Best non-dietary gurus

[TylerDurden]

I am currently in a rut and wish to go in for self-improvement in areas other than diet(wealth-creation/exercise or whatever). I'm curious as to what various non-dietary gurus members here would recommend.

[PaleoPhil]

Exercise: Mark Ripptoe - Starting Strength, Art De Vany - Evolutionary Fitness, Robb Wolf (former Crossfit guru), Erwin LeCorre - MovNat, Mark Sisson - Primal Blueprint, Randy Roach, and there are other good ones. Find the program that suits you best or mix and match. These guys tend to focus on the old-fashioned basics and employ principles of evolutionary biology. Also for strength building, Richard Nikoley recently blogged on his amazing success with the Leangains program, which seems similar to Starting Strength. It adds a carb refeed tweak that reminds me of what I've read by De Vany on taking advantage of the stochasticity of nature (including human biology), though some in the Paleo community question how much difference refeeds really make. Everyone's different, so you'll need to find what works for you, of course.

Wealth creation and preservation, finance, economics, statistics, philosophy, etc.: Nassim Taleb, Warren Buffett (even if Nassim's right and Buffett was just "lucky" financially, Buffett offers good advice on lots of subjects), George Soros (a bit esoteric and speculative, but interesting views on finance/investing), Art De Vany again (though his financial/statistical experience was more narrowly focused than Taleb's and Buffett's, so I would start with Nassim)

[Löwenherz]

I am currently in a rut and wish to go in for self-improvement in areas other than diet(wealth-creation/exercise or whatever). I'm curious as to what various non-dietary gurus members here would recommend.

I wholeheartedly recommend Dr. Joseph Murphy

... and of course the bible!   

Löwenherz

[achillezzz]

If you are new to exercise go for short and intense sessions trust me it is the best for feeling good and energetic.

Try Intense swimming for 40minutes. all types of swimming teachniques mix it.
Next day try regular running and like 10 sprints combined in it real hard sprints and after that 3 sets of pushups , pullups and squats go for max but keep the teachnique good.
take a rest day if you need.


The problem with exercise occures when an individual complicates it and creates a special routine for himself and thinks too much.

the key is to have fun in everywhere you go!

[Josh]

though some in the Paleo community question how much difference refeeds really make.

Phil, could you say anything about the debate, or point me to where it's being discussed?

I'm interested in the idea of refeeds.

[PaleoPhil]

Phil, could you say anything about the debate, or point me to where it's being discussed?

I'm interested in the idea of refeeds.

IIRC, Martin Berkhan, Matt Stone and likely others are fans of carb refeed or gorge days, whereas Kurt Harris expressed skepticism about it and said something along the lines of it only made sense if you're looking to develop a bodybuilder's body instead of hunter-gatherer's body (though he's not against increasing general intake of carbs to enable intensive exercise).

[Dima]

Not really about wealth creation or exercise, but I think he's right on the money:

Dr. Peter Hercules
www.untamedlife.com

[sabertooth]

I have just begun the black swan and have found many refreshing thoughts.

I have found a calling toward becoming an erudite, learning from all manors of knowledge, and sharing my discoveries with the greater society.

Robert Heinlein had some interesting Ideals, and his novel Stranger in a strange land was good.

Other gurus, like Alan Watt and his views on Zen are entertaining

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEd1w0M9nV0

He explains shamanism of early hunter gatherer culture, and many other Deep subjects..

[PaleoPhil]

Not really about wealth creation or exercise, but I think he's right on the money:

Dr. Peter Hercules
www.untamedlife.com

Good stuff. He provides an excellent reading list.

"In addition to the significant immediate physical destruction [hurricane Katrina] caused, two other consequences of the storm particularly impressed me. The first was how rapidly things fell apart due to the loss of electricity, water, and gasoline. In a very short time our complete dependence on publicly supplied water and energy was revealed as well as our lack of an effective Plan B to provide these commodities for ourselves. Things ground almost to a complete stop in our community for a few days and I had no difficulty imagining how disastrous the prolongation of such a state would be. Civilization as we know it was on the verge of being brought to its knees remarkably easily by simply knocking out these key resources. ....

The regime of civilization has over the last couple of centuries taken over the whole planet. There has been a resultant pseudostability to civilization recently and it has become increasingly possible to monitor and control individuals, particularly due to modern technology. ....

When the jail catches fire you must be ready to make your escape and to survive without being recaptured. (In my next article I will present strategies to help you accomplish this.)" http://www.untamedlife.com/articles/hurricane.php

This is from the same page as Nassim Taleb's work. The more modernized a society is, the more prosperous and stable it SEEMS, when in reality it grows increasingly fragile and its citizens increasingly dependent on the fragile edifice of modern civilization.

