Month: October 2021

At least the corn we eat today isn’t. It’s the product of selective breeding. Over the last 9,000 years, farmers have been selecting the seeds of the crops that were bigger and tastier.

And it isn’t just corn. So are peaches, apples, watermelon–every fruit and vegetable you can imagine. Pigs, chickens, cows are also genetically modified by drugs, climate control and artificial insemination. (Chickens actually have to be slaughtered at 5 months or the weight that they carry actually snaps their legs.)

We have a difficult time imagining how are food as evolved. We don’t like to think of it as engineering yet the mass supply of food the West indulges in was no accident. Food scarcity has plagued us for thousands and thousands of years. The domestication of food is one of the greatest technological feats in human history.

If you are reading this, you are probably not thinking about where you are going to get your next meal. That is a miracle.

This is genetic engineering and we might be seeing the limits of what can possibly happen. Mass meat consumption is contributing a large part of greenhouse emissions. A hamburger can take 660 gallons of water and 10 pounds of grain to produce. Not to mention the slaughtering, packaging, transportation for us to pick it up. And equity is still a problem. It is estimated that 811 million people each day are still going hungry. If we switched to a whole food plant base, we could use the excess food to feed the world.

Yet, most of us (including myself) have a hard time making that leap. One interesting answer is in the genetic engineering or plant based alternatives. The problem is many struggle to get past the meat made by plants or grown in a lab. But there is not difference in how we do it today. Food is grown in a lab when we think of the manipulation of plants and animals to produce what we have today.

None of us eat cows or pigs anymore. We are eating burgers and bacon. We continue to add degrees of separation and it changes the story of our food. Food is important part of our lives. We need it to survive but also it is the center of our culture.

The question going forward, what kind of story are we going to tell ourselves?

There’s a difference in the mindset of eating something healthy and not eating junk food.

Most diets focus on the latter–don’t eat the marshmallow. Which in turn causes stress.

According to Science, “Changes in gene expression may help explain why so many diets fail. Dieting increases stress sensitivity, and stress makes us seek out rewarding things like high-fat, high-calorie “comfort” foods.”

Our brains are working against us. We are stressed we want to be comforted. If we are doing well, we want to be rewarded.

We know taking something away is far more painful than getting something in return. Understanding how the brain works and you can be better prepared for the challenge to come. (Not just with dieting.)

In 2007, Muhammad Ali started the Roshni Helpline–Pakistan’s first tip line for missing children. Ali has created a vast network of shopkeepers and confidential informants to get eyes and ears on the ground to save these kids.

Except this isn’t the same Muhammad Ali you are thinking of it. He isn’t a famous boxer. He’s just a regular person who decided to help kids who needed to be help. As a result, his organization has saved over 5,000 children.

How big of a badge do you really need to make a difference?

We speak as if doing important, extraordinary work is for the select few. But that is just another lie we tell ourselves.

Notice when I say “good” it invoked a bunch of emotions.

“Compare to who?”

“Well, I am better than him but much worst than her.”

“I’m not a President or a General.”

“I’m just not that good at public speaking.”

Good causes us to squirm because we don’t actually know what good means. There is no measure for what a good leader is. We either see someone as a good leader or not.

Because there is no standard, no bar, therefore we can’t measure. And deep down, we know our flaws and imperfection. We amplify them to tell ourselves a story of insufficiency.

Yet, if I were to ask, “What makes a leader?”

We can describe someone as charismatic, a problem solver, someone who directs people, inspires others, can say something inspiring or profound…

Haven’t you done those things before? Of course, you have! At least once. If we did it once, we can do it again. We don’t see ourselves as good leaders because of the story we are telling ourselves.

No one is born a great leader. The doctor didn’t deliver you and say, “Wow, look at that, she’s a leader!” We learn to become good leaders by practicing. It’s a skill. Like most things, we can get better at it with opportunities and practice.

There is no such thing as a perfect leader. So go. Be the leader you are capable of being. Not the one you were born to be.

Layman’s terms derives from the 16th-century idiom “in plain English” meaning to explain something simple enough that a layperson (common person) would understand.

But there is a difference between speaking to someone like they are a five-year-old and speaking so clearly that even a five-year-old could understand.

A note to the audience: Just because we don’t understand something doesn’t make it less true.

Most of us gush over fairy tales with happy endings. We are often quick to believe that our favorite sports team can pull off the big upset or the nice guy gets the girl in the end.

At the same time, we struggle to believe in the outcome of our own story. We often default to things not breaking in our favor. We call it “being realistic” or bad luck as a way to temper our expectations.

If we keep our expectations low than we can’t be disappointed. Right?

Just because we are not going to win the lottery it doesn’t mean the universe is conspiring against us. And hoping for things to be better is different from seeing the world as it currently is.

Each of us has an opportunity to build a bridge from the status quo to possibility. It starts with the belief in a world not as it is but what can be.

Imagination. Possibility. Connection. Dreaming big. It may sound like a fairy tale for someone else because we don’t imagine ourselves being the agent for change. Deep down, we know our flaws and we amplify them. Creating a narrative of insufficiency.

You can change all of that. It’s easier to imagine running a marathon once you’ve done it. Go make your ruckus. You don’t make the change until you be the change.

Narratives evolve after action. Not before.

When two ideas are not consistent with each other it creates tension. So much so, that humans will go to great lengths, create elaborate narratives, to have the current information fit the worldview. Not the other way around.

Overtime it presents an immense challenge:

You become in a perpetual state of denial of your own reasoning power.

Which, by the way, is how cults thrive–the masses surrender their agency. You forget to reason and override your own perception of reality.

Difficult to change course when someone has been living in denial for so long. But I am confident that the truth eventually prevails. No matter how slow.

Because sometimes fantasy is better than real life.

It can be a defense mechanism or just a way to cope with our existence. Either way, our narrative will often betray us because it’s seductive enough to live in our dreams instead of seeing the world as it really is.

We give ourselves permission to escape when our realities don’t match our expectations.

Barry Ritholtz wrote a phenomenal piece about the hero’s journey.

He is absolutely correct that a single event is the result of many choices and circumstances. Luke Skywalker doesn’t just wake up and say, “I’m going to go blow up the Death Star today.” And 9/11 just didn’t happen out of nowhere.

If we are waiting for our moment in our life–the climax–where everything changes after, we are going to be waiting for a long time. In fact, I would argue that we are hiding instead.

A hero’s journey isn’t as dramatic as Hollywood would make it out to be. It could be sitting down, opening the computer and typing that book that you always wanted to write. It could be volunteering and opening your home to refuges. It could be pushing back on the status quo, squashing conspiracy theories, or speaking up about a policy that discriminates a class of people.

The hero’s journey is not necessarily wrapped in life or death situations. Most of us are not going to have an opportunity to jump in front of a bullet or run into a burning building. Don’t wait for a single event to occur to spring yourself into action. A warrior doesn’t decide to become one in times of peril. They become the kind of person that generously serves those around them.

We are products of our time. In many ways, the world is safer than it has ever been. But it doesn’t mean there are not problems. Problems that need to be solved and that also create opportunities for hero’s to emerge. Regardless of the media exposure. Do the right thing. Without the awards or recognition.

If you want to become a writer just start writing. Every day commit to sitting down at your computer and type.

The hard part is becoming the kind of person that writes every day.

Because life happens. Enthusiasm drops. You feel like a fraud. You lack “good” ideas.

When you can figure out that transformation, you’ve figured out something special that can translate to other areas of your life.

Thank you for reading. Here’s to 2,000 and to another 2,000 more.

On we go.