Category Archives: Mind Building

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Health24.com | Bats and coronaviruses go back centuries

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Bats and coronavirus have been evolving together for millions of years, researchers report.

In a new study, investigators compared different kinds of coronaviruses living in 36 bat species found on islands in the western Indian Ocean and coastal areas of the African nation of Mozambique.

The researchers discovered that 8% of all the bats they tested were carrying a coronavirus and that different groups of bats had their own unique strains of coronavirus.

“We found that there’s a deep evolutionary history between bats and coronaviruses,” said study co-author Steve Goodman, a field biologist at Chicago’s Field Museum.

All animals have viruses

“Developing a better understanding of how coronaviruses evolved can help us build public health programmes in the future,” he explained in a museum news release.

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

All animals have viruses that live inside them. Bats, and a number of other mammal groups, are natural carriers of coronaviruses. These coronaviruses don’t appear to be harmful to the bats, but they can pose a threat to other animals if they jump between species, the researchers said.

There are a huge number of different coronaviruses, and most aren’t known to infect humans and pose no known threat.

Bats important for ecosystem

The coronaviruses carried by the three dozen bat species in this study are different from the one that causes Covid-19, but learning about coronaviruses in bats in general may improve understanding of the coronavirus causing the current pandemic, according to the study authors.

The researchers also emphasised that even though bats carry coronaviruses, they shouldn’t be harmed or culled in a misguided attempt to protect human health.

“There’s abundant evidence that bats are important for ecosystem functioning, whether it be for the pollination of flowers, dispersal of fruits, or the consumption of insects, particularly insects that are responsible for transmission of different diseases to humans,” Goodman said.

“The good they do for us outweighs any potential negatives,” he stressed.

READ | Shut down ‘wet markets’ to prevent next viral plague, animal advocates say

READ | Track viruses, not animal carriers, to prevent future pandemics

READ | A brief history of the coronavirus family – including one pandemic we might have missed

Image credit: Vlad Kutepov, Unsplash

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Pushing Yourself

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This morning I went for my usual run, starting before dawn. Lately I’ve been going for 45-50 minutes. This time, however, I was listening to the audiobook Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins. After hearing the part about his 100-mile run and how he had to push himself to get through it, I felt like I should push myself more as well. So I kept running for an hour, then 75 minutes, and finally decided to stop at 93 minutes.

This was hill running since my neighborhood is very hilly, so almost all the running I do nearby is either uphill or downhill.

Normally after a morning run, I feel pretty good. It gives me a sense of accomplishment early in the day and gets me off to a good start. I see a strong link between focus and productivity and cardio exercise. No matter how much I’ve experimented with other types of exercise, nothing takes the place of cardio in terms of the mental and emotional benefits.

This morning instead of feeling a modest sense of accomplishment, it felt way better to run twice as far as I normally would. I’ve done many 90-minute runs before, but not lately and not this year. It felt so nice to stretch beyond what I’m used to. It wasn’t physically difficult, but I had to nudge myself mentally to go beyond what feels normal to me now. Running for 45 minutes feels pretty routine. Running 90 minutes feels different though, somehow beyond normal. It makes the whole day feel special.

There’s something magical about pushing beyond normal, going outside of the usual zone of comfort. The barrier is usually mental or emotional. Even if it’s a physical challenge, the mind wants to stop before the body needs to.

This got me thinking about other areas of life where I’ve had to stretch myself mentally in order to improve my results. I remember when making an extra $1K seemed like a big deal. Then I eventually reached the point where $1K seemed easy, and I projected those earlier limitations onto $10K. Then I stretched that limit to $50K, and eventually $50K felt easy to earn, like in a week or a month. Now $100K feels easy and seems like a modest amount. And $250K is starting to feel like it’s probably not that hard to earn in one chunk. I just need to be a bit more creative. Earning $500K in a week or so is starting to look like it might be even more fun. It seems within the realm of reach, not inaccessible but a bit more of a stretch to get there.

What I like about financial stretching, as I shared in yesterday’s post on overcoming financial pressure, is that it’s very measurable, and the mind has different associations to different amounts of money. The way you feel about $10K won’t be the same as you feel about $100K or $1M. Some amounts will seem small. Others will seem big. But those judgments have nothing to do with the actual sums; they just expose the limitations and blocks of the mind.

