com

In A Pit With A Lion!

At the end of our lives, our greatest regrets will be those things we should have done but did not.   

Did you ever wonder how some people seem to have lives that are more energized than not, ones that appear to have interesting stories to tell, stories you enjoy listening to?   I have.  It turns out that if we do not live fully, we have regrets.  The most interesting lives tend to be lives lived with fewer regrets! 

Mark Batterson's book (Multnomah Publishers, 2006), "In a pit with a lion on a snowy day," tells the story of an ancient warrior named Benaiah who chased and then jumped into a pit to kill a lion on a snowy day.  Why?  We don't know.  Because Benaiah did so, he was later selected to be the body guard for a king.  Batterson tells this story well, and asks us to imagine what the king thought when he saw Benaiah's resume: "I killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day."   Benaiah later become the commander-in-chief of the entire army. The point of this story was to note that if Benaiah had decided to run instead of chase the lion, his life would have been very different. 

In nine chapters, Batterson tells about other lion chasers and teaches how we can be better lion chasers and live fuller lives. It is also a story about taking risks.  Importantly, it is a story about embracing uncertainty, as lion chasers are never certain what the outcome might be. The bottom line is that we have to have guts to step out in faith and chase lions.  "No guts, no glory!"  We need some offense in our lives, not just defense.  We need to be proactive, not reactive; not just playing it safe.  Lion chasers are always looking for opportunities and making the best of them -- doing the best one can with what one has.

OK.  We are not going to risk chasing a lion.  However, the moral of the story is that if we want to have a full life, we will need to take risks to reach for things we should reach for.  It may be to quit a job for a new one in another state, to start a business, to get married, or to have children.  In each instance there is risk because of the uncertainty of the results.  Risk provides complications and inconveniences.  However, when we embrace uncertainty that comes from risk, the end result can awaken us to a new life and unforgettable moments.

Embracing uncertainty has a lot to do with our perspectives in life.  Do we believe there is a purpose for our lives?  If we see no purpose, we will give up at a first set back.  If we do not believe there is a purpose, then any purpose will do.  If that's the case, we will believe our lives are controlled by circumstance and happenstance – random.  If so, the future is dependent on chance.  Well, I do not believe we are here just to wait for the wind of circumstances to move us about.  I know that everyone has special talents and inclinations.  Thus, I feel these inclinations, when embraced, will lead them toward their purpose -- their destiny.

Here is the challenge.  Faith and the willingness to lose some control in our lives is required in order to have the confidence to embrace uncertainty. When one steps out in faith, takes a chance and becomes a lion chaser, that single experience will change the trajectory of one’s life.  It certainly changed Benaiah's life from common warrior to becoming the supreme warrior! 

Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch survivor of the Nazi WWII camps, demonstrated by working on a needle point picture that our lives look a lot like the underside of a needle point rendering, a jumbo of threads and colors without a discernable pattern.  Yet the front side displayed a beautiful picture.  Christians believe that while we see a jumble of threads, God, from the outside looking in, sees the complete picture.  This means that not all our experiences (and lion chasing) may fit our perceived path (or make sense to us at the time).  Lion chasers are not deterred by gaps of logic, they just move on -- in faith.

Now that I understand the ‘secret’ to a fulfilled life, I have begun chasing more lions!

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com