Hi everyone. Walt Disney had said that if you can dream it, you can build it. That may not be the same exact quote, but the meaning is the same. But it is also true that if you want to make your dreams come true, you have to wake up. Dreaming helps you visualize what you want to achieve. There is a lot of evidence that visualization works. But just dreaming is not enough. There has to be a passion behind it. I will be the first to tell you that I have no problem dreaming, but I do have a tough time putting it into action. But in some cases I am very good at doing that. In the instances that it has worked, I have noticed that I had made a list of things that I needed to do and put some approximate timelines around it. I have done some research on this. What I have found is that we need to think of 5-6 things we want to achieve over the next 3-5 years. Then start backwards and divide the tasks into yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals. Every so often we need to review where we are as compared to our plan. If we are where we should be, fine, but if not we need to make some changes to get back on track. It is like flying. I am a private pilot and one of the things  we are taught is you have to plot your course. But then you have to take into account wind speed and direction. The GPS in the airplane plots a magenta line and we are told to follow that line. Minor course deviations are ok, but if you see your self drifting you need to make corrections so that we get back on track. Along the way, you have to look for landmarks to make sure that you are indeed on track. Same thing applies to our dreams. Put some milestones and then see if you reach them in the specified time. If not, make changes. So keep dreaming and achieving.

Hi everyone and good morning. For those in the US we went back an hour, so all of us got an extra hour of sleep. I wanted to give you the remaining 4 principles.

1. Forgiveness – We should learn to forgive. An eye for an eye will leave the world blind. If we choose to retaliate, the cycle of revenge will continue. We need to be the one to break this cycle. I am constantly telling our kids that.
2. Gratitude – Be grateful for what you have rather than what you don’t have. Material things will never satisfy us because by their nature they will get damaged or break or in case of computers and smart phones they will become obsolete when a new model is released.
3. Compassion – Is the sense of helping someone who is suffering.
4. Generosity – We need to give back to society and those less fortunate than us.

Look folks, these principles are coming from two people who are at a very high spiritual level. I know from my own personal experience that it is very hard to put them into practice. But I try to do follow them whenever I can. I urge you to do the same.

Hi everyone. Recently, a book called The Book of Joy was published. It provides details of a week long conversation between His Holiness, The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In it they talk about the 8 principles of joy and happiness. So here are 4 and I will list the remaining 4 tomorrow.

1. Perspective – If we change the way we see the world it will change the way we feel and the way we act.
2. Humility – You may talented or gifted, but you should be humble. You have to accept that there are other talented and gifted people around you.
3. Humor & Laughter – Laughter is the best medicine. You must have a sense of humor.
4. Acceptance – We accept that certain things will happen regardless of what we do. We cannot be in denial. We have to put in our best effort without being focused on a certain outcome. Sometimes an unexpected outcome might pleasantly surprise you. Remember the serenity prayer.

I hope I brightened your day.

Hi folks. Over the last year or so, Zika virus dominated the news. Especially during the 2016 Rio Olympics. If you remember Zika is the virus that can cause birth defects if it infects pregnant women. It was not a common virus and a lot of people did not know about it. Therefore, I had written an ebook called Taming Zika (available on Amazon.com). But since then additional information has come to light. Maybe I will cover it in my second edition, but I thought I will also talk about it in my post.

Recently a study published in the journal Nature by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. They injected mice with the Zika virus and found that after 3 weeks it caused lasting damage to key cells in the male reproductive system causing shrunken testicles, low levels of sex hormones and reduced fertility. How it translates to men is something that needs further evaluation. The researchers said that in their knowledge, this is the only virus that causes such severe damage  to the reproductive system.

So far, I do believe that there is vaccine, but I don’t think it is widely available. Until there is a cure, people should use caution when they travel or are out in the evening in areas with known Zika virus presence. Use long sleeve clothing and spray mosquito repellent.

Hi everyone. Today I am going to talk about male birth control. This is an adult topic, but since most of my readers are adults, I think it is okay. More importantly, my mission for this blog is to provide information about health wealth and wisdom so that people can make informed decisions. Recently, doctors at the Martin Luther University in Germany published results of their male birth control study. They studied 320 healthy males between the ages 18 to 45. Every 8 weeks, the men received injections of long acting testosterone and progestin. In low doses, testosterone stimulates sperm production, but in high doses, it actually suppresses it. In my book The Great Testosterone Myth: Honest Facts No Hype, I talk about effects of testosterone. Check it out at Amazon.com.

So high doses of testosterone suppresses sperm production for several weeks and addition of progestin suppresses it even further. The failure rate of this form of birth control was 7.5 percent. In comparison condoms have a failure rate of 12 percent. All female birth control measures (except hysterectomy or tying the tubes) combined  have a failure rate of 9 percent.