The fun part that leads to breakthroughs starts with deciding to do something financially that’s on the other side of a mental block. Take a clear goal like earning $100K in a week. How does your mind classify that? Is it accessible and doable for you? Is it trivially easy for you? Or is it on the other side of a mental barrier that says it’s inaccessible, out of reach, or unrealistic to even think about?

If you don’t push through your mental barriers and challenge them, they become real for you. Your life becomes boxed in because you don’t push beyond the walls of the box.

To keep progressing in any area of life, we have to stretch the mind first. We have to decide to do something that seems like it’s too much, too far, or too out of reach. The mind will initially resist, but the resistance can be overcome.

Many aspects of my life that feel normal used to feel out of reach. Getting up at 5am daily was one of those. I struggled with that habit for a long time, but the main barrier was mindset. Initially I framed it as something hard to do, something barely accessible for me. But when I just decided to absolutely do it no matter what, the resistance crumbled. Now it’s easy. If the decision is made to get up at 5am daily, it’s a done deal. A long time ago, I broke the part of my mind that said I couldn’t become an early riser by proving it wrong till it finally surrendered.

I used a similar approach to figure out how to make a living without getting a job. The key was to decide not to get one and to figure out some other path. One the decision was made, there was no looking back and no second-guessing. Now I’ve gone almost three decades without a job. And the 2006 article 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job has inspired countless other people to discover that they too can do just fine without ever having to get a job (unless they really want one).

I feel like I enter a different zone of being when I push myself. Doing what’s expected and satisfying my own expectations feels good, but it’s nowhere near as satisfying as going beyond my comfort zone and stretching.

What limits are holding you back right now? What would you like to experience or achieve, but your mind tells you that’s out of reach? Prove your mind wrong. Go pursue the goal that’s out of reach. Decide that you’ll find a way.

Here’s a personal challenge for you: Do something within the next 24 hours that breaks one of your mental barriers. Find a way to push yourself, and notice how satisfying that feels.

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Coronavirus: UK hospital trials new treatment drug

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The new drug is based around a protein that is commonly used in the treatment of multiple sclerosis.

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Coronavirus: Contact tracing app to be trialled on Isle of Wight

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The experiment is part of the government’s track and trace strategy aimed at limiting a second wave.

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Neural circuit that drives physical responses to emotional stress found

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Researchers at Nagoya University have discovered a neural circuit that drives physical responses to emotional stress. The circuit begins in deep brain areas, called the dorsal peduncular cortex and the dorsal tenia tecta (DP/DTT), that send stress signals to the hypothalamus, a small region in the brain that controls the body’s vital functions. The findings were recently published in the journal Science.

Emotional stress activates the sympathetic nervous system, which leads to physical responses, such as a rise in blood pressure and body temperature, and a faster heart rate. Such responses are thought to be coping mechanisms in humans and many other mammals to boost physical performance in fight-or-flight situations. But nowadays, when most people rarely encounter such situations, these responses could perhaps have an adverse effect on their health. Excessive stress may cause symptoms such as psychogenic fever, a condition of abnormally high body temperature.

To develop strategies for treating stress-induced symptoms, the neural mechanism underlying physical responses to stress had first to be understood. To this end, a research team led by Professor Kazuhiro Nakamura and Designated Assistant Professor Naoya Kataoka, of the Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, conducted a study in which tracers were injected into the brains of a group of rats and the rats were subjected to a stressful event (rat bullying by a dominant rat).

The tracers showed that specifically the DP/DTT brain areas were highly active when exposed to stress. To further examine the role these brain areas have in stress response, the researchers impaired the areas’ connections to the hypothalamus and again exposed the rats to the same stress. Now the rats did not exhibit any stress-induced physical response, neither a rise in blood pressure nor body temperature, nor a faster heart rate.

This study demonstrates that the DP/DTT areas together are responsible for sending stress signals to the hypothalamus, and thus that blocking the DP/DTT-to-hypothalamus circuit can result in a reduction of stress symptoms in rats.

Professor Nakamura sums up the research result like this: “The DP/DTT are parts of the brain that are involved in processing emotion and stress. The DP/DTT-to-hypothalamus pathway we discovered, therefore, represents a brain mechanism for a ‘mind-body connection,’ which can be a potential target for treating stress-related disorders such as panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and psychogenic fever.”

