From Chapter 12 “Indefatigable” in Ingredients of Outliers. Up High at Show Low Not long ago, I participated in my first triathlon in eighteen years, held in a town named for a card game. Show Low sits at 6,412 feet at the base of the White Mountains in northern Arizona. Remember the opening scene in the Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire, where a group of men are running barefoot, effortlessly, through the crashing waves on a beautiful beach, with the orchestra playing an inspiring melody in the background? (If you never saw the movie, or you’ve forgotten that scene, it’s … [Read more...]
Change Your Perspective, Change Your Life
From Chapter 11 “Perspective” in Ingredients of Outliers. Life is simply about perspective. If ranked, this is the most important of all the lessons I’ve learned. Simply changing your perspective changes everything. For example, I recently had a patient who was in moderate respiratory distress from the pulmonary embolism we diagnosed in the emergency department. He was also dying of colon cancer. When I told him about this latest diagnosis, he said, “Whew, at least I’m still on the right side of the turf.” For most of us—me included—the thought of a pulmonary embolism would be … [Read more...]
Imperturbability- Staying Calm
From Chapter 6, "Imperturbability- Staying Calm" in Ingredients of Outliers In this age of technology and instant everything, which arrived with visions and promises of greater efficiency and effectiveness, we were assured that by now we’d be enjoying lives of greater leisure and pleasure than ever before. Instead, stress levels are sky- high as we collectively bemoan the gloom and doom that awaits our children and grandchildren. Do you know anyone who hasn’t stated, “Oh, my Gosh, I am so stressed!”? It seems as though Uncle Sam, the once tall and proud symbol of our nation, has … [Read more...]