Life Life Love | Volume Nine

Hello Everyone,

Happy Holidays! This quarter I revisited Dale Carnegie’s book How To Win Friends and Influence People and in there is a passage: You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Keeping that passage in mind as I begin the third year of this project I would like to do a lot more listening! Instead of going on about myself this quarter I’m asking you to respond to this email and let me know how you are doing.

In the spirit of becoming a better listener and promoting a two way dialogue I am brainstorming an improved way to display the wellness and business interviews by moving them to separate blogs. This quarter’s business interview is with Bryan Pate, the co-founder of ElliptiGO, the world’s first elliptical bicycle. Bryan has just recently launched their product and our discussion about the process of launching a product can now be found on Entrepreneurial Minded.

This quarter’s wellness interview is with Gloria Park Perin who was a competitive figure skater for over 14 years, and remains active in the sport as a coach. She is the founder of The Good Body Project and is only months away from receiving her PhD in Exercise and Sport Psychology from Temple University. Gloria also has a Masters in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Our interview is about the role of positive psychology in sports, which can be found now at Enhanced Kinetics.

For this quarter’s life experience I made it to the Columbia River with some friends from Davis. The trip was quite enjoyable in part because of our terrific guide, Dan Ponciano. For anyone interested in this type of adventure, he does an outstanding job and you can find out more information about his Columbia River fishing tours here. I caught my first Sturgeon. It was too small to keep but a thrill none-the-less.

Unfortunately the opportunity to sponsor someone’s athletic achievement did not present itself this quarter so as an alternative I acted on a personal appeal from Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. Wikipedia proved to be a very useful resource in my job hunt so I felt compelled to give back when asked.

I’ll conclude with telling those who are curious that everything ended well for me and Anna. We found a new home in the Bay Area and I landed a great new job in the wellness sector with the brain fitness company HAPPYneuron. Best wishes to all in 2010!

Warm regards,
Michael