It also reminds me of when I was at an Indian "pow-wow" and listening to a guide explain the teepee that was on display. There had been a storm with gale-force winds that hit when the pow-wow was at another location, and he said that several of the modern structures at the site were blown down, but the teepee was still standing after the storm had passed. The modern structures were built to try to resist forces of nature like the wind, but the teepee was built in harmony with nature. It was designed to allow air to flow through it, which enabled it to survive the winds. Even if it had been blown over, it could simply be set back upright once the winds had passed, and if torn by a branch or tree, it could be fairly easily repaired, whereas when a modern trailer or building is blown over, it becomes useless and must be dumped in a landfill, and it often includes toxic wastes. When a teepee decays, it returns to nature, containing no toxic substances. In a sense it lasts as long as nature itself.

<<If the wind speed of the hurricane is above 155 mph (249 km/h) [category 5 hurricane], then the damage to a building will be "serious no matter how well it's engineered".>> --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffir%E2%80%93Simpson_Hurricane_Scale

Eventually, those category 5 winds, or some equivalent, hit.

[SkinnyDevil]

How about Tyler Durden?

OK...maybe not. Could land you in jail or a mental institute.

You could try not looking for a guru, but instead put together a group of mentors. You don;t have to know them or contact them - just key figures who do what you'd LIKE to be doing. You see someone successful with diet, you emulate (to relevant detail) their actions. You see someone successful in the way you'd like to be in business (in the biz you'd like to be in) or fitness or lifestyle or whatever, you emulate their actions.

[TylerDurden]

How about Tyler Durden?

OK...maybe not. Could land you in jail or a mental institute.

Well, I could imitate TD and blow up an office-building or two for a laugh, I guess . I once bought the Poor Man's James Bond book on a whim, ages ago, but I suspect that I'd need a couple more years'  practical training with the IRA etc. first to avoid blowing myself up by mistake!  Plus, the authorities are just too good at catching subversives, these days.

You could try not looking for a guru, but instead put together a group of mentors. You don't have to know them or contact them - just key figures who do what you'd LIKE to be doing. You see someone successful with diet, you emulate (to relevant detail) their actions. You see someone successful in the way you'd like to be in business (in the biz you'd like to be in) or fitness or lifestyle or whatever, you emulate their actions.

  Sounds interesting. It's just that often people actually tell others things that are quite different from what they actually do. So, a fraudster might tell others to work really hard in order to get rich, or the son of a multi-millionaire may talk about how important it is to have the right "attitude" in order to get rich, or a steroid-abuser may tell people to pile on those weights etc. Still, there is something to what you say, despite my cynicism.

[sabertooth]

I know what you mean about cynicism. I know a man that teaches a drug recovery class while high on pills. He will lie to the face of recovering addicts and make claims about how hard work and will power freed him from addiction, when the reality is that he needs a dose of dope in order to function.

For the open mind one can learn just as much from a teller of tall tails, as you could from someone who is a seeker of absolute truth, as long as you can detect the B.S.( which is usually found universally within the vision of the sane and insane alike), then you can still extract valuable information, even from a bold faced hypocrite crackpot.

I have found that real life, salt of the earth, mentors have made a greater impact on me than any well renowned guru.

I have met a homeless drunken preacher with the gift of healing.

I was a protege to a man whose brilliance was only rivaled by his insanity.

I met a friend who was from Kodiak Island , named Little John, whose bike broke down while he was riding through town.

I had another friend who was a sketch artist, who spoke from the heart.

There was a man named Gypsy who could con his way through life without working.

The stories I have heard and people I have met have while living as a drifter has given me a broader and more in depth view of a greater humanity. Its sad that the only way I was able to mingle with the likes of such inspiring people was after giving up material wealth and living like a vagabond. I was driven to such extremes, by fears of living a meaningless life, or maybe I was just too well read and like Don Quixote I took off to the world full of literary foolishness, seeking some impossible dream. Or perhaps I was also by being influence by such people as Jack Kerouac, and his stories from on the road.

I recommend for people who are in a rut or feel walled in, to go on walk about and live nomadic for a few weeks, and seek your spirit animal. It takes a few weeks or so, but once you live out there on the edge of civilization and begin to feel comfortable while living without obsessing what tomorrow will bring, then you become more open to the possibilities that life has to offer.

[raw-al]

Goal setting, meditation, positive self-talk, avoid friends who are negative, classical music especially Mozart as background sounds or Ghandarva Veda music as background.


I used to like Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield. The much maligned Anthony Robbins is  worth a listen. His "emotional flood" process should be required learning in school. He makes sense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C15ruqxUd8&feature=pyv&ad=7118425065&kw=anthony%20robbins