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Materials provided by Nagoya University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Tree trunks take a licking as koalas source water

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Koalas are one of the world’s most charismatic animals. But there is a lot we still don’t know about them. For example, how do the marsupials access water in the treetops? Do they only absorb moisture from the gum leaves they eat? Or do they come down from the trees to drink from a waterhole? Until now, no one really knew.

A study published today in Ethology, led by a researcher from The University of Sydney, has captured koala drinking behaviour in the wild for the first time. The paper describes how koalas drink by licking water running down smooth tree trunks during rain.

The news arrives in time to celebrate Wild Koala Day on Sunday 3 May.

“For a long time, we thought koalas didn’t need to drink much at all because they gained the majority of the water they need to survive in the gum leaves they feed on,” said Dr Valentina Mella, in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences. “But now we have observed them licking water from tree trunks. This significantly alters our understanding of how koalas gain water in the wild. It is very exciting.”

Survival

Australia is currently suffering the longest dry period ever documented, with severe rainfall deficits and record maximum temperatures. Koalas experience severe heat-stress and mass mortality events in prolonged hot and dry conditions and they spend more time drinking from artificial water stations if rain is scarce.

Further research could investigate when and why koalas from different areas need access to free water — not contained in the leaves as moisture but available freely as liquid, such as rain, river water or puddles — and whether water supplementation is necessary for some populations.

“This type of drinking behaviour — licking tree trunks — relies on koalas being able to experience regular rainfall to access free water and indicates that they may suffer serious detrimental effects if lack of rain compromises their ability to access free water,” Dr Mella said.

“We know koalas use trees for all their main needs, including feeding, sheltering and resting. This study shows that koalas rely on trees also to access free water and highlights the importance of retaining trees for the conservation of the species.”

Koalas rarely drink water

Each day, wild koalas eat around 510 grams of fresh succulent eucalyptus leaves, and the water in the foliage they feed on is believed to contribute about three quarters of their water intake in both summer and winter.

Among their adaptations to the Australian climate, koalas also possess extraordinary urinary concentrating abilities and have restricted respiratory and cutaneous water loss compared to similar-sized mammals.

In captivity, koalas have been observed to drink water, but this behaviour has often been considered unusual and attributed to disease or to severe heat stress.

However, anecdotal reports suggest that koalas in the wild drink from waterholes in summer when temperatures exceed 40 degrees Celsius.

Koalas have also been observed approaching humans to access free water (in bottles, gardens and swimming pools during drought and after fire. But this is considered an unusual occurrence.

Observing licking behaviour

For this study, Dr Mella collated observations of koalas drinking in the wild made by citizen scientists and independent ecologists between 2006 and 2019 at the You Yangs Regional Park in Victoria and the Liverpool Plains in NSW. Each observation was koala behaviour noticed by chance and reported to Dr Mella.

There were 44 observations of free ranging koalas licking water running down a tree trunk during or immediately after rain in the You Yangs Regional Park.

The other two observations of koala drinking behaviour were recorded between the towns of Gunnedah and Mullaley, in the Liverpool Plains. One was an adult female, with a joey, who drank profusely and uninterruptedly for 15 minutes. The other was an adult male who drank at a steady pace for 34 minutes.

“As koalas are nocturnal animals and observation of their behaviour rarely occurs during heavy rainfall, it is likely that their drinking behaviour has gone largely unnoticed and has therefore been underestimated in the past,” Dr Mella said. “Our observations probably only represent a minority of the drinking that normally takes place in trees during rainfall.”

Koalas were observed accessing water in trees by licking the wet surfaces of branches and tree trunks during rain across a range of weather conditions, even when free-standing water was available in dams.

“This suggests koalas were drinking not as a result of heat stress and that this behaviour is likely to represent how koalas naturally access water,” said Dr Mella.

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Why smartphones are digital truth serum

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Researchers from University of Pennsylvania published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that explains that the device people use to communicate can affect the extent to which they are willing to disclose intimate or personal information about themselves.

The study forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing is titled “Full Disclosure: How Smartphones Enhance Consumer Self-disclosure” and is authored by Shiri Melumad and Robert Meyer.