The hormones are administered as an injection every 8 weeks. Sperm production returned to normal after stopping the injections, but the subjects did experience depression and other mood disorders and because of these side effects, the study was stopped. Obviously, more work is needed to overcome the neurological side effects. But the results are promising. The alternative for men is a vasectomy.

It should be noted that this form of birth control and many other forms do not protect against sexually transmitted diseases. The best form of birth control is abstinence.

Hi all. I work in the city of Philadelphia. But driving into and out of Philadelphia is a nightmare. Parking is even worse. Fortunately, we have a good public transport system called SouthEastPennsylvaniaTransportationAuthority or SEPTA. But lately SEPTA has had many issues. If you talk to my wife, she would say that I led a very sheltered life when I was younger. My wife and I both grew up in India. But my wife lived in the suburbs of Mumbai and she used to commute by train everyday to go to college. So she has been through some really tough commuting situations. I also lived in one of the suburbs. But my college was 10 minutes away. I never had to commute by train until I started working in Philadelphia in 2012. Sometimes I used to take the train, subway or trolley when I was in graduate school. Back to the problems SEPTA is having. In the summer, in the first week of July, SEPTA noticed stress cracks in the body of their new train cars and they took 120 cars out of service affecting thousands of people. They cancelled trains, changed express trains to local trains, borrowed trains from nearby cities like Baltimore and finally at the end of September or beginning of October, they were able to get back to their normal schedules. But then 2 days ago, they had severe electrical power issues. So they switched tracks and people had to board trains inbound for Philadelphia on the outbound tracks. Then the outbound trains were delayed. SEPTA had to suspend service for most of the day, but were back to normal in the evening. Yesterday, one of the major workers unions went on strike. Now I take the regional rail line and our workers are still under contract, so our trains were running. But they were very crowded. This was because many people who took buses and other trains were affected by the strike. These people used the regional rails. However, the striking workers also decided to disrupt the regional rail by demonstrating at stations and blocking the tracks. Many trains had to be cancelled. They had huge lines at many stations and SEPTA was rationing the number of people boarding the trains. A judge issued a court order preventing the striking workers from blocking the tracks and so I am assuming service will be back to normal today. Fortunately I had planned on working from home today, but I guess I will find out tomorrow.

I sympathize with the workers, but I wish they did not disrupt other rail services. This has happened before in 1998 and 2009. I am not sure if SEPTA could go to non-union workers. However, they were prepared for the side effects of the strike, I don’t think they were prepared for the stress cracks and power issues, but it must be tough. I am glad that we at least have the option of taking the train or the bus to work instead of driving. Not only it saves us the headache of driving in and out, but it is also environmentally friendly. Not many cities have good transit systems.

Hi everyone. Good morning. I want to wish everyone of my readers Happy Diwali. Diwali is the festival of lights celebrated by many Indians. It is like Christmas or Hanukkah in terms of importance. Over the weekend my sister and my sister-in-law are visiting us. In addition to catching up, we were talking about education. I remembered this article I had read about skills that everyone must have to be successful. The first is to be able to sell. Everyday we find ourselves in situations where we have to sell ourselves. In your job, you have to convince your manager that you are the most capable person for the job and you deserve a raise. While dating, you have to convince your date that you are the best choice. I have to confess that I myself am not a good salesperson. I need to learn this skill. The second skill kind of goes hand in hand with the first one. You have to market yourself. If your boss is not willing to give you a raise and you want to change jobs, you have to be able to convince potential employers that the skills you have are a match for the position they want to fill. Steve Jobs was a great marketer. He positioned all the Apple devices such that people thought they must own them and buy the newer models. Third one is the skill of being creative or innovative. A few days ago, I had written about innovation. Unless you have creativity or innovation, you won’t be able to differentiate yourself. The fourth is the skill to buy right. I don’t mean buying things on sale or during the Thanksgiving or after Christmas sale. I mean paying the right price for the value it delivers. I used to mow my lawn using a walk behind mower. I used to spend hours getting my lawn cut. But then I bought a riding mower. It cost twice as much as the walking mower, but I was able to finish mowing the lawn in 1 hour. So was it a good value? I think so. Same thing with my snow blower. I used to spend hours cleaning up snow using a shovel. Not to mention risk getting a heart attack or hurting my back. But with the snow blower, I was able to finish it in a short period of time and not hurt my back. Another example is in the pharmaceutical industry. Gilead, a pharmaceutical company specializing in antiviral drugs, paid over a billion dollars to buy a company called Pharmasset for 1 drug that was in development. Everybody criticized Gilead for overpaying. A few years later this drug that was in development, was approved by the FDA and it made $2.4 billion in one year. Gilead was laughing all the way to the bank. They definitely bought right. Finally learning how to maintain what you have earned and creating new products or growing existing products and ideas. Hope you spend time trying to acquire these skills.