Do smartphones alter what people are willing to disclose about themselves to others? A new study in the Journal of Marketing suggests that they might. The research indicates that people are more willing to reveal personal information about themselves online using their smartphones compared to desktop computers. For example, Tweets and reviews composed on smartphones are more likely to be written from the perspective of the first person, to disclose negative emotions, and to discuss the writer’s private family and personal friends. Likewise, when consumers receive an online ad that requests personal information (such as phone number and income), they are more likely to provide it when the request is received on their smartphone compared to their desktop or laptop computer.

Why do smartphones have this effect on behavior? Melumad explains that “Writing on one’s smartphone often lowers the barriers to revealing certain types of sensitive information for two reasons; one stemming from the unique form characteristics of phones and the second from the emotional associations that consumers tend to hold with their device.” First, one of the most distinguishing features of phones is the small size; something that makes viewing and creating content generally more difficult compared with desktop computers. Because of this difficulty, when writing or responding on a smartphone, a person tends to narrowly focus on completing the task and become less cognizant of external factors that would normally inhibit self-disclosure, such as concerns about what others would do with the information.?Smartphone users know this effect well — when using their phones in public places, they often fixate so intently on its content that they become oblivious to what is going on around them.

The second reason people tend to be more self-disclosing on their phones lies in the feelings of comfort and familiarity people associate with their phones. Melumad adds, “Because our smartphones are with us all of the time and perform so many vital functions in our lives, they often serve as ‘adult pacifiers’ that bring feelings of comfort to their owners.” The downstream effect of those feelings shows itself when people are more willing to disclose feelings to a close friend compared to a stranger or open up to a therapist in a comfortable rather than uncomfortable setting. As Meyer says, “Similarly, when writing on our phones, we tend to feel that we are in a comfortable ‘safe zone.’ As a consequence, we are more willing to open up about ourselves.”

The data to support these ideas is far-ranging and includes analyses of thousands of social media posts and online reviews, responses to web ads, and controlled laboratory studies.?For example, initial evidence comes from analyses of the depth of self-disclosure?revealed in 369,161 Tweets and 10,185 restaurant reviews posted on TripAdvisor.com, with some posted on PCs and some on smartphones.? Using both automated natural-language processing tools and human judgements of self-disclosure, the researchers find robust evidence that smartphone-generated content is indeed more self-disclosing. Perhaps even more compelling is evidence from an analysis of 19,962 “call to action” web ads, where consumers are asked to provide private information.

Consistent with the tendency for smartphones to facilitate greater self-disclosure, compliance was systematically higher for ads targeted at smartphones versus PCs.

The findings have clear and significant implications for firms and consumers.?One is that if a firm wishes to gain a deeper understanding of the real preferences and needs of consumers, it may obtain better insights by tracking what they say and do on their smartphones than on their desktops.?Likewise, because more self-disclosing content is often perceived to be more honest, firms might encourage consumers to post reviews from their personal devices.?But therein lies a potential caution for consumers — these findings suggest that the device people use to communicate can affect what they communicate. This should be kept in mind when thinking about the device one is using when interacting with firms and others.

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Materials provided by American Marketing Association. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Health24.com | Coronavirus morning update: Stay home as far as possible – only go out for essential tasks, Mkhize urges

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WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SA

Cases update: 

The latest number of confirmed cases is 6 336.

According to the latest update, 123 deaths have been recorded in the country.

To date, 230 686 tests have been conducted, with more than 13 000 new tests conducted – the highest number of tests done in a 24-hour cycle, so far.

READ MORE |All the confirmed cases of coronavirus in SA

Latest news:

Hypertension, diabetes and cardiac disease are among the most common co-morbidities associated with serious Covid-19 cases in the country, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Saturday.

This as 123 deaths were recorded nationwide.

“We have looked at the data for patients who have been hospitalised and found that, consistent with evidence emerging worldwide, hypertension, diabetes and cardiac disease are the three most common co-morbidities associated with serious illness from Covid-19,” he added.

Mkhize said other co-morbidities, which are present in admitted patients, were chronic pulmonary disease, asthma, chronic renal disease, malignancy and HIV as well as active and past TB cases.

“I would therefore like to urge our millions of South Africans who are over 63 years of age and those who live with these conditions, to take extra precaution as we ease the lockdown.”

He reiterated the need for continued isolation from the public.

“I would also like to urge all South Africans to continue to stay at home as far as possible, only venturing out to perform essential tasks as we move through the stages of the gradual lifting of the lockdown.”

READ MORE | Hypertension, diabetes, cardiac disease most common co-morbidities in SA Covid-19 patients

The Mpumalanga government could be taken to court to release people quarantined in a resort following a barrage of complaints about unbearable and unhygienic conditions.

Seven individuals – who were among a group of South Africans repatriated from Mozambique on April 27 and were taken to the government-owned Zithabiseni Resort & Conference Centre outside Groblersdal – claim they haven’t been tested and are living in a place teeming with cockroaches and rotten cardboard. They also said that they were being served “substandard” food, and that false eyelashes were found in some meals.

The Mpumalanga department of health initially quarantined 115 people at the resort, which is owned by the Mpumalanga Parks & Tourism Agency. Twenty of them were international tourists. Eight left the site after completing their 14-day quarantine period and testing negative for Covid-19.

Melanie Nel, who spoke on behalf of the group of complainants, said: “They laugh at a diabetic and don’t support the need for diabetic food. Boiled eggs served for breakfast were cracked open [the whites of the eggs were showing]. Everyone’s complaining about the food. We’re not eating it and are currently providing for our kids from the limited supplies we were able to bring with us.”

Nel says the complainants are going to court, but hasn’t clarified what application they wanted to bring forward.

“We’re in the high court next week Wednesday,” she said.

“The bottom line is that we’re all healthy, but are concerned that we and our kids will get sick in this place. All we want is to get tested and if we’re negative, we want to go home. We’re willing to pay for our own tests, but we’re not allowed to.”

READ MORE | Quarantined South Africans head to court to demand their release

The sale of craft non-alcoholic beer and gin and tonics has skyrocketed during South Africa’s hard lockdown. 

Under South Africa’s lockdown regulations, the unconditional sale of liquor will only be permitted when the country reaches Level 2 of its “risk adjusted strategy” to fight Covid-19. But products with less than 0.5% alcohol – officially classified as alcohol-free in the Liquor Products Act – are still allowed. And a few, mainly in the craft sector, have been quick to capitalise.

Johannes Le Roux, founder of non-alcoholic gin and tonic drink The Duchess, says their year-on-year sales have increased significantly in recent weeks.

“For April, and during the lockdown, we’ve seen a 150% increase in sales year on year, which is quite substantial,” Le Roux told Business Insider South Africa. 

Online sales for The Duchess, driven through channels like YuppieChef and Takealot, have also increased dramatically. 

READ MORE | Non-alcoholic gin and beer is flying off the shelves under SA’s booze lockdown

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE REST OF THE WORLD 

Cases update:

For the latest global data, follow this interactive map from Johns Hopkins University & Medicine.

Early on Sunday morning, positive cases worldwide were more than 3.4 million, while deaths were more than 242 000.

The United States had the most cases in the world – more than 1 126 000, as well as the most deaths – just more than 66 000.

READ MORE | All the confirmed cases worldwide

Latest news:

Brazil is facing an extreme surge in Covid-19 cases after the government left the virus to spread virtually uncontrolled for weeks, all while the country’s president mocked stay-at-home policies and pushed against directives from the World Health Organization.

As of Friday evening, Brazil, which has a population of 209 million, had 91 589 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 6,329 deaths from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins data. That makes the country’s per-capita death rate 3.02 deaths per 100 000 people.

Experts told The Associated Press that the numbers of cases and deaths could be much higher because Brazil does not yet have widespread testing.

Since the novel coronavirus started to spread across the world, countries have issued lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, and curfews to help contain outbreaks. Even Sweden, which has left restaurants, schools, and public spaces open, has urged its residents to social distance and stay home when necessary.

But in Brazil, there’s an alarmingly relaxed approach from the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro – the only stay-at-home orders in place have been issued by governors, borders are still open, and there are very few countrywide quarantine regulations.

READ MORE | Brazil is letting the coronavirus run wild with little intervention – the results are strikingly bad

More than a third of the global population is under some restriction on movement related to the coronavirus pandemic. But after several weeks of lockdown measures, small groups have begun to protest and entrepreneurs like Elon Musk have argued that countries should open back up.