Hi everyone. Do you remember how our parents and grandparents lived. They did not make the kind of money we are making, but they also didn’t have the kind of expenses we have. The only bills they had to pay were water, phone, electricity. They did not have TV’s and certainly did not have TV’s in every room. Today we have cable, internet, cell phones and other things we need to pay for. Besides nowadays, everything is made to last a few years and things become obsolete. I have old laptops and desktops that are sitting around because they are not fast enough or don’t have enough memory to run today’s programs. Same thing with Iphones. Our parents used things that lasted a long time. Very rarely disposable things were used. I remember when we were little, my mom used cloth diapers. We used cloth napkins to wipe tables and floors and washed and reused them, instead of tearing a paper napkin and throwing it out after one use. Do you know that one third of landfills is paper? We used stainless steel utensils, not disposable ones. My mom used to use tamarind or lemon to clean the utensils. In our village, my grandmother used to use mud to clean the utensils and wash them off. We had clothes lines inside the house and we dried our clothes instead of spinning them in a dryer. I don’t remember my clothes getting static charge.  All these things not only saved us money but they were also environmentally friendly. My grandmother would have flipped if I told her I pay a dollar for bottled water. Think of how much plastic is ending up in landfills as well.

So I would like to request that we try and live like our parents whenever possible or adapt something they used to do. Not only we will save money, but also help the environment.

Hi everyone. Today I am going to talk about willpower. You know most people have good intentions:

I want to eat better or I want to start a side business, I want to lose weight etc. But there is a saying: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. So it is just not helpful to have good intentions, you have to work on them. Most people including myself, feel that life gets in the way, especially if you are a family person. After a day of working at the office, commuting back and forth, shuttling kids to their activities, making dinner, there is no time left to do something for yourself.

As you know I have written a few books. I always get asked, how do you manage. I tell them that I try to write something everyday. Take this blog for example. I try to post everyday. I know sometimes days go by between my blog posts, but I try to be consistent. Similarly, I wake up at the same time everyday. Most people want to sleep in on weekends but even on weekends I wake up early, not as early as a weekday, but still earlier than most people in my household. I get a lot of things done in the morning. I am not bragging, I am just saying that if you want to do something and if you have the desire and willpower for it, you will be able to achieve what you set out to do. Take small steps everyday. The key is consistency.

So wake up 15 minutes early and slowly increase it to an hour. Start writing or doing some simple exercises or what ever you want to do. Slowly, it will become part of your routine. Just try to do it everyday.

Hi folks, good morning. In today’s post, I am going to talk about innovation. The first IPhone was released on 29 June 2007. Today we cannot imagine our lives without it. A friend of mine was telling me that he had gone to an information technology meeting in early 2007. He was sitting in a big ballroom with thousands of people who were listening to the keynote speaker. He said everyone was on their Blackberry and the manufacturer RIM was a Wall Street darling. But the introduction of IPhone wiped out Blackberry. I don’t know how many people remember the Sony Walkman. But it was very popular with people, especially joggers. You could strap it on and listen to it while jogging. But it was bulky, you had to play the songs in the order they were on the cassette tape etc. Then Ipod comes around and you can store hundreds of songs, play them in any order and is as small as a calculator. Newer models are even smaller and have bigger memory so can store thousands of songs. So bye bye Walkman. Look at Blockbuster. At one time it was the world’s biggest video rental company with thousands of stores. Netflix, Redbox and similar services came by and Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy. Look at Uber. It has revolutionized the taxi industry. Actually wiped out is more like it. But Uber is in the process of wiping themselves out. Uber is collaborating with Carnegie Mellon University to come up with a driverless taxi. Another friend of mine, who is an engineer, said that the driverless taxi will also affect the auto industry. Why would people buy cars? You can call a driverless taxi do what you want to do and send it back. No need to worry about maintenance, accidents, having a garage in the house. Technologies that revolutionize any industry are called disruptive technologies. The reason is that they completely change the industry. Do you know what is the biggest hotel chain in the world? It’s not Marriott, Hilton or Best Western. It is Airbnb. Can you imagine that? An online room booking service is bigger than brick and mortar hotels! Everyone knows that the first flight was successfully carried out by the Wright brothers in 1903. At that time, if someone would have said that the next big milestone is landing on the moon, people would have laughed. Yet 66 years later, in 1969, we had the moon landing. It takes people like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk or Richard Branson to have a futuristic vision. But that does not mean we cannot do similar things. Think outside the box and find ways to improve existing ideas. Who knows we might come up with something disruptive.