“Give people their freedom back!” Musk tweeted on Wednesday, linking to a Wall Street Journal op-ed from TJ Rodgers, the founder of manufacturing company Cypress Semiconductor.

Rodgers recently outlined two arguments for why US lockdowns were a mistake: The first is that his own analysis found a minimal correlation between states that closed businesses early and their overall death count (adjusted for population size). The second is that Sweden – where many schools and businesses remain open – has a lower death rate than some European nations that imposed full lockdowns, like Italy, Spain, and the UK.

But overwhelmingly, evidence suggests that lockdowns help contain outbreaks and save lives.

China, Germany, and Spain all saw their number of daily infections drop off after lockdowns were instated.

In Italy, a team of researchers recently simulated what could have happened if the country’s restrictions had been relaxed in March – or not imposed at all. The results showed that the country’s lockdown prevented around 200 000 hospitalisations between February 21 (when Italy’s first case was reported) and March 25. It also reduced transmission of the virus in Italy by around 45%, according to the study.

Another group of scientists found that Chinese cities that implemented restrictions before they discovered any Covid-19 cases saw one-third fewer cases during their first week of infections than cities with delayed responses to the outbreak.

“Social distancing provided by the lockdowns has clearly slowed the spread of the virus,” Jeffrey Morris, director of the biostatistics division at the University of Pennsylvania, told Business Insider.

READ MORE | Lockdowns save lives. The evidence is clear around the world.

A 12-year-old who was on a ventilator for four days after being diagnosed with the coronavirus said that she “died and came back”, the Associated Press reported.

Juliet Day from Covington, Louisiana was discharged on April 15, after spending ten days in the Oschner Medical Center in Jefferson – four of which were on a ventilator.

When the 12-year-old first started developing coronavirus symptoms, they were different from those usually experienced by adults.

Day’s mother, Jennifer, said her daughter did not have any breathing problems but was vomiting and experiencing severe stomach pain instead. Jennifer, who is also a radiologist, first thought her daughter was suffering from appendicitis but became alarmed when her lips starting turning blue and her limbs went cold.

READ MORE | Covid-19: A 12-year-old whose lips turned blue said she ‘died and came back’ after a heart attack

Today’s novel coronavirus has wreaked havoc on the globe.

The pandemic has rapidly uprooted life as we know it and left countries across the world scrambling to contain the outbreaks. In just a few short months, billions of people have become jobless, ill, or had their lives significantly disrupted.

But this might not be the only infectious disease we’ll have to battle in our lifetimes.

According to research from the World Health Organisation, and other institutions, the threat of climate change could make outbreaks even worse in the coming decades.

Researchers fear that as temperatures continue to rise, infectious-disease carrying animals could adapt to more widespread climates, pathogens could become stronger at surviving in hotter temperatures, and the human immune system could face greater difficulty in battling illness.

READ MORE | How climate change could make infectious diseases even more difficult to combat in the future

HEALTH TIPS (as recommended by the NICD and WHO)

• Maintain physical distancing – stay at least one metre away from somebody who is coughing or sneezing

• Practise frequent hand-washing, especially after direct contact with ill people or their environment

• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, as your hands touch many surfaces and could potentially transfer the virus

• Practise respiratory hygiene – cover your mouth with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Remember to dispose the tissue immediately after use.

READ MORE: Coronavirus 101 

Image credit: Getty Images

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How to Overcome Financial Pressure

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We just wrapped up the 2020 launch of Conscious Growth Club, and our next opening will be in April 2021. The launch did very well. We have 87 members enrolled in our next CGC year together. Financially this was our second six-figure launch of the year, the previous one being for the Stature course in January.

I received some feedback from people who really wanted to join CGC this year (some of them waiting months to sign up) but couldn’t do it because of financial challenges, especially related to the virus. Some had been recently laid off. Others have been reporting a business slowdown. Others are uncertain about the economy and want to conserve cash. All of this is totally understandable, and I’d never pressure anyone to join CGC if it would mean overextending themselves financially.

I spent most of my 20s broke and in debt and went through a bankruptcy in 1999. Financial stress was a big issue for me back then. So let me share some insights on how to reframe financial pressure, so it doesn’t keep haunting you and stressing you out for the rest of your days.

Framing Financial Pressure

How do you frame the presence of financial pressure, such as bills or expenses you’re not sure you can cover?

One way is to see such pressure as an annoyance. Maybe it’s something that pushes your buttons emotionally. But if you see it as something that irritates or bothers you, you’ll probably try to avoid dealing with it. Since this framing doesn’t help you resolve the source of the pressure, the pressure just continues.

The annoyance framing often leads to escapism. Many people try to retreat into using the law of attraction to fix their money problems, but that doesn’t usually work when the underlying relationship with financial pressure is rooted in annoyance.

Another option is to escalate it into a threat. Sometimes this will happen as an extension of framing financial pressure as an annoyance. If you avoid dealing with financial problems, they can multiply, and eventually the pressure becomes great enough that some part of your livelihood feels like it’s under threat. Maybe you’re at risk of losing your home, for instance.

Beyond that, you could try surrendering, which can grant some temporary relief emotionally, but by itself this doesn’t resolve the financial pressure either. You may feel a bit better, but you could still lose your home.

There’s also the obligation framing. I think this is mostly the annoyance framing in disguise. You may see financial pressure as a part of life where you just have to suck it up and deal with what arises. It’s not pretty, so just grit your teeth and handle it. But this framing tends to result in punting the problems to the future. You’ll do the minimum necessary to handle the immediate pressure, but it will just keep coming back for another round.

A Framing That Works

A framing that worked very well for me was to see financial pressure as an invitation. I imagine that reality is trying to help me train up my character in a positive way. The existence of financial pressure is an important part of the character training.

Imagine hiring a personal trainer to help you improve your fitness, and then framing your workouts as annoying, threatening, or obligatory. Are these really the best frames to use? How would your trainer feel about that?

It would make more sense to reconnect with the purpose for hiring the trainer and then connect with that purpose-driven frame as the reason for doing your workouts. This would establish a better relationship with your trainer as well, one based on mutual respect.

Do you respect the trainer that is financial pressure? Do you frame its presence as purposeful? Or do you treat it disrespectfully, like it’s some kind of scourge?

Having a strong purpose is a good motivator. Seeing the greater purpose behind a challenge makes the challenge feel more engaging and less stressful.

Be Trainable

When I was in my 20s, I wasn’t very trainable. I was most uncooperative when financial pressure made its presence known. I rejected its offer again and again, repeatedly slamming the door in its face. I kept trying to run from it and find respite. If only I could somehow make enough money, then it would stop chasing me.

Because of my framing, I believed that the solution to my problems was to make more money. But this is like saying that the best way to avoid doing difficult workouts is more fitness. If only you could become fit enough, then you wouldn’t have to workout anymore, and you’d no longer have to deal with that annoying personal trainer. So forget the trainer and just become more fit. Then you can ditch the trainer. Yeah, that makes sense. 😕

That sounds pretty silly when we look at it this way, right? Can you also recognize just equally silly it is to imagine that more money is the solution to financial pressure?

Embracing your financial pressure and respecting its purpose in your life is the solution. Say yes to the training invitation.

Do Your Financial Workouts

Just as I learned to accept and embrace the importance of physical exercise, I learned to embrace the importance of doing financial workouts too.

And just as it’s helpful to find exercise that you’ll like, it’s also helpful to discover the financial workouts you like. You have many options.

A financial workout could mean getting all of your accounting in good order. That’s pretty basic, but if that’s all you do, it will probably get a bit boring. There are people, however, who like this kind of financial workout, including updating their accounts daily. I’m happy to do these kinds of workouts monthly or quarterly though.

The financial workouts I enjoy most include exploring and testing creative and purposeful ways to generate income while serving others and enjoying the process. So they’re compound workouts that hit a lot of muscle groups.

I started small and worked my way into bigger workouts, just like you might do with physical training.

In the mid-1990s, I started learning how to generate income without having a job – badly at first and eventually with some modest degree of competence. I remember launching a computer game in 1999 that sold 50 copies at $10 each in its first month, so $500. The next month it did $1000… and $1500 the month after that. That was an exciting experience. But the real workout was to stretch my creative skills to design and code a game that could generate that result. Then I had to stretch myself to promote it widely.

I didn’t really frame it quite like this at the time, but looking back I realize that I kept giving myself interesting progressive training challenges with respect to money. I kept doing financial workouts of one kind or another. And the more I did that, the more my finances improved.

If you want to survive in business, then of course you have to find ways to generate income. But I think it’s especially helpful to frame these activities as financial workouts.

Doing your financial workouts is an intelligent way to deal with financial pressure. Build up your financial skills, so you can face that pressure from strength. And don’t get complacent.

Slacking Off

Just as we can slack off of exercise, we can also slack off from doing our financial workouts. I fell into that trap too. I could say I was focused on other parts of life, which was true, but I also let myself stagnate in the area of finances for some years. I kept doing token financial workouts (like affiliate deals) that were easy for me, but I wasn’t progressing.

What got me back in the game was to discover financial workouts that looked fun and engaging again. Just trying to make more money doesn’t cut it for me. I find that rather boring.

But if the constraints for a financial workout are just right, then it appeals to me, perhaps even excites me. If the workout looks fun and rewarding, then I’m much more drawn to do it. But if I only see boring workouts being accessible, then I’ll slack off.

And of course where do we find those interesting workouts? We find them outside of our comfort zones. We find them where we don’t dare to look.

Embrace the Training

Training is challenging, whether physical or financial. Don’t expect it to be otherwise if you’re doing it right.

Good training takes us outside of our comfort zones. When we become too comfortable, that’s when we need to mix things up and reintroduce novel forms of challenge.

Daily blogging is a form of training for me. I’ve never blogged every single day for a year, but I’m doing it this year. It’s not always easy, but I like what it’s doing for my character. It’s helping me become more focused, disciplined, and organized. My life and work have much better structure this year than last year.

For my financial workouts, I like doing creative launches. I love to use my creativity, resourcefulness, playfulness, and personal growth experience to create value for people. Then I like to combine that with making honest and ethical offers. This combo is challenging. It stretches me to train in areas that are weaknesses for me, such as advertising. But I like seeing myself continuing to get stronger. This last launch went very smoothly, and I’m seeing the benefits of my skills improving from doing the training – while also spotting more areas where I’d like to train harder.

The money isn’t the reward. That’s like saying that the reward is being able to lift a certain amount of weight. Money is just a number, and the weight is just a hunk of metal. Making more money isn’t the point at all.

The point is to train up your character to grow stronger.

When you use this framing, you won’t have to see financial pressure as your enemy. Allow it to be your friend instead. It’s an invitation to grow stronger.

You have many options for how you train. It matters more that you exercise than what kind of exercise you do, as long as you’re challenged and you’re growing and improving from the training effect.

If, however, you disrespect this invitation, reality isn’t going to reward you for that. The financial pressure will just keep haunting you year after year until you respect and accept its invitation.

Believe it or not, I actually like financial pressure these days. It’s fun. It’s like the invitation to lace up my running shoes and hit the road for a delightful pre-dawn run of a few miles. I used to majorly dislike financial pressure, but since that mindset didn’t work, I opted to befriend the pressure instead. That does work – very well in fact.

Just as there’s such as thing as runner’s high, it’s also fun to experience a high from financial workouts. Having a six-figure week is fun and stimulating. It’s so not about the money though, just as weight training isn’t about the weights. It’s about the experience and the training effect. It’s about being present to the challenge.

Financial pressure is not a demon, so don’t demonize it. If you do that, you’ll just stress yourself out. The trainer isn’t your enemy. Make the trainer of financial pressure your friend instead. Accept the invitation to push yourself. Find the financial workouts that appeal to you, and do them. Keep upping the challenge, so you don’t remain stuck in your comfort zone.

Most importantly, don’t train with the goal of making more money. Train with the goal of strengthening your character. Choose financial workouts that with this in mind, and you’ll make better choices. Otherwise you may try to find shortcuts to circumvent the training, equivalent to lifting heavier weights by using a forklift, which would defeat the purpose.

I chose to develop and launch courses as well as CGC not because these were convenient shortcuts to greater financial abundance but because they’re hard workouts. These projects challenge me deeply. They cause me to spend a lot of time training outside of my comfort zone. And I like the results of that. They’re great workouts for my character.

Making more money isn’t the real progression here. The progression is to transform yourself from a person who tries in vain to stay in your comfort zone into a person who embraces the growth benefits of uncomfortable challenges